Dear Friends, it is lovely to have finally arrived and start to settle into life here in Outwood, Stanley, Wrenthorpe and Alverthorpe.  First of all a big thankyou for your warm welcome to Angela and myself and for your support at my licensing service in early June.  We are both thrilled and excited to be here at this stage in the life of the benefice and look forward to sharing our lives and ‘getting to know people’ over the coming months and years.

We have not moved far, in fact from just over the M1 after serving nearly thirteen years at St Michael’s in East Ardsley.  Over the years though I have moved extensively around the country for both work and church life.  My roots are in Royston near Barnsley where my father was a miner until the pit closed in 1968.  We then moved to south Leeds and it was from there that I went onto university where I met Angela and we married and lived in South Manchester throughout the 80s. 

A call to the ministry came about in the mid 80’s which took  several years to come to fruition and involved us living in Poole in Dorset. It was from Poole that I went to train for the ministry in Durham in the mid 90’s. Ministry then took us to Wiltshire followed by eight years in the Cambridgeshire fens before arriving in East Ardsley in 2006. During this time our twins Beth and Sam arrived on the scene.

Over the long hot Sundays of summer, our readings from Acts bring the early Church to life and how the disciples  lives were transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to go out and share the good news of Jesus across the known world. At the end of the day God’s people are always a journeying people, a pilgrim people.  Our faith journey is one of movement be it spiritually and/or physically as we discover more of God’s blessings for us and his church as we step out in faith.  We are people on the move: the Holy Spirit calls us to share God’s love in a hurting world and be a church family that welcomes all and be a place where one can ‘Find God, Find Friends and Find Yourself’.

Angela and myself look forward to meeting you and sharing in your lives as we too journey together and follow in Jesus’ footsteps and discover more of God’s love and blessings.  God Bless.

Rev Glenn Coggins:  Vicar of Stanley, Outwood and Wrenthorpe, and Priest in charge of St Paul’s, Alverthorpe.

For Christmas we have the build-up of Advent, and Easter Day is preceded by Holy Week.  But when it comes to Whit Sunday, it just arrives!  Yet Pentecost is all about the birth of the Christian church and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Surely, that is something to get excited about!

For forty days following our Lord’s resurrection, Jesus appeared to His followers and taught them about the Kingdom of God.  Just before His ascension into Heaven, Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the gift of the Spirit.

Ten days after His ascension, it was the Feast of Pentecost and this was a significant festival for the Jews.  It was an annual occasion for    people to assemble in the Holy City.  The day marked the time when the barley harvest officially ended.  This feast day was characterised by religious ceremonies and the offering of sacrifices.  No work was done. It was a day of thanksgiving.  A time to remember deliverance from Egypt and God’s mercy and reconciliation with His covenant people.

On the day of Pentecost, the followers of Jesus met together in an upper room. Its location was probably on Mount Zion to the west of Jerusalem.  The site can be visited although it’s not the Upper Room. It’s an ancient building dating from the 14th century and built on the site of a church destroyed by the Persians seven centuries earlier.  But the first floor chamber is large with old paving stones, surrounded by stone pillars and arches.  According to tradition, this is where Jesus ate the ‘Last Supper’ and His followers received the Holy Spirit.

On Whit Sunday we would do well to remember why the Holy Spirit was sent to us. We are given power to live God’s way:

– to lead us into the things God has prepared for us;

– to worship and glorify Him;

– to enable us to pray;

– to lead us into truth;

– to give us a desire to share the love of Christ with others and to help us trust God for all our needs.

This Pentecost may our prayer be for God’s Spirit to transform us, for the gentleness of His Spirit to lead us, and for the gifts of His Spirit to equip us.                            By Lester Amann writing in parishpump.co.uk s

Easter is now a distant memory for many.  Kids are back at school, parents are back at work and the world goes on, except it doesn’t for 300+ people who lost their lives in Sri Lanka.

Easter is a time for Christians to   celebrate.  It is a time when we remember that death is no longer a barrier to us.  Christ died on the cross and rose again so that we could live forever.  This is what makes Easter a joy and time to celebrate.  

A colleague of mine posted on Facebook on Easter Sunday  morning “He is risen – and the world changed for good”.  A moment that was meant to reflect the joy of the risen Christ.  We were in a good mood and joyful until the news hit us full on.  Celebration turns into shock and the shock turns in to anger and frustration.  Why do some people feel that the way they believe is the only way and that all who have a different opinion, are not only wrong, but deserving of death because of it?  On a day when the people of Sri Lanka were celebrating the Christian message of faith and resurrection (or simply enjoying a holiday in the sun) the lives of thousands of people are changed forever.  Those who lost a loved one during the bombings know only pain and suffering.  Those who escaped the destruction feel blessed for a moment and then begin to share the pain of others.  The rest of the world acts with outrage and anger and justifiably so.

The very reason why Jesus gave his life on the cross was so that the world could know change and change that was good.  Many people lost their lives on Easter Sunday; many more lives are now changed; but God is still at the centre even during death and destruction.  It can be hard for people to believe when such atrocities happen: how can there be a God when he allows things like this?  But we all know the truth: God isn’t part of the cause of suffering but is with all who suffer. Why people do what they do is hard to fathom but God is always the same today, tomorrow and forever.

By Rev David Teece, St Peter’s church