Posted on by David Steers

His holy mountain…the joy of all the earth

Thou, whose almighty word
Chaos and darkness heard,
And took their flight;
Hear us, we humbly pray;
And, where the gospel’s day
Sheds not its glorious ray,
Let there be light!

Sunday, 6th September marks the day we have started our return to worshipping together in church but our online services continue and today this one comes from Ballee Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church.

Mountains and hills play a key part in the Old Testament and as we reflect on them we contemplate the whole of Creation and our part in it:

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God!
His holy mountain,
beautiful in elevation,
is the joy of all the earth,
(Psalm 48)

The service is conducted by the Rev Dr David Steers, the reading (Psalm 121) is given by Carol Nixon at Downpatrick, and John Strain plays the organ at Ballee Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church. Click on the above link to join in this short act of worship.

Time for a Story: The Riverbank

This week Time for a Story looks at Kenneth Grahame’s famous book The Wind in the Willows. Told by Sue Steers is also features special animation. Click on the above link to see the video.

Mole at Ballee

Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship from Inch Abbey

Inch Abbey c.1180

Today’s service comes from Inch Abbey in county Down. Service led by Rev Dr David Steers. Also taking part in the service are the Rev Rosalind Taggart and the Rev Norman Hutton.

Readings: Psalm 148 and Matthew ch.5 v.1-12

Organists:

Alfie McClelland, Clough Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church

John Strain, Ballee Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church

Hymns:

Glorious things of thee are spoken (‘Hymns of Faith and Freedom’ 233)

Seek ye first the kingdom of God (‘Hymns of Faith and Freedom’ 272)

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord (‘Hymns of Faith and Freedom’ 221)

Sent forth by God’s blessing (‘Hymns of Faith and Freedom’ 409)

Click on the above video for today’s service

Time for a Story: Stargazing

This week’s story, told by Sue Steers FRSA, with special animation by InkLightning, features the life of Galileo. It can be seen here:

The life of Galileo
Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship from Ballee

cropped-ballee-pulpit-fall-imtom-caven

Water is what connects us to life. It is also – clearly when we look at the book of Genesis – something that connects us to God.

Today’s service comes from Ballee Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church. It is also a collaborative act of worship because taking part in the service is the Rev Brenda Catherall, minister of Chowbent Unitarian Chapel, Atherton, Lancashire. Brenda reads from Genesis ch.1 v.1-5 and the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination

Brenda is reading at Pennington Flash, near Leigh, an area reclaimed from industrial decay and now a Country Park and home to over 250 species of bird. Wild Geese also feature in the video.

John Strain, Ballee organist, plays the hymns All people that on earth do dwell (‘Hymns of Faith and Freedom’ 1) and Bright the Vision that delighted (‘Hymns of Faith and Freedom’ 35).

 

Time for a Story: Wisdom

This week’s story tells the story of Archimedes, famous as an astronomer, inventor and scientist, whose Eureka moment has passed into the English language. Click on the above video which features special music, images from the British Museum and animation created by InkLightning. This image is of Syracuse, the birthplace of Archimedes.

 

Here is some more information on Chowbent Chapel. Click on the image below to read about Chowbent Chapel and the Rev Brenda Catherall:

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The studded door from the vestry to the chapel

Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship, Dunmurry 2nd August

 

Dunmurry window 2016

A great eagle, with great wings and long pinions,

rich in plumage of many colours,

came to Lebanon.

He took the top of the cedar,

broke off its topmost shoot;

he carried it to a land of trade,

set it in a city of merchants.

Today’s service comes from Dunmurry with a reading given by church member Emma McCrudden (Ezekiel ch.17 v.1-8) and the hymns played by church organist Allen Yarr.

Eagles are frequently found in the Bible and in Christian iconography. They are often found in churches:

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Lectern Ullet Road Church, Liverpool

 

All Souls Eagle

Lectern All Souls’ Church, Belfast

 

Click on the video to see today’s service from Dunmurry

 

Time for a Story: Navigation

This week’s Time for a Story is filmed in First Presbyterian (NS) Church, Banbridge and deals with the question of finding True North. With illustrations of the North Pole from the British Museum and some special music. How do we find our own internal compass to return home to the place where we wish to be?

North Pole 01

Scenes from the North Pole

First communication with the natives of Boothia Felix. Several figures standing outside igloos, mountain in the background with a flag. 1834 Mezzotint. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship Banbridge, 26th July

Banbridge with Methodist church second

Our service today comes from First Presbyterian (NS) Church, Banbridge. The reading is given by Sam Agnew (Mark ch. 4 v.21-34) and John Strain is the organist, playing the organ at Ballee Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church. The hymns are O worship the King, all glorious above (Hymns of Faith and Freedom 21) and God speaks to us in bird and song (Hymns of Faith and Freedom 66).

 

I see an angel waiting to be released

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Michelangelo, the famous Renaissance sculptor, was once encountered chipping away at a large, shapeless block of marble. “What do you see?” someone asked him. Michelangelo replied simply “I see an angel waiting to be released”. (Picture: Ullet Road Church, Liverpool).

 

Click on the above video to see Time for a Story: Neverland which tells the story of a famous statue in Liverpool’s Sefton Park which stands alongside the Palm House there. The video is filmed nearby in the outstanding building of Ullet Road Unitarian Church designed by Thomas and Percy Worthington at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries. The video also features some of the wildlife in the park as well as animation by InkLightning.

Below are some of images taken at the time in the church and in the park that relate to the video.

Sefton Park:

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Ullet Road Church:

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Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship Downpatrick, 12th July

Today’s service is from Downpatrick and deals with the gospel story of Jesus – and Peter – walking on water. What is the meaning of this for faith in our day and age? After the feeding of the five thousand Jesus goes up a mountain to pray while the disciples go out on the lake in a boat. Threatened by a sudden storm Jesus comes out to save them, although at first they are more alarmed by this than anything else. We look at the way God interacted with humanity through water in the Old Testament. The hymns are played by Downpatrick organist Laura Patterson.

Time for a Story: Imagination deals with one of the most famous literary figures of the nineteenth century. Born in Cheshire in 1832 he spent his working life as a Mathematics don in Oxford. Generally known by his pseudonym his creations have a enjoyed a place in the popular imagination ever since.

 

 

Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship from Clough, 5th July

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This Sunday our service comes from Clough. The theme is inspired by Thomas Carlyle’s remark that ‘Wonder is the basis of worship’. In this light we explore the place of singing in our worship (‘O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands hath made’). Dr Anna Ferguson reads Psalm 96 and Alfie McClelland plays the hymns: City of God, how broad and far and Love divine, all loves excelling.

This week’s Time for a Story has the theme of Diligence and tells the story, from India, of Janaka. It can be viewed here:

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by David Steers

Sunday Worship from Ballee 28th June

Roots hold me close; wings set me free

Today’s service comes from Ballee and features a reading sent in by Jonathan Chambers, now of Somerset, which reminds him of Ballee. It is by George Eliot from Daniel Deronda (1876):

A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labours men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbours, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. At five years old, mortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that prejudice in favour of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead.

This links in with Psalm 8 (read for us by Rachel Neill):

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is humankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honour.

and with our hymns played by John Strain which include:

He formed the stars, those heavenly flames,
He counts their numbers, calls their names;
His wisdom’s vast, and knows no bound,
A deep where all our thoughts are drowned.

But all this helps us reflect on our roots, where we come from, what we have achieved in the course of our lives, and our place in the vastness of the universe.

Also this week we uploaded Time for a Story: Saying Please, which has its own Somerset connection:

 

and my own thoughts on churches coming out of lockdown in Northern Ireland:

Posted on by David Steers

Children’s Service Sunday, 21st June

The Sunday School at Clough have this week put together a very special service. At this time of year we would usually be holding our Children’s Day Service where the children of the Sunday School would lead our worship and also receive their prizes for attendance and for work submitted to the denominational Sunday School Exhibition. Since none of that can happen this year the Sunday School at Clough decided to put together their own act of worship, all filmed at home under the current restrictions and together it forms a wonderful service which can be viewed through this link:

Very special thanks go to Leanne Straney whose Idea the service was and who did so much to make the service happen.

Taking part in the service are;

David Rooney – Welcome

Ethan Straney reads Mark 10: 13 – 16

Sophie Ramsey and William Rooney sing ‘My Lighthouse’

Olivia Rooney – Prayer

Ethan Perkins – Prayer of Thanks to God

Poppy Rooney reads 1 John ch.4 v.9.

Zak Straney reads the poem ‘Hold my hand, Lord’

Lexie Rooney – Prayer

Eva Rooney & Anna Rooney – Lord’s Prayer

Abi Straney sings ‘Who is the king of the Jungle?’

Sophie Ramsey sings ‘I believe, I believe’

Hannah Rooney reads John 3: 16 – 17

Sarah Rooney sings ‘For God so loved the world’

Abi Straney – Prayer, ‘Hold my Hand God’

Sunday, 21st June is also Fathers’ Day and in this week’s Time for a Story video Sue Steers gives an account of the history of Fathers’ day:

Posted on by David Steers

Worshipping Together, Sunday, 7th June

 

“There is nothing in all the world so like God as stillness”

Meister Eckhart

Banbridge front

This Sunday’s service comes from Banbridge and a big thank you goes to Ruby Bushby of Banbridge, who did the reading (1 Kings ch.19 v.4-13), John Strain, who played the organ (at Ballee), and Robert and Laura Neill who played the duet ‘Work for the Night is Coming’ on the bagpipes, being filmed overlooking the dramatic coastline of Lecale.

The theme of the service is silence and includes the following quotation from James Martineau:

Silence is in truth the attribute of God; and those who seek him from that side invariably learn that meditation is not the dream but the reality of life; not its illusion but its truth; not its weakness but its strength. .. All great things are born of silence. .. all beneficent and creative power gathers itself together in silence, ere it issues out in might. .. Silence came before creation, and the heavens were spread without a word. Christ was born at dead of night; and though there has been no power like his, ‘He did not strive nor cry, neither was his voice heard in the streets.’ Nowhere can you find any beautiful work, any noble design, any durable endeavour, that was not matured in long and patient silence, ere it spake out in its accomplishment.

And in the Psalms we read:

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honour;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.

(Psalm 62 v.5-8.)

We uploaded two additional videos in the last week both of which deal with animals and the animal kingdom. The first one will definitely appeal to cat-lovers:

This is the story of Faith the Cat, a stray cat that found its way into a church in London during the Second World War. Faith survived a bomb that destroyed the church and rescued her kitten, later being awarded a silver medal. The story also includes two cat poems.

The second video, was uploaded on World Environment Day and features a prayer for the animal kingdom alongside a reading from Matthew ch.6 v.25-33 which accompany some of the marvellous wildlife photographs taken by Graham Bonham. Graham is a keen amateur photographer, some of his pictures have been used in Faith and Freedom Calendars, and these depict a wide variety of animals including a Great Crested Grebe (above), a red panda and a mouse in his conservatory.

Banbridge with Methodist church second

First Presbyterian (NS) Church, Banbridge. Next door is the Methodist Church.