In-person services at the church

In-person services at the church

For a trial period, we are meeting for a short service in the church at 3pm on the first Sunday of the month.

October 3rd 2021 - Harvest Thansgiving, Rev Louise Gee (URC)

November 7th 2021 - Remembrance, Rev Richard Byass (Methodist)

December 5th 2021 - Advent, Rev Louise Gee (URC)

We also hope to hold a short service on Christmas Eve:

December 24th 2021 - details to be announced, Rev Richard Byass (Methodist) 

And in the New Year:

All services at 3pm

January 9th 2022 - Covenant Service in the Methodist tradition 

February 6th 2022 - Rev Louise Gee

March 6th 2022

April 3rd 2022

May 1st 2022

Final service: May 29th at 3pm

Details to be confirmed

Harvest Thanksgiving, 3 October 2021

 BURTON JOYCE 

COMMUNITY CHURCH

Harvest Service 

3 October 2021

Prepared by Revd Louise Gee; adapted by Phil Colbourn with prayers and reflection from Christian Aid. 

Hymns: Songs of Fellowship (SoF)

Opening sentences: Psalm 19:1-6

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. 

Hymn SoF 290 Jesus is Lord! 

Prayers 

In silent prayer, give God thanks for autumn and whatever you most enjoy about this season. ‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!’ We are grateful for every breath, conscious that Covid19 reminds us how every breath is precious. Creator God, from the tree of the garden of Eden, to the tree in the city in Revelation, we thank you for your vision of creation healed. Help us be your agents restoring, tending to the beauty of the Earth and healing the nations. In Jesus name, Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer 

Readings: Joel 2: 21-27 and John 4: 31-38

Hymn SoF 585 We plough the fields and scatter

Reflection

It is our Harvest Festival service today, and we are remembering the climate emergency and the risks and dangers it poses for all of us in every part of the world. In Africa, for example, Christian Aid works alongside Women’s Groups. Climate change affects people like Janet and her friends in their local group. In this Women's Group, they work as a team to harvest the fruit of the baobab tree, making juice to sell at market. Using the trees, these women have transformed their lives and the lives of others. 

The baobab tree is remarkable. It is a tree of life: a source of water, food, vitamins, medicine, fibre, shelter and much more. Individual trees can live for a thousand years or more. It has a special place at the heart of African culture and the baobab fruit is a common sight in African markets. It has a light, citrusy taste which makes an excellent refreshing juice. This tree, and its fruit, has made all the difference to Janet and her friends. But the tree is threatened along with other plants and animals by the climate crisis. If temperatures keep rising, these ancient trees may die and people who depend on them become displaced as refugees.

So, this Harvest, Christian Aid are also supporting the Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN) who are on a pilgrimage across the UK to raise awareness forclimate justice. Young people are taking turns walking in relay all the way from the South West of England to Glasgow, to the UN climate talks at COP26, calling for immediate action to stop global warming. 

Climate change has a disproportionate impact on the lives of people in the global south who do not have many resources. The richer nations must step up and act to secure a just future for all.

Hymn SoF 466 Praise, my soul, the king of heaven 

Intercessions

Pray for Christian Aid’s church partners in Africa as they work to encourage conservation farming. Thank God that this needs less work, uses fewer chemicals and produces larger harvests. 

Ask God to help farmers to work together. Pray for communities sharing tools, resources and better techniques. Pray for success as farmers seek fair prices and new markets for their crops. 

Pray for long-term impacts, that profits from pigeon peas, baobab and other crops will pay for nutritious diets for children and for schooling. Pray for investment to give security in future droughts.

Ask God to help Janet and her friends in the Women’s Groups to make a secure living from the fruit of the land.

Pray for COP26, for the preparations & for climate justice

Hymn SoF 405 Now thank we all our God

Final Prayer Let us share the Grace together. Amen

Harvest Thanksgiving - Sunday 18th October 2020

Harvest Thanksgiving

Sunday 18th October 2020

BURTON JOYCE COMMUNITY CHURCH

A short service for use at home 

Sunday 18th October 2020 

Prepared for Burton Joyce Community Church by Phil Colbourn. 

Prayers adapted from the Trussell Trust. 

Spend a short time with God as we share together this time of worship.

WELCOME: it’s our HARVEST THANKSGIVING!

Churches in the village celebrate harvest this Sunday. As Churches Together, we encourage you to mark it with banners, flags, bunting etc. all around the village. Make yourself your own harvest table at home with fruit, flowers, vegetables, agricultural & wild, and then perhaps photograph it and post the photo online.

We begin with a familiar harvest hymn

HYMN: Songs of Fellowship 585. 

We plough the fields and scatter

PRAYER AND PRAISE

Loving God, we praise & thank you for the many ways in which you provide for us: food, family, friendship, housing, health, happiness and ways to use time & talents. We lift to you the ways in which we remain in need of these things. 

God of generosity: May your kingdom come. 

CONFESSION

We lament the suffering in our society at this time: people losing loved ones, health, jobs, & businesses; families struggling to make ends meet. 

Forgive.

We mourn injustices & inequalities, made evident by the pandemic, with which communities & individuals have been burdened for many years. 

Father, forgive.

HYMN: (JMC Crum, 1928)

Hymns & Psalms; Singing the Faith; Rejoice & Sing

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

READING: DEUTERONOMY 16, 9-17 

Festival

REFLECTION: 

By Your touch You call us back to life again

Harvest is about gratitude. 

Harvest is about food & drink. 

Harvest is about the planet. 

Harvest Thanksgiving is traditionally a time for people to come together to celebrate everything the good earth has given. It is not in fact about thanking farmers although, of course, we are grateful to everyone who works to put food on our tables. 

Traditionally, it is the farmers who are giving thanks, grateful and perhaps relieved that the crops have grown and that the fruit of their labours is now safely stored away for the winter.

Harvest is about being grateful for what we have received, what we can now enjoy and what we hope to be able to draw on throughout the coming months. It is the good earth that has provided. It is all gift. 

Like rain, food is a free good. Yes, we do pay to have it delivered, it is not without cost, but all food and drink contains, & is mostly, free gift. Air, sun, soil, rain & photosynthesis are all given. We forget this at our peril but we do forget. 

This is a time to pause and take a breath and remember. 

Our economic systems encourage us to destroy and abuse the natural world, and the atmosphere, but this has to stop. Now.

As Christians we thank God for this good earth, for a harvest safely gathered in. It is a miracle of grace. Everything we have is God’s gift. 

Be thankful.

HYMN: Songs of Fellowship 1234. 

For the fruits of his creation

INTERCESSORY PRAYERS 

We pray for people in our community & beyond who face unemployment, ill-health, isolation & money worries, especially those unable to afford enough to eat. We pray for supportive relationships, practical provision and real hope. 

God of compassion: May your kingdom come.

We say The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father …

HYMN: Songs of Fellowship 75. 

Come, ye thankful people, come

CLOSING PRAYERS 

May the blessing of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit, who gives good without reserve to all, be with us & those we love, now, today and for ever. Amen. 

 

Harvest Thanksgiving

Harvest Thanksgiving

We celebrate Harvest Festival this year on Sunday 18th October 2020. 

Of course, we will not be in the church building but we can all create our own harvest table at home and we can all make donations to the charities we support. 

There is more information about the charities & making donations on the Monthly News page

The five charities we are supporting at harvest this year are:

Emmanuel House - Homeless support, Nottingham

The Friary - Homeless support, West Bridgford

Framework - Homeless, street support & housing, Nottingham

Water Aid - International development

All We Can - International development

 

What's going on?

What's going on?

It's a good question. The world seems to have gone more than slightly mad and here at Burton Joyce Community Church there seems to be so much going on that it is difficult to keep up. Or is it just me? Let's pause for a moment and rewind. What has been going on?

Counting on my fingers:

• 1. The local Methodist circuit (Nottingham East) is merging with Nottingham North to form Nottingham NorthEast. Have I mentioned this before?
• 2. The local United Reformed church is reorganising into two areas Notts South and Notts North. We fall into Notts North.
• 3. The local Anglican church (I know, I know. We're just good friends) has been reorganised into a group of six churches but (big but) they have now appointed a new vicar. Hurray!  
• 4. Several of our long serving members at BJCC have died this year and we need to pause and celebrate their lives & their contribution to the church & to the village over the years
• 5. At our last church meeting we declared a Climate Emergency and agreed to sign up to the Eco Church scheme administered by A Rocha, a Christian environmental charity
• 6. We held our Harvest Festival on Sunday 8th September
• 7. Last month, some of us went to the first session of Seasons of my Soul organised in the Methodist circuit. It was good. We might go again.
• And there's more. Enough for fingers 8, 9 & 10 

 There is a sense here that we are moving forward

We may not know exactly where we are going but we know the general direction. We know, at least, that to move forward you have to put one foot in front of the other and that is what we are doing.  Step by step we are moving on. 

A few specific things coming up:

• Friday September 27th. MacMillan Big coffee morning, 10.30 at BJCC
• Tuesday October 1st. Seasons of my Soul, session 2, 10.30 at St John's, Standhill Road, Carlton
• Sunday October 20th. Final fellowship meal & service, 4/5.30pm at Mapperley Methodist Church
• Saturday October 26th. Ordination & induction of Amanda, the new minister, 3pm at Dales URC Church
• Monday November 4th. Induction of Anna, the new vicar, 7.30pm at St Helen's, Burton Joyce
• Friday November 8th. Farewell service for Peter, the retiring Moderator, 2.30pm at Sherwood URC

So, you see, we are quite busy.
But that's enough for now. Go well.
 
 

 

Harvest at BJCC

Harvest at BJCC

It's harvest time.

Well, it is and it isn't. Out there, in the fields around Burton Joyce, the combines have been at work. What with the exceptionally dry weather and everything, wheat and barley have been cut even earlier than usual this year. The harvest started in July.

However, in the church here at BJCC, our harvest festival is scheduled for October:

Harvest Festival: Sunday 14th October 2018
Sunday worship with a hot lunch after the service

 Are we out of step? 

By October, the harvest will have been well and truly gathered in: apples, plums and pears as well as the cereal crops like wheat and barley and maize. You can check out our Harvest Festival and other events on the Throughout the year page.

We have this poster outside our church this week:

 
Anyway, what does harvest mean anymore in our urban, post-industrial, 24 hour society? 

The Wikipedia entry on harvest contains a reminder that crops can fail. Historically, and even today Geographically, crop failure has meant (means) famine and starvation. Even in our 24 hour, post-industrial, urban society, we are still dependent on the harvest, even if we prefer to pretend that we are beyond all that. Harvest, wherever it takes place, and the subsequent arrangements for the distribution of the crops, underpin our daily or weekly visit to the supermarket. 

Of course, some people, many people, do not enjoy the privileges we have. They do not have what we call 'food security'. Often, they go without. Often, children go hungry. That is why, as a church at BJCC, we support charities like the local Foodbank and Christian Aid.

We have good reason to be thankful: thankful that the crops grow, thankful for (to) the people who plant, watch and gather them in, thankful that someone transports the crops to us, thankful that someone works in our local store. There is so much to be thankful for.

But this year, more than ever, we have been reminded to be thankful for the rain, and the sun, and the good earth without which we would starve.

And remember, Harvest Festival is on Sunday October 14th. See you there!



Footnote:
Here's a relevant blogpost about looking after the soil from the Easton Estate near Stamford in Lincolnshire. And here's a link to Friends of the Earth if you want to learn more about how we can look after the earth.




 

Our Harvest Festival 2017

Harvest Festival at BJCC

This year our service of Harvest Thanksgiving is Sunday 8th October at 10.30am. 

The preacher is Revd Ruth Orton a retired minister from Carlton Main Street Methodist Church and a good friend of BJCC. 

The service will be followed by a Bring and Share lunch.

Our Harvest gifts of food and produce will go to Emmanuel House 
Donations of money will be sent to Water Aid

Join us if you can.