Celebrating St Columba’s Day

June 8, 2019 / admin / 2019, News

St Columba’s Day in 2019 fell on a Sunday, 9 June, and as it is also 70 years since the church chose the name of St Columba’s, it seemed an appropriate occasion to mark.

When the Northumberland Square and Howard Street Presbyterian Churches united in 1949, a new name was needed for the church, which continued to meet in the Northumberland Square premises. It was decided to adopt Columba, a 6th century Irish saint, who founded a monastery on the Scottish island of Iona, bringing the Gospel to northern Britain.

Our celebration weekend included an exhibition of the life of the saint and of our church, a quiz, an evening meal and ceilidh, a service of celebration and a buffet lunch.

st columba

Harvest 2012

October 1, 2012 / admin / 2012, News

Caring and Sharing was the theme of a family celebration of harvest festival at St Columba’s Church on 30 September.

Rainbows, Brownies, Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Youth Club, Toddlers and Junior Church were all involved in all-age worship on the Sunday morning, as the colourful service began with a parade of flags and banners from the uniformed organisations.

Gifts of fresh produce and tinned food were brought forwards, to be shared between local homelessness charities Nite Bite and the People’s Kitchen. Offerings were also given for the United Reformed Church’s Commitment for Life campaign in aid of the Christian Aid partner the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees and the World Development Movement.

Children and young people played a large part in the service. In a word search, they found the words have, starve, and share by rearranging the letters of harvest. Katie read the story of the sower, which is found in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 13, which was accompanied by illustrations. Matthew sang a solo “Let us Share”. Another Mathew led prayers for the church and the world, and the young people performed a puppet show to a song about a rich man and a poor man, from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 16.

Our minister, Liz, asked us about our favourite food, and reminded us that by buying fairly traded goods, we could care and share with poor farmers. Shirley reminded us how lucky we were to have a wide choice of food in our country, but we could make a difference by helping those in poorer countries. We watched a short film about Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse’s Turn on the Tap project. Without clean water, crops cannot grow, and people become ill and can die. One in six people in the world lack access to clean water, and many must walk for miles every day even to carry home dirty water. Turn on the Tap was improving water quality in Africa with filters and latrines.

We sang a variety of modern songs and traditional hymns, on a harvest theme. Afterwards, we shared fellowship and coffee in the church hall.

church, festival, harvest, north shields, st columba, united reformed, urc

Easter 2010

April 6, 2010 / admin / 2010

Daffodil Cross

A number of special services were held as part of our Easter celebrations.

On Palm Sunday (28 March), we remembered Jesus’ popularly acclaimed arrival at Jerusalem, marking the start of Holy Week. As the crowds then had waved palm branches, so at St Columba’s, we were given palm leaves woven into the shape of crosses. Our evening worship took to form of songs of praise, with members sharing songs and hymns that were especially meaningful to them.

On Maundy Thursday (1 April), and evening service of tenebrae was held, reflecting on Jesus’ last supper with his disciples at the Passover festival in Jerusalem.

Good Friday (2 April) began with an open-air service in Northumberland Square, organised by Churches Together in North Shields. We were blessed with fine weather, as hundreds gathered for the annual joint service. Revd Liz Edwards introduced the elected Mayor of North Tyneside, Linda Arkley, and Tynemouth MP, Alan Campbell, who both briefly addressed the crowd. Members from St Columba’s and other churches in the town took part in the short service, which this year presented the Good Friday story in song and art. Particularly effective were the rock solo of “There is a Green Hill” sung to the tune of “There is a House in New Orleans”, and the painting of a green hill and two black crosses on a large board, to which was added a wooden cross. Worship continued with a procession of witness around the town centre led by the wooden cross and the band of the Salvation Army. The procession seemed larger this year, after it had been prevented from taking place in 2009. The churches and Sunday schools of North Shields have marched on Good Friday for over a hundred years, with only a few exceptions. This year’s march ended with adult services in four of the town centre churches, and once again “Messy Church” at St Columba’s. The children enjoyed learning about the Easter stories through art and craft, as well as being treated to a puppet show.

Easter Day (4 April) began early with a short Communion service in a semicircle, followed by a fair trade breakfast, and a family service with infant baptism. Our Minister, Revd Liz Blair, spoke about the blessings of new life, both in the form of a new baby in the family, and in relation to the new start that Jesus’ resurrection brings to the world and to each one of us. During the service, we were invited to bring daffodils to the front as part of our prayers for others, and they were arranged onto a wooden cross. Celebrations concluded with an evening Communion.

church, churches together, civic, Easter, march, messy church, north shields, open air service, st columba, united reformed, urc, witness

Annual Church Meeting 2010

April 6, 2010 / admin / 2010

St Columba’s Church held its annual meeting on 30 March 2010.

Thirty-five written reports were received from all aspects of the life of the church, ranging from care of the congregation to learning together to worship in retirement homes. The one thing that stood out was just how active the church was, showing the love of God in North Shields and beyond.

We celebrated two weddings, three baptisms, one dedication, and eleven people were welcomed into church membership. Indeed, total church membership rose to 152 – the highest figure for 8 years!

We continued to work with local primary schools and the other churches in the area. “Messy church”, the fun way to learn about the Christian faith through art and crafts, continued to be enjoyed once a month and we also ran two 10-week Alpha courses, for adults wanting to explore the basics of Christianity. In July, twenty-two youngsters and adults went to the New Wine Christian conference, camping near Newark.

During 2009, the church and church groups raised over £8,000 for other charities, including Christian Aid, St Oswald’s Hospice, UNICEF, the Alzheimer’s Society, the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, Northumbria Healthcare, Bible Society, Macmillan Cancer Care, ME North East, Smile for Life, Nite Bite (a local charity providing a hot meal for homeless people), McKean Rehabilitation Centre in Thailand, and Priateli (a charity helping orphans in Bulgaria). With others, we managed to collect nearly 300 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, ensuring that deprived children in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa were able to open one present at Christmas. Once again, one of our ladies’ groups, HANDS, supported the annual garden fête at Pearey House, in Preston Park, in aid of the Tynemouth Blind Welfare Society.

Our Traidcraft team continued to run the fair trade stall on Sundays and Tuesdays throughout the year, and once again served a fair trade breakfast to early morning worshippers on Easter Sunday.

In 2009, our church-run registered social landlord, the Square Building Trust Ltd, celebrated its 80th anniversary. This was followed, in February 2010 with our award-winning Square Table Lunch Club celebrating its 21st anniversary. During those years, the ladies have served 66,615 lunches to all comers – a marvellous achievement!

The “winter wonderland” flower festival, coinciding with the Victorian Christmas Market weekend, proved a great success, with many eye-catching displays.

All in all, it was a busy year, with a lot of people doing an amazing amount of work in the church and community.

church, north shields, st columba, united reformed, urc

Church Sends Love for Christmas

November 23, 2009 / admin / 2009

Christmas Shoeboxes

St Columba’s has collected 230 boxes of Christmas presents for children in poor countries.

Our church has supported the annual shoebox appeal for 10 years, and 2009 was no exception.

Operation Christmas Child is a project run by British charity Samaritan’s Purse. Last year, over 1.2 million presents, gift-wrapped in shoeboxes, were sent from the UK to children in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, regardless of their background or beliefs.

St Columba’s Church sees its mission in showing the love of God as he is known to us through Jesus Christ. By enabling children in impoverished parts of the world to experience a little of the joy of Christmas, we are able to fulfil part of our mission. The boxes are packed full of such gifts as dolls and cuddly toys, balls, toy cars, coloured pens and paper, combs, toothbrushes and paste, soaps and flannels, sweets, gloves, scarves, sunglasses, and jewellery.

In a service held on Sunday 22 November, the congregation watched a short DVD, showing the work of Operation Christmas Child, and how much these gifts mean to children who in some cases have never had any presents before.

Junior Church Coordinator, Mrs Shirley McKay, spoke of the huge difference between our world in North East England, where everything is available to us from supermarkets on our doorstep to running water in the home, and other parts of the world where unavailability is the daily reality.

Next week, the boxes will be taken to the local collection point in Byker, before being loaded onto lorries for the long trip across so many countries.

In the same week, the church had raised over £1,000 at the Christmas Coffee Morning organised by its ladies’ group, HANDS, for children’s charities Smile for Life and ME North East; and its associated Scout Group, the 4th Tynemouth (Congers), had raised £265 at a coffee evening for Children in Need.

Also in the morning service, some of the church’s children and young people performed a puppet show, with the characters miming to the song “Reach out to God”.

church, north shields, operation christmas child, presents, samaritans purse, shoeboxes, st columba, united reformed church, urc

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