Children’s Ministry events, PACT needs help, Special service for healing, Whitehouse rector installed, Visit to north by Palestinian ambassador, Book on Churches of st George, Lecture on God and GeologyConnor Children’s Ministry training events
Nick Harding, Diocesan Advocate for Children’s Ministry in the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, will be back in Connor on March 24 in Randalstown at 7.30pm to address clergy and leaders in children’s ministry. The Connor Children’s Project Research Report will be under discussion.
The following day, March 25, Nick will be in Jordanstown Parish Halls for a clergy training day from 10.15am until 2.30pm. Connor Diocesan Training Co-ordinator Peter Hamill will also be addressing the event, and the topics are Children, culture and the Facebook generation; How are they wired? What are the issues for our leaders? ‘Pick up and run’ — practical resources for taking assemblies.
Volunteers needed for Pact’s raffle
Pact requires volunteers to sell tickets in April for their Bumper Raffle due to be held in June 2011. Prizes include Kelly’s Hotel Rosslare voucher worth €825, iPod nano, Arnotts voucher worth €100, Four Ball – Doonbeg Golf Club, Co Clare, Easons voucher worth €50, Avoca Handweavers Gift Basket and Cody’s Cosmetic Basket. Pact also needs help with organising events, distributing leaflets and running coffee mornings, etc. If interested in getting involved, contact marian@pact.ie.
Prayer for revival – Belfast Cathedral
There will be a special service in St. Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast on Monday, April 4 at 8 p.m. to pray for revival of the faith in this land.
Brother David Jardine, says ‘This special service is part of seven years of prayer for revival organised by Divine Healing Ministries. It began in June, 2009, and at this moment we have almost 600 people praying every day. Already, I believe, we can see small shoots of revival starting to appear. We need to pray those shoots into life so that full-blown revival can come in all its power’.
A choir from Glenwood Primary School on the Shankill Road will sing as people come into the Cathedral from 7.50 pm to 8.10 pm. Paul and Beulah Shields will then lead the worship and David O’Connor, leader of the Koinonia community, will preach the sermon.
Personal prayer for healing and anointing with oil will be available at this service.
Institution in parishes of Whitehouse and St Ninian
The institution of the Rev Elaine O’Brien as incumbent to the United Parishes of Whitehouse and St Ninian took place on Tuesday March 15 .
Elaine was previously rector of Clogherny and Drumnakilly, Diocese of Armagh. A native of Belfast, she grew up in Willowfield Parish, later moving to Cookstown, Co Tyrone, where she was a parishioner of St John’s, Moneymore. A mother of two grown up children, former Post Office Telecoms worker Elaine was commissioned as a Diocesan Reader in St John’s, Moneymore, in 1991. In 1994 she began studying for the Non-Stipendiary Ministry, and following her ordination in 1997 was curate assistant in Killyman Parish, Dungannon.
She moved to live in Comber in 2000 and was curate assistant in St Dorothea’s, Gilnahirk.
After consultation with the Bishop of Down and Dromore, the Rt Rev Harold Millar, Elaine decided to do the one year transfer course into full time ministry at the Church of Ireland Theological College in Dublin. On completion of this she was placed in Clogherny, Seskinore and Drumnakilly as Bishop’s Curate in 2006 and was instituted rector in 2007.
Palestinian Ambassador meets with Connor clergy
Having met with the Israeli deputy ambassador to Ireland, Ruth Zach, Archdeacon Stephen McBride and Canon John Mann met with the Palestinian deputy ambassador Yussef Dorkhom at Church of Ireland House in Belfast.
Mr Dorkhom is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and has been in post in Dublin for nine years. He explained how, although he is Palestinian by birth, due to travel restrictions he has never been able to visit his homeland. The Palestinian Christian population has declined from 60 per cent to only two per cent in recent years and Mr Dorkhom said the challenge to the wider church throughout the world is to ensure that a Christian presence remains in the Holy Land. During the Connor pilgrimage to the Holy Land which begins on Tuesday March 22, several projects run by Palestinians will be visited.
Archdeacon McBride commented: “It has been very beneficial to meet with both ambassadors and to hear two views on this very complicated political and religious situation.”
Book On St George’s Churches
Duncan Scarlett, a parishioner of St George’s, Belfast, has written a book on Churches of the Church of Ireland Dedicated to St George, and on a recent research visit to Dublin he presented a copy to the RCB Library where much of his research was conducted. The book chronicles fourteen churches and chapels of ease dedicated to St George and is illustrated with many of the author’s photographs.
Mr Scarlett, a retired secondary school headmaster, has previously published Church of Ireland Churches Dedicated to St Anne and is now working on a similar volume for churches dedicated to St Thomas.
Church of Ireland Churches dedicated to St George (ISBN 978-0-95666110-4) is available from the author (duncan.scarlett@dnet.co.uk) at €7/£6
Geology, Genesis and the Generosity of God
The next lecture in the Christians in Science Ireland ‘God and Science’ lecture series will be given at the University Road Moravian Church in Belfast at 7.30pm on Monday 28th March. The lecture, entitled: ‘Geology, Genesis and the Generosity of God’ will be delivered by Rev. Graham Nevin, an Independent EIA Consultant. CiS Ireland lectures are open to all.
For further information on CiS Ireland, previous God and Science lectures and conferences, please visit our website at: www.cis.org.uk/ireland.