A Red Herring

 
 

We recently unveiled the painting ‘Red Herring’ at St Luke’s, a work commissioned to remember the Rev Tim Pigrem, vicar of St Luke’s until the early 1990’s. Malcolm Doney, the painter of Red Herring, spoke in our morning service. Read it here.

Solar Panels Are Up!

Fit for the future, David and Enitan tell the story…

Donate here!

We're excited to announce that our 32 solar panels are now resting upon the beautiful Welsh slate roof tiles and generating power! Good for the planet and also helpful in reducing our energy bills, as is the sheep’s wool which has been used to insulate the roof space. Martin blessed the solar panels last Friday with a poem written by Amelia.

We did anticipate that there would be a few surprises along the way and there were! In addition, the PCC also agreed as scaffolding costs are so high, that it made sense to commit to doing some repairs, which we had not budgeted for, whilst we had the scaffold in place.

We know that many of you have already given to the ‘Go Green’ campaign, but we also know that there are people who have offered to contribute to the ‘Fit for the Future’ campaign.  If you would like to and are able to you, you can make your donation directly on Sundays using the card machine or the hat, or here via Stewardship.  No gift is too little because together our gifts add up. 

As ever, thank you for your support.  The heat pump and the solar panels together help St Luke’s to reduce our carbon footprint and hopefully will inspire other churches and organisations to do likewise.  

With best wishes, 
Jacqui & Joy

 

A Version of Psalm 23 by Amelia Turncliffe

God is my Solar Panel,
I shall not be in the dark.
God energises me, leading me into hope.
I am full, my battery is powered up.
Even in the days of cloud,
I know the divine presence is there.
As each day the sun rises
- hidden sometimes but ever present - I grow not weary or afraid.
I know the power will return and the light will shine through.

And some background about the project…

Our 5 yearly building inspection identified that our south aisle roof was in need of replacement.  We had experienced several leaks, damaging the inside of the church.

We are fortunate to receive grant funding from our local charity Cloudesley. They funded a full replacement of the roof including an upgrade of sheep’s wool insulation and a full roof of solar panels. While the scaffold was in place we repaired areas of crumbling stonework, rusted gutters and old lead flashings

Maintaining the legacy. We now have a new Welsh slate roof, new lead flashings and repaired and new gutters that will keep the building dry and maybe last another 164 years (the age of the church).  We have repaired some stonework, but there is more to do! The quality of the work carried out by the contractor, Universal Stone, was excellent. We feel that we have done our old church justice, repairing and maintaining it to the high standard of workmanship that the Victorian builders applied in 1860.

Comfort and economy. The new sheep’s wool insulation and airtight roof construction will keep the church and its occupants warmer in the winter and reduce our heating bills and carbon footprint going forward.

Green energy. We have 32 solar panels with a peak output of 15kW which will meet about half of our historic electricity use, and reduce our bills by around £2-3,000 a year.

Epiphany, a short poem by Rev Martin Wroe

Epiphany

The answer you weren’t looking for
The way you went by mistake
The known unknown you never knew
Til it was staring you in the face


Arrives just after you give up
No formula or calculation
The star, the sky, the vaguest hunch
No map marks this destination


Emerges slowly as morning
Dawns on you like a new day
As if all your previous light was dark
And all of the dark made this way.

Martin
Associate Vicar 


A letter from Rev John as he moves to a new parish in Wyke Regis

Dear St. Luke’s 

Thank you for your wonderful gifts to Sophie and me - not only the presents you presented us with on Sunday (which were amazing!) but also for your love support and encouragement over these 4 years - I am only sorry to be leaving you at such an exciting stage in our community’s life. 

The heat pump is operational - the works have well and truly begun on the south roof and after that has been insulated and tiled an array of solar panels will be installed. Joy said on Sunday that an Eco-Church gold award is within our grasp - a very rare thing indeed - so keep up this fantastic work as St. Luke’s leads the way and helps others take the right steps in doing our bit in the climate emergency. 

Thank you too for that great community lunch after church - it was very pleasing to see people from the church community and the wider community there, joined by Claire - our local councillor and friend of St. Luke’s. Special thanks to all who prepared our food- I don’t know who you all were but I know that Rosie and Rachel where in the kitchen when I arrived before church in the morning and still there as Sophie and I left!!

Sophie and I were very moved seeing lots of old friends at the service and we received many messages from those unable to attend. As I said on Sunday - you are an amazing community and it has been an honour to be your Vicar, my prayers are with you all especially Jacqui and Joy, Martin and the PCC as they guide you through the next few months - you couldn’t be in better hands - please do use your voice as the community discerns who you are looking for next - and I know that you will choose a great new Vicar. 

Much love as always,

John

Hot Air and Heat Pumps

The air-source heating system which we've been fundraising for in the last couple of years is now being installed. It works like an inside-out fridge. It captures heat from outside – even in below-zero temperatures - and moves it inside. It’s powered by electricity and we’ll help generate that by installing solar panels on our south facing roofs. 

The heat pump is forecast to reduce our annual heating carbon footprint by approx. 28 tonnes, 86% of our heating footprint and as the heat pump is powered by the electricity grid which is getting greener year by year, our residual carbon footprint will continue to decrease going forward.

The solar panels are forecast to reduce our electricity carbon emissions by approx 2 tonnes which is 56% of our electricity footprint.

This will take us a small step forward into the future… and a small step backward to a world where people understood how everything was connected. This talk one Sunday morning has more hot air about all this (click here).

Illustrated Talk on the History of St Luke’s Church, Penn Road & Holloway

Wednesday 19 April 2023 at 7pm

 
 

  • How, When and Why was St. Luke’s Church built where it currently stands today?

  • Why was its first ever vicar unceremoniously and controversially dismissed before he had even conducted a service in this building?  (And why did he then set up the break-away church of St. George’s in the neighbouring Parish?)

  • How has our local landscape changed in the years before and in the years since those days?


To find out the answers to those questions (and to many more besides) come along to an illustrated talk on the history of St. Luke’s Church and the wider area of Holloway given by Stefano Cagnoni and Caroline Jackson

St. Luke’s Church
Wednesday April 19th 2023
Doors Open at 7pm, talk will start by 7.15pm
Tickets: £10
Please email admin@saintlukeschurch.org.uk to reserve your place

 

All proceeds go towards funding our eco-projects – this year we are installing solar panels and a ground source heat pump to reduce our carbon footprint.

Your support is warmly welcomed.

Prayers for Earth

From the Second Sunday of Lent service; Including our global climate neighbours;

Traditional Ute Prayer - A prayer from the Ute people of North America (native North American), with thanks to CAFOD

Earth teach me freedom as the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall.

Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself as snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness as dry fields weep with rain. 

An Ecological Lord’s Prayer by Cláudio Carvalhaes

Our God who are in pluriverses,
the skies and the earth,

Blessed be your name: life.
May your pulsing life come to be seen, heard, touched and felt
through the oceans, the forests, in the rocks, in the life of plants
and in the sounds of animals and singing birds.


May the atmosphere of the sky that carries our ability to breathe continue balanced
as fossil presences are kept under the earth.


Give us this day our daily bread
through a variety of seeds and grains and leaves without pesticides,
without monocultures, from local farms and agro-biodiverse-cultures.


Forgive our plundering of the earth,
our total lack of relation and reciprocity with the earth and more than human beings; as cells, mycelium, fungi and infinite processes of symbiosis 
forgive us daily by giving life back when we destroy it.


And lead us not into consumerism and the devouring the earth, 
but deliver us from the apathy that says nothing can be changed. 
For life is kinship, relationally and reciprocity. 

Now and forever. Amen.

 

Listen to your life for the forty days of Lent…

The novelist Frederich Buechner offers some widely shared advice when he writes, ‘Listen to your life…’ There is a useful device for listening to your life - the diary or journal, hand written or typed in a phone. It’s a simple habit to take up over the forty days of Lent, to jot down one line or paragraph every day.

A snapshot of thoughts or feelings, joys or sadnesses. A brief line drawing of a place deep in your heart. One day an entry about something big – how someone you love lifted you up... or let you down. Another day some troubling - or joyful - interaction. A wish or complaint, a fear or hurt. A word of thanks.

Ignatius of Loyola in the sixteenth century, picked up early on the idea of a daily playback, creating a series of spiritual exercises often called ‘the Examen’. A simple, daily life check. 

The Examen has five steps, something like these.

  1. Give thanks. Replay the day you’ve had, freeze-frame the people or moments you’re grateful for.

  2. Capture some sign of hope or joy. Was there a moment of forgiveness or compassion? A sign of courage or unexpected love?

  3. Notice any sadness or regret. Some news you heard about or event you were part of? Some word you regret or action you neglected?

  4. Recognise the down as well as the up. Write the difficult as well as the delight.

  5. Consider tomorrow. How might it be different?


The examen. Rewind. Hit Play. Watch the day again. Listen to your life.