September Newsletter 2025
Julie Writes
Dear Friends,
Earlier this week it was my turn to record the Daily Reflection for our YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXaz9gZfef4tn_oP3o-vGqg) It was from Mark Chapter 3 v 13-19 This is what struck me once again-
He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder, and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who handed him over. Then he went home.
Job well done we might think! Mark goes to the trouble of naming the twelve. Yet what has struck me since, as I have reflected on the passage is that it wasn’t a one-off, well-done job. It’s a job which Jesus does over and over again; in generations past, in today’s generation and on into future generations. The names listed are the ones commissioned then. We might not be named in the Bible, but today we are the ones commissioned, called to be apostles, to go out and share the Good News.
The reading could not have come at a better time!
Over the past six weeks, in both our churches we’ve closely examined the exhortation from Paul to the fledgling Church at Colossae, which Bishop Ruth commended to us. In case you’ve missed it – Col 3:12-17. We ‘ve concentrated on what Christian identity looks like. Purposefully I’ve given our ‘Mission Prayer’ a rest from our liturgy. But this month as both churches gear up to take the message and invitation to the people of both parishes (see details below) I urge you to pray it every day- no, twice or three times a day!!! To invite and encourage your neighbours and friends to explore and start, or restart, a journey with Jesus. To join us as fellow- followers of Jesus’ Way, the Way our world so desperately needs to hear about afresh. So, just in case you didn’t get a mug with the prayer printed on it in Easter 2024, or, like mine the words have faded with washing, here they are again.
God of Mission, Who alone brings growth to your Church,
Send your Holy Spirit to give Vision to our planning, Wisdom to our actions, Joy to our worship and Power to our witness.
Help our church to grow in numbers, in spiritual commitment to you, and in service to our local community.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Prayer Harmony
Deuteronomy 24:19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
As Harvest approaches, we realise that climate change has altered the seasons, causing uncertainty and confusion in the farming community. We pray for the best weather for bringing in the harvest, and for the farmers to be given a fair price for their produce, and we pray for all those countries where food poverty is a permanent and devastating problem.
We pray for the continuing intractable problem, in this country, of poverty, debt and poor housing. Successive governments have tried and failed to address this situation; we pray for an effective solution to bring all people into financial security. We pray for homeless shelters, food banks and pantries, bringing the love of God and hope to those with very little.
We pray for the people in our society, who are seeking for a deeper meaning in their lives, and are tentatively wondering about God. We pray that we may help them to reach out to Jesus, just as He is reaching out to them. We ask God to help us not to get in the way.
As the young people go back to school, we pray for all in education, at all levels. We pray for nurseries, play-groups and child minders. We pray for teachers, dinner-helpers, caretakers. We pray for tutors, professors, skilled workers passing on their expertise to apprentices. Above all, we pray for all our young people, that they may experience good education, long-lasting and wholesome friendships, and be well prepared for adulthood.
Isaiah 54:13 All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.
Important dates for your Diary
FIT FOR MISSION
The PCC will vote on Monday 8th September whether to join the Fit for Mission Programme and to form a Larger Single Parish for our churches, Holy Trinity Formby, and St Michael & All Angels Altcar.
This is a major decision the PCC will take for our churches, so we ask you all to pray for Gods guidance in making the right decision and your support for the PCC.
VICAR VACANCY UPDATE - PARISH PROFILE
The Parish Reps from Holy Trinity Formby & St Michael & All Angels Altcar have been working very hard preparing the Parish Profile that will be used for interviewing prospective Vicars to join our Benefice.
This will be presented to the PCC on Monday 8th September for their approval.
The next stage in the process will be what is called a section 12 meeting where the Archdeacon will meet with the team to who will be conducting the interviews and agree the advertising. This as you know is a slow process, but felt it was important to let you all know where we are up to in this process.
Coming up in September
7th September Joint Summer Series Services continues
Surprise Parade Service followed by a BBQ.
Pizza Eaters Youth Group
Pizza Eaters resumes on the 10th of September and nearer the time, we will decide if the weather is right to go to the beach for our first meeting of the new academic year.
Prayer meeting continues Thursdays, 7pm, in the Prayer Room. Just turn up and stay for as long as you wish. Anyone needing a lift, please ring Sylvia on 07872 314103
Bible Study, fortnightly on Tuesday afternoons, continues at Elisabeth’s house, ring Sylvia for details 07872 314103
Mothers' Union
Holy Trinity Mothers ‘Union will be hosting a meeting with the Southport Macmillan Information and Support Centre.
The venue is Holy Trinity Church, Rosemary Lane, Formby
Coffee/Tea Refreshments.
We would love to welcome you and have your support.
Thank you to everyone who made the Holiday at Home event in Holy Trinity Parish Hall on 12h July such a success. From support providing cakes, serving tea and coffee and of course the singalong. It was a lovely afternoon and £345 was raised for Macmillan by your kind donations. Thank you.
Prayer meeting continues Thursdays, 7pm, in the Prayer Room. Just turn up and stay for as long as you wish. Anyone needing a lift, please ring Sylvia on 07872 314103
Bible Study, fortnightly on Tuesday afternoons, continues at Elisabeth’s house, ring Sylvia for details 07872 314103
Sweet Friday Ladies’ Evening.
The next meeting will be on Friday 12th September.
‘What’s Cooking Tonight’ Planning a feast from donated ingredients
All ladies welcome! Bring your friends, a donation for the foodbank and your favourite family recipes to share.
Bring your own nibbles and drinks if you like. Tea and cake provided.
Musical fundraiser for Sudan
We are delighted to announce that Gabriel Balasubramanian-Basu raised £1045 for the St Patrick's Missionary Society's work in Sudan at his piano recital on Saturday 5th July at Holy Trinity Church. Thank you to everyone who supported the event and gave so generously; we look forward to seeing you again next year!
Coming up in October
Sunday 26th October at 9.30am Parish Breakfast in the Parish Hall
Bacon and tomato will be served with fried egg, fried bread, tea and coffee,
so, join us for this very sociable event.
Events at St Michael’s
Saturday 11th October at 7.30pm Formby Male Voice Choir
Sunday 12th October 9.30am Harvest Festival service
Sunday 12th October from 12.00 noon Church open
with refreshments available
Sunday 12th October 4.30pm Harvest Festival Service
Sunday 12th October 4.30pm Harvest Evensong followed by sale of produce in aid of RABI
Events at Holy Trinity
Saturday 4th October 10.00am to 12.00noon. Decoration of Church for Harvest. All helpers welcome.
Please bring Hydrangea heads, greenery and berries to church for 10am. Donations towards the ever-increasing cost of flowers would be appreciated.
Sunday 5th October 10.30am Harvest Parade Service
Guest Preacher Richard Owens CEO Compassion Acts
Fit for Mission questions answered
1.What does Fit for Mission mean?
The Diocese of Liverpool recognise and are determined to address the significant challenges the church faces which result from declining numbers of people and consequent loss of engagement with our communities.
The Diocese believes that Fit for Mission offers a dynamic and creative way of helping us fulfil our shared vision of a ‘Bigger Church making a bigger difference’
2.Who decides whether we are fit?
Holy Trinity & St Michaels PCC will decide considering views of our congregations’ whether we commit to joining Fit for joining a larger single parish with other parishes. There are 4 options for the PCC to consider.
Option A is we can engage and commit the PCC to start on the journey and help make it work for us and our partner churches.
Option B is that we are engaged but have specific questions or concerns the will need to be addressed as we go ahead. We are committed as a PCC to starting out on the journey and working towards co-creating solutions to these concerns.
Option C We are engaged but with barriers we feel could cause major problems in joining together with others in the way envisaged by Fit for Mission.
We are committed as a PCC to starting out on the journey and to try to overcome these barriers.
Option D We feel FIT for Mission won’t help us address our challenges or support our missional opportunities. As a PCC we are not currently able to commit to starting out on the Fit for Mission journey.
3. What is the structure of the Church /parish.?
There will be a lager single parish with a Parish Rector, who will lead a new PCC and clergy Leadership team providing mutual support and accountability. They will be
Free to focus on mission and ministry while a skilled support team will focus on administration. There will a finance co-ordinator, warden and safeguarding officer in each church communicating between churches and the PCC. We don’t know exactly what it will look like for Holy Trinity and St Michaels as the process will be developed to work for each church in the larger single parish.
4. How is it decided who sits on different bodies?
Looking forward we envisage that local leadership teams will be made up of passionate and skilled individuals who will help to drive local mission and ministry supported by a team rector and a wider PCC who’ll look after governance tasks. This will free up the local Vicar and other church members to engage in the important task of mission and outreach.
5. Do we need this and what will it cost us and what will we gain?
Some 38 million pounds has been allocated from the National Church Charity Commission to our diocese to fund the Fit for Mission programme so at local level it will not cost the church. Bishop Ruth says ‘As a diocese we are offering every church the opportunity to collaborate in a completely new way with others, for the sake of the Gospel. This change is focused on growing the church by reaching out to our communities in new ways, so becoming younger and more diverse. And this focus is enabled by forming larger single parishes, and in doing so releasing the energy and gifts of lay and clergy for local mission. Change is not something many relish and yet just repeating the things we have always done, and working harder at it is not making the difference we seek.
6. Why is this necessary?
The church of England is broken and many of the churches in Liverpool diocese are struggling. With numbers falling over the years, even our church, it’s considered necessary to join to share expertise and successes to grow the churches and have wider presence in the community.
7. Is it just another layer of bureaucracy creating expense and diluting real ministry?
The hope is that by taking the bureaucracy away from Church leaders will enable them to do mission as these things will be removed.
8. If it isn’t broken then why try to fix it?
Whilst Holy Trinity and St Michaels are continuing to do well, we have much work to do to bring the under 40’s to Jesus and fill all the roles we need in our Churches.
9. What happens to all the individual church organisation's?
All organisation's will remain attached to our individual churches.
10. What have been the challenges and how have these been resolved.?
There are challenges especially in the early stages working together with the change partners to ensure churches feel have an input into the changes.
11. If Holy Trinity votes against fit for mission. Will we be supported in the same way or will we be ignored because we are OUT?
We will still be supported by the Bishop, Archdeacon and Area Dean in the same way as now.
12. Are all costs met by the Diocese? If not, why?
All costs are met by the Diocese through the grant by the national Church.
13. Wouldn't it be better to give the money to individual parishes / churches for them to decide how best to spend it? e.g. More clergy and ministry focus to grow the church.
The National Church have granted this money to fund a completely new way of working. It could not be given out to individual churches.
14. What would be the position concerning the graveyard at St Michaels if we were to belong to a Larger Single Parish?
Arch Deacon Pete Spiers answered the question.
All churchyards are governed by the Burial Act of 1853 which provides that anyone who lives in the parish, who died in the parish, who is on the electoral roll of the parish, or who is permitted at the discretion of the minister may be buried in the parish churchyard. This would apply to the larger parish in the same way i.e. Any parishioner of the larger parish would be permitted to be buried in any of the churchyards within the larger parish. Similarly, any parishioner would be permitted to be married in any of the churches within the larger parish.
He did also explain that it is possible to reserve a plot within a graveyard if there is space. This option might be attractive to any church members who might be concerned about the number of plots left in the churchyard and the impact widening the parish might have. The link below provides a bit more information.
https://liverpooldiocesanregistry.co.uk/faculty-jurisdiction/graves/
15. What have been the successes in forming Larger Single Parishes.
Lisa Gilligan Change Facilitator in the Diocese says, ‘We are pleased to be able to share evidence of real growth and renewed resilience amongst our diocese, thanks to our clergy, lay leaders and our FfM team.
In Wigan, traditional congregations have fully recovered post-Covid and grown slightly since 2015. New worshipping communities have added 500 regular members - with both new and traditional groups growing by around 15% in the last year.
St Helens has seen the formation of 11 new worshipping communities
and seven Justice initiatives, with 80 new worshippers and a 25% increase in planned giving.
West Derby has planted or developed 5 new worshipping communities and launched 2 Justice initiatives. Planned giving is also up 37%.
Beyond growth in numbers, the Larger Single Parishes are also making significant steps forward with the management of safeguarding, buildings and finances – underpinning the work of our churches by helping to maintain safe and sustainable environments that support our communities in Christ’.
Our PCCs will vote on the four options available for ‘A Larger Single Parish’
(listed in Fit for Mission question 2) on 8th September. PCC members are representing congregations and have been voted in by you, to represent you at the APCM on 12th April this year.
We must pray and trust the right decision will be made for our churches.
From 10th August PCC members will be around church and subsequent Sundays to 7th September to answer any questions and concerns you may have. It is important you express your views, so the PCC with Gods guidance can make the right decision for our churches.
Our postal address is:
Holy Trinity Church
Rosemary Lane
Formby,
Liverpool,
L37 3HA
