ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
2 JULY 2010
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
A bit later than usual today.
Your editor had to take his BBQ for a walk down the prom. Don’t ask..
DON’T FORGET:
9.30AM Communion
10.30AM Service
THOUGHT
Don Cupitt is a theologian known for his radical views and his attempts to reconcile the modern world view and Christianity. In a book written in 2008, The Meaning of the West: An Apologia for Secular Christianity, he writes the following:
For many years I laboured to reconcile Church-Christianity and the modern world. I now see that the critics were right, and it cannot be done. Church-Christianity is gradually becoming more and more counter-cultural (a euphemism for ‘irrational’) and reactionary as it declines. But now I ask: why try to save the Church? It has been historically obsolete for about two centuries. We should let it go, and instead learn to see in modern Western culture itself the human and Christian values that we will need to proclaim and defend the future. As we do this, we develop a new ‘secular Christian apologetics’. We discard the institutional side of Christianity, authoritarian and power-hungry, with its supernatural doctrines, and instead we follow out the historical development of Christian spirituality and ethics.
[Don Cupitt, The Meaning of the West: An Apologie for Secular Christianity (London: SCM Press, 2008), p. x]
There is the intellectual grappling with much that is transcendent and ‘supernatural’ but what about the spiritual, the ultimate questions, the community in which and through which such ‘values’ can be tested and applied, the need for others? What of love that is beyond the individual? There is much good here but one wonders if too much time in the ivory tower had blinded him to the need of the spiritual, transcendent, mysterious and numinous—God—on the ground.
WORSHIP
Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptised; let us also go down with him into the water and rise with him. Gregory of Nazianus
_________
Welcome, announcements and silence
Opening Collect (said together)
Almighty God, your Son Jesus Christ has taught us that what we do
for the least of your children we do also for him.
Give us the will to serve others as he was the servant of all,
who gave up his life and died for us, but lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Hymn 632 Our children, Lord in faith and prayer
Baptism of Sophie Elizabeth Morrison & Zach John Watson
Talking Together
Hymn 351 Jesus hands were kind hands
Readings Anne McKerchar
The Healing of Naaman 2 Kings 5:1-14
The Mission of the Seventy Luke 10:1-11
Offering
Prayers and the Lord’s Prayer
Hymn 21 Lord, teach me all your ways
Reflection
Prayers for Other and Ourselves
Leader: Lord, in your love,
People: Hear our prayer.
Hymn 543 Christ be our light
Blessing
EVENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Tea and Coffee will be served in the main hall after the 10.30am service.
- Life & Work: Copies of July Life & Work are available for distributors to collect from the shelf in the corridor.
- Talents: Offered and Wanted: If you are able to offer a service that someone else may need, or are looking for someone to do a job for you – a sheet is available in the vestibule. For those who have goods they wish to sell for the fundraiser, there will be a Talents Bring and Buy Stall on the first Sunday of each month at coffee. Any queries, speak to Angela Stewart or Helen McIntyre.
- Christian Aid: A very big thank you to all the people who delivered and collected envelopes for Christian Aid Week. The total we raised was £2,379.46 – an amazing amount! Without your commitment, Christian Aid would not benefit from this magnificent total, so when you are trudging round the houses remember it all adds up. Thank you again from the Outreach Team.
- Great Opportunities in Chridren’s Ministry Now Available! Looking ahead to next year, Michelle Brown and the Sunday School/Crèche co-ordinators are welcoming potential volunteers fro our crèche, Toddler, Beginners and Sunday School. If you interested in volunteering for the 2010/2011 Sunday School year, please speak to Michelle or email her at childrenandyouth@stphilips.co.uk so that we can start the training and Disclosure Scotland process before the autumn.
- PEDAL Garden Share Scheme and Fruitful Porty: Are you finding your garden harder to manage these days? Or are you a keen gardener longing for a garden to grow your own fruit, veg and flowers? If so PEDAL are keen to hear from you so that we can match volunteer gardeners with garden owners who’d like some help. Please contact Peter Upton at PEDAL on 0131 258 4483 or email peter@pedal-porty.org.uk.
- Shopping for the Homeless: The Grassmarket Community, who help the homeless in Edinburgh, have asked if people would be willing to add a bit extra to their shopping basket. Stock cubes, sugar, lentils, salt and pepper are always needed.
Fundraising Penny Tubes are available today for your small change. Please take one. Full tubes can be returned to the basket in the vestibule and a new one taken to start filling again! Lots more pennies which means our total is now just over £600 – fantastic!
Monday, 5th July 2010
- The Prayer Group The Prayer Groups meets at 9.45 in the Baird Hall. Prayer Request Boxes have been placed on both sides of the vestibule. All are welcome to join us.
Saturday, 17th July 2010
- The Walking Group meets at 10am in Brunstane Road North to travel by car to Kelso Abbey for a walk along the riverside path and along a disused railway. All are welcome to join us. For more information please contact Maureen Calder or Sheila Pardoe.
Saturday, 14th August 2010
- Date for your Diary – Coffee Morning: Saturday,14th August from 10am – 12 noon a fundraising event for you to enjoy a cuppa and a chat. Home baking, hand crafted talents goods and garden produce stalls. Offers of tray bakes and goods for all stalls very welcome. Please contact Helen or Angela. Tickets available from mid July.
Sunday, 25th July 2010
- The Book Club will meet at 7.30pm in the Dalriada to discuss ‘Wolf Hall’ by Hilary Mantel, the 2009 Man Booker Prize winner about the Tudors. All are welcome to come along and join in the discussion.
JOKE
This one just in. Seems appropriate as we begin to feel some of the lovely heat of summer.
HELL EXPLAINED
BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT
The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry midterm, and an actual answer turned in by a student.
The answer by one student was so ‘profound’ that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct….. …leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+
Have a good weekend!!!
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