soulspace

An autumn meditation followed by a glass of wine - you're welcome!

Vox Holloway raise their voices for Syrian refugees

It's easy to feel helpless in the face of a humanitarian crisis, such as the horrors currently taking place in Syria. St Luke's community choir, Vox Holloway, has decided to take positive action by donating all profits from its next concert to help Syrian refugees.

The choir is currently rehearsing hard for its performance at St Luke's on Sunday 1 December – an event entitled Songs Of Exile, which will include music from around the world, and performances by two world-class soloists. The audience will get to hear a brand new composition, Cry Palestine, written and performed by Palestinian musician Reem Kelani. Catalan musician Clara Sanabras (whose work regularly appears on film and TV soundtracks, including the second The Hobbit film) will be performing a new choral setting of songs from her latest album, Scattered Flight: Songs of Spanish Exile. Arrangements and musical direction will once again be provided by British composer Harvey Brough, and Justin Butcher, Vox Holloway’s founder and artistic director. It's a unique event, and not to be missed – so put the date in your diary, and invite friends and family to join you.

All the profits raised by the event will go to the charity Hand In Hand For Syria, which was featured in Panorama on BBC1 last week. You can see the programme at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03c7m8s/Panorama_Saving_Syrias_Children/ and learn more about the charity at http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk/

If you feel inspired to join the choir yourself, there's still time (but only just) to sign up and perform in the big event. The choir is especially keen to hear from tenors and basses (in other words, men – or women with very deep voices!). There are no auditions and you don't need to be able to read music. Most songs are in English, with a few easy-to-learn sections in Arabic, Spanish or Catalan (transcriptions and recordings are provided). However, you do need to commit to weekly rehearsals at St Luke's every Tuesday, 7.30pm-9.30pm, between now and the concert. Singers are also asked to make a voluntary donation (if they can) of £30 to pay rehearsal costs, and £15 for sheet music. If you're interested, please get in touch as soon as possible by emailing voxhollowayn7@gmail.com

Since it was founded in 2009, Vox Holloway has raised over £50,000 for charities around the world. We're very proud of the choir's amazing achievements, and look forward to enjoying its latest musical extravaganza on 1 December.

The Speakeasy is back!

Here at St Luke’s, we love a party. We’re also blessed with some amazingly talented people in our congregation, from singers and musicians, to actors and comic writers. Once a year or so, the two come together in the form of our much-anticipated Speakeasy.

The Speakeasy is the brainchild of Crispin Holland, who describes it as, ‘Fifty per cent cabaret, fifty per cent variety, and fifty per cent singalong’! On past form, we’ll certainly get that extra fifty per cent in fun!

What can you expect from a St Luke’s Speakeasy? First, you’ll walk into the church to find it’s been transformed into a twinkling candlelit cafe, with the stage set for the show. There’ll be a bar in the kitchen, and nibbles to snack on while you relax among friends and enjoy some top-class musical performances, sketches, cabaret acts and a few surprise moments. Plus there’ll be a house band to lead a singalong we can all join in with. Crispin will, as usual, be our master of ceremonies.

So put the next Speakeasy in your diary for Friday 11 October, 8pm - 11.30pm. Tickets cost £5, or £2 concession, and the event is only open to those aged 16+ (no exceptions!). As well as a chance for us all to get together and have some fun, it’s also a great opportunity to invite friends, family and neighbours along for a relaxed evening out. So get your gladrags on, brush up your vocal cords and get ready for a great night at St Luke’s!

(Photo: www.stefanocagnoni.com)

A second volume of ‘The Gospel According To Everyone’

‘What if the Gospel wasn’t a book but a person? The one sitting next to you. What if the gospel truth was found in the honest faith and doubt of a life like yours?’ If you’re a regular at St Luke’s services, you’ll occasionally hear a very different kind of Gospel reading: the gospel story of a member of our community. It might be the story of the sister who lost her brother to cancer… the artist whose journey through mental illness became a kind of blessing… or the atheist who realised one day that he’d become a believer. It was Martin Wroe who came up with the idea of using our own stories of everyday faith in our services. ‘Someone said that the church is the fifth Gospel,’ says Martin. ‘Every week, we hear a reading from the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but I wondered what a Gospel reading from the fifth Gospel would be like? The Gospel according to the church, according to you and me. The Gospel according to everyone?’ Martin, who makes a living as a writer, set about recording the stories of people at St Luke’s – stories of hardship, hope and faith. Two years ago, he published them in a book, The Gospel According To Everyone, and we’ve got to enjoy many of these stories in our Sunday services. Through them, we’ve been moved and inspired, and learned more about the people sitting alongside us every week. Martin has now published a second volume of The Gospel According To Everyone. Once again, it’s illustrated with portraits by acclaimed artist Meg Wroe, and it’s been endorsed by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who describes the stories as having, ‘an eloquence that exceeds most of the sermons I have preached and heard.’ You can sample a story from the first volume of The Gospel According To Everyone here: http://www.saintlukeschurch.org.uk/2012/10/15/the-gospel-according-to-sam-murphy/ and one from the new volume here: http://www.saintlukeschurch.org.uk/2013/03/03/the-gospel-of-gary/

You can buy copies of both volumes of The Gospel According To Everyone (£5 each) at the next few Sunday morning services, or online at http://martinwroe.com/books/. An iBook and Kindle version are coming soon. Thank you for everything you do for St Luke’s, Martin – and please keep inspiring us with your wonderful stories.

Soul Space change of date

Please note that for this month only Soul Space is shifting from the second to the third Sunday. So the next Soul Space service will be on the 15th September at 7pm.

Faith, hope and charity

As a church, St Luke’s supports a number of charities – but individual members also have causes that are close to their hearts, and we like to support their efforts as well. Last week, Rachel Blackamore completed her first half-marathon to raise money for Joshua Orphan Care in Malawi. This charity creates feeding stations and funds education projects in a country devastated by poverty. Rachel has been involved with the charity for several years, has visited Malawi twice and even helped to build a medical clinic there. So far, Rachel’s half-marathon has raised £1,600. If you’d like to boost funds, please visit http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RachelBlackamore, and to learn more about the charity, visit www.joshuainmalawi.org.uk. Well done, Rachel – we're impressed!

Meanwhile, another St Luker, John Cruse, recently shaved his head to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Those who know his family will understand why this cause is close to John’s heart. So far, John has raised £380. If you’d like to give his fundraising efforts a boost, visit www.justgiving.com/John-Cruse, where you can also see a video of John’s lustrous locks hitting the deck. (We still think you’re still gorgeous, John.)

Finally, it’s not too late to donate to Grace Wroe’s fundraising drive to send former South African street child Thutukani on his way to university and a better life. You can read more about Thutukani’s story at www.saintlukeschurch.org.uk/2013/05/14/reaching-out-across-the-world/ So far, £445 has been raised towards the £500 he needs. Visit www.justgiving.com/Umthombo-University to help us hit that target.

Well done to Rachel, John and Grace for their efforts to make the world a better place – we’re proud of you!

Feeling festive

If you happen to visit St Luke’s over the August bank holiday weekend, you’d be forgiven for thinking the congregation is a little on the sparse side. That’s because a lot of St Lukers decamp to Cheltenham for the weekend for the Greenbelt Festival. If you haven’t heard of Greenbelt, it’s a fantastic faith, arts and justice festival, where around 20,000 people descend on Cheltenham Racecourse to listen to great music, learn and debate at talks and seminars, spend time catching up with old friends and new, and chill out in the famous Tiny Tea Tent (and hopefully stay dry - last year’s torrential rain turned the site into a mudbath!).

St Luke’s has a long association with Greenbelt. Many of our members are involved in running and overseeing different parts of the festival – you might see a few familiar faces on the programme, too. For many years, Greenbelt even had its offices in St Luke’s (that was before we opened up the east aisle of the church and installed our swanky new kitchen).

To learn more about our favourite festival, check out the website at www.greenbelt.org.uk. This year is Greenbelt’s 40th birthday, and there’ll be lots of exciting events happening over the weekend.

However, if you’re in London on Sunday, rest assured St Luke’s will still be open for business. There’ll be an 11am service as usual, and friendly faces to greet you. The rest of us will see you when we get back!

St Luker wins top theological award

Here at St Luke’s, we like to celebrate each other’s successes, however big or small – and this one’s a biggie!

One of our members, Richard Burridge – who, when he’s wearing his ‘Reverend Professor’ hat, is also the Dean of King’s College London – has been named a recipient of the 2013 Ratzinger Prize. What’s more, he’s the first non-Catholic to receive the award.

The Ratzinger Prize – sometimes referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize in Theology’ – is a highly prestigious award, given to individuals who’ve distinguished themselves in academic research relating to the work of Joseph Ratzinger, former Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, academic committee president of the Ratzinger Foundation, said, ‘Richard Burridge is an eminent figure in the field of Biblical studies and has made a great contribution in the area of the historical and theological recognition of the gospels’ inseparable connection to Jesus of Nazareth.’

Richard will receive the award from Pope Francis in October, after delivering a paper on the literary genre of the gospels at a three day symposium in Rome.

‘This award has come as a huge surprise,’ says Richard. ‘I’m extremely honoured and excited to be named as one of this year’s recipients, not least as the first non-Catholic to be awarded the prize.’ On top of that, Richard has just been invited to become Canon Theologian of Salisbury Cathedral – which, after he has been formally installed in October, will make him ‘Reverend Canon Professor’! But we're glad to say he’ll still be a regular at St Luke’s.

Well done, Richard – you’ve done us proud!

A Footnote To All Prayers

Here is the poem Dave used his talk today... ‘A Footnote To All Prayers’ by C.S. Lewis

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
 When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
 And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
 Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
 Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
 Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
 And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
 The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
 Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
 Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
 And all men are idolators, crying unheard
 To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
 Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

Helping the hungry in Holloway

Every day, people around the UK are going hungry. Problems such as redundancy, illness, benefit delays, debt, family breakdown, low income and the increasing cost of living mean that 13 million people in the UK now live below the poverty line. People in our own corner of north London will struggle to feed themselves and their families this week. So two of our young people, Grace and Wes Wroe, have decided to take action. They’ve launched a weekly food collection at St Luke’s to contribute to a local foodbank, where people in crisis situations can get emergency food and support. It’s part of the Trussell Trust, which has partnered with churches and communities to open over 325 foodbanks nationwide.

“For this to work, we need two things,” says Grace. “Firstly that, each week, those who can should bring one or two items of long-life food to church, and leave them in the collection box outside the kitchen. Suitable products include powdered milk, sugar, tinned soups, packets of rice and pasta, cereals, pasta sauces, tea bags, instant coffee, instant mash, tinned meat and fish, and tinned vegetables and fruit.

“Secondly, we need several more volunteers to take collections to the Islington Foodbank on Tufnell Park Road, five minutes from St Luke’s. If we get enough volunteers, each person will only have to do this once every two months.”

In 2012-13, foodbanks fed 346,992 people nationwide – and of those, 126,889 were children. If you’d like to help, please get into the habit of bringing your contributions every week, and consider joining the rota to transport goods. To volunteer or find out more, have a word with Grace, or email Pat at patriciatomlinson@mac.com and she’ll pass your message on.

“Thank you for helping us,” says Grace. “Here’s to feeding the hungry.”

For a comprehensive list of foods suitable for donation, visit www.trusselltrust.org/resources/documents/foodbank/ShoppingList.pdf