From the Church Administrator

Introducing 'MyChurchSuite' at All Saints

This year, as we renew the Electoral Roll, we are excited to introduce 'MyChurchSuite'. This is the parishioner-facing side of ChurchSuite, our church directory. The app and website offer several useful features for all church members, including:

• Updating your details: Easily check and keep your information up to date.

• Connecting with others: Find contact details for fellow church members who have chosen to share their information.

• Event information and sign-up: Access details of all church events and sign up quickly.

For more information about MyChurchSuite, please refer to the User Guide on our website, located here: https://www.allsaintsecclesall.org.uk/my-churchsuite-user-guide

To ensure your details are correct and you receive an invite to MyChurchSuite, please complete a new All Saints consent form (link in the My ChurchSuite guide on the website, or pink paper forms available at the back of church). This form provides more details about how we use your information, including ChurchSuite. Please return paper consent forms via the box for electoral roll forms or pass it to a ministry team member, a welcomer, or the church office.

Church members with existing contact details on our database will also receive an email invitation to join MyChurchSuite. Upon signing up, you can decide whether to share your contact details with others and specify which details to share (e.g. just your email address). Please note that children's names and details will never be visible or shared.

If you do not use a computer or the internet, you can still sign up for events and choose to share your contact details with others via MyChurchSuite by completing the new consent form.

For any questions, please speak to Ruth or Jo in the office.

From the Associate Vicar

This weekend is Half Marathon Sunday and South West Sheffield shows itself as running mad! Some of you may know that I am actually slightly running mad as well (though I’m not running in the half marathon).

In the New Testament there are at least three moments when Paul is clearly thinking about athletes (1 Corinthians 9, Hebrews 12, 2 timothy 2) when he is ruminating on the Christian life. Here are a few thoughts for us as around 5,000 runners pass our church this weekend.

Paul was keen for Christians to know that when an athlete decides they want to compete, they enter a strict training period and they can’t just be blasé about it (1 Cor 9:24-26) I live on the big hill they all have to climb and watched them grit their teeth and get better at climbing the hill in the weeks before the race. They think about the end goal, the garland round their head (or a half marathon medal round their neck) and this motivates them. But this garland of leaves wither, even the medal ribbon won’t last forever. As Christians we fix our eyes on a finish line with a permanent reward – a life forever fully with God.

But maybe as the runners from our church head up the hill Isaiah 40 will be in their head – but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

From the Wardens

As you may have noticed there have been a number of changes to the seating arrangement in church. Following on from the recent Strategy Review the wardens have been looking at ways of improving the utilisation of the chairs at All Saints. The less formal positioning of sofas and chairs towards the back of the nave has proved very popular, which has spurred us on to look at other areas. Setting the chairs in the west transept at an angle improves their usability and aesthetic appearance, also changes have been made to instrument storage and choir seating in the east transept. The work is ongoing and, fortunately, we are blessed with a versatile seating system, so please watch this space!

Next Sunday sees the start of the Sheffield Half Marathon, and we still require more volunteers to man the water stations on Ecclesall Road. Volunteers are vital to our church, and there is a need for help in a number of areas, thereby sharing the responsibility with others. This also applies to the role of churchwarden where four members of the congregation mutually support and encourage each other, principally dealing with the governance of our church on behalf of the church family. It’s quite a privilege to be a churchwarden because of the fascinating overview the role gives of the workings of church, and I would seriously consider taking on the role if you are ever asked.

‘Let all that you do be done in love.’ - Corinthians 16:14.

Richard on behalf of Rob, Lynne and Alan (the Wardens)

From the Children's Minister

On Tuesday evening we held our Prayer and Pancake drop-in at church. I was delighted to see lots of children who don't regularly attend church, some of our church family members and the 65th Rainbows.

As well as pancakes we had a range of prayer activities linked to the time when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and some art activities which helped us to say sorry to God for our sins and to help us know that we are forgiven because of Jesus. Alongside this we made some Lent banners for church which follow the themes the clergy are helping us think about over the next 40 days.

I'm hugely grateful to the volunteers who made this event possible, to those who came and to all those of you who prayed. Thank you and praise God for all He did and continues to do.

God Bless,

Rosie

From the Mission Support Group

We often refer back to the five marks of mission as a fundamental and inspiring reference point for our work on the mission support group. The five marks are:

1. to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

2. to teach, baptise and nurture new believers

3. to respond to human need by loving service

4. to seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation

5. to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

The fourth one is a bit of a mouthful, and the one that is, perhaps, the hardest to get our head around. Still, that won’t stop us trying and so at this year’s mission weekend we are hoping to explore it a little further.

It is a topic that can, most directly, stray into politics and even conflict with the rulers and authorities in the world. We need to be ‘wise as serpents and harmless as doves’. Christians have a great tradition of campaigning for justice. Examples include education, prison reform, debt relief, abolition of slavery and sanctuary for asylum seekers. Often these initiatives become part of the state or legal provision and we celebrate these freedoms and improvements in our and others lives. However, we are currently seeing a backlash against many of these hard-won freedoms. Confusingly, it sometimes seems to be informed by a Christian narrative.

We can go back to Micah 6:8 which is often used to inform our call in this aspect of our mission: ‘what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? So, our prayer is that we can understand and respond to this call in our lives individually and collectively as we explore this vital mark of our mission and testimony.

Simon Musgrave

From the Curate

As we approach Lent, I wanted to highlight our recommended book for this season: Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus, Become like Him, Do as He Did by John Mark Comer. Some of you may know his earlier best-seller, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. This Lent, we are invited to return to the basics of our faith, reflecting on what it means to listen to and learn from Jesus.

We have the opportunity to read this book, follow our Lent sermon series at various services, and participate in weekly activities throughout Lent, starting with our Ash Wednesday Service on 5th March at 7:30pm. Imagine if, over Lent, we all become spiritually renewed and more like Christ – what a difference this could make in our community and our witness to others.

The book is available at church for £16.99. If you’d like to reserve a copy, contact Lesley Snell on 07910 419 363 or click here to email. Alternatively, you can purchase it independently: Amazon Link, Waterstones Link

Simon Oatridge

From the Youth Minister

As a youth team, we have been very encouraged and excited by the launch of our youth prayer and worship nights. We had our first one on Saturday the 8th  February in the evening and saw far more young people than expected from All Saints, St Luke's and St Chad's churches. We ate some ice cream and played a couple of games but spent the majority of the evening in sung worship, and going around prayer stations. There was also an encouraging talk by Joy Catto, the youth and children's leaders at St Luke's. We hope to continue what we have started and make these a termly event!

Thank you

Cam

From the Vicar

Dear friends,

A date for all your diaries to unite as a Parish:

Ash Wednesday March 5th 7:30 to 8:30pm “Can you not watch with me for an hour?”

A time for our Lenten journey of resources to be explained and framed by some timeless principles of Christian growth and renewal. We will use worked examples of how this can happen in practice. The Bible and the life of Jesus will be our guide, along with illustrations of how things can change with God’s help will be shared. There will be a gathering of wisdom from the past, contemporary applications from how the saints of today live disciplined lives, along with an eye to some of the challenges that will face Christians in the future. There will be the offer too of a short service of the imposition of ashes. A time to unite and gather together as a church family at the start of our Lenten journey. This is an event for everyone in the parish. Our recent questionnaire returns highlighted a desire for times for us all to gather – this is one of them offered. There will be others too but especially so to launch our aspiration to see 150 of our members commit to sharing Lent together in time of renewal and reflection. Full details will follow with specially produced resources soon, and the whole program will be launched on Ash Wednesday evening. I have specifically asked all of our staff, PCC and lay leaders to be there but it is open to everyone to share together. I have been thrilled to see 100 people for last year’s lecture in November and many gather for our church away at home. This is the next significant milestone for our parish’s life. Diarize the date please for yourself and encourage others to come along. The evening will have value in its own right but will also launch our Lenten journey of five weeks seeking the Lord and his renewal for our lives.

I will be praying for your attendance as you can pray for me as I speak.

Yours in his service,

Mark