As I write the Eames Commission is due to report on how the Anglican Communion may retain some semblance of unity in the face of major disagreements about the nature of faith and morals – in the present context – particularly with regards to homosexuality. The issue of women bishops will shortly be addressed by General Synod and will also be another source of controversy within the Church of England itself. At a Diocesan level York awaits the appointment of a new Archbishop and influential movements within the national church are making their voices heard on the kind of person they think is required. At a Deanery level we have been informed that our present quota of full time stipendiary clergy is likely to fall from nine to six within two or three years which will inevitably mean further changes in the organisation and administration of our parishes.

At the end of the day decisions will be made, a media frenzy will follow, but quickly move on to more interesting bait. The church is largely “at the edge” in our nation’s and society’s thinking. People of faith (whatever their religion or denomination) are regarded as ‘marginal’ and this applies even in our villages, where the vast majority of people are certainly not interested in the business of the church even if they claim some vague allegiance to exploring their spiritual sides. There is a yawning gap between the institutional church and the felt spiritual needs of many people. For some people this ‘gap’ is simply an excuse not to get involved and pretend they do not have a spiritual quest, thereby quietening the promptings of their consciences. However many others genuinely cannot make any connections between the church they see, albeit from afar, and the spiritual stirrings they sense from within. Today many more of these have not been baptised and have never had any connections with the church. A recent statistic indicated that 85% of the population have never even stepped inside a religious building.

A young woman curate in a moving letter written some weeks ago to the Church Times made a plea to restore a traditional model of ministry, where the priest was to be found operating largely on a one-to-one model. It is this, she argued, that essentially produces the church’s new Christian converts. I empathised with what she was saying because this was the model of ministry with which I was brought up and myself practised faithfully for many years. Even now I am probably more at home with this model but find it is a form of ministry which for quite practical reasons has to be largely restricted to the seriously ill, the dying and counselling in emergency situations.

The yawning gap between the institutional church and the people at large will not begin to be really broken down until most ordinary Christians on a large scale assume their own proper role as the People of God. For centuries the church has been equated with the clergy, with everyone else being regarded as the ‘laity’, the implication being that the laity are the non-professional or inexperienced Christians. In the New Testament, it is the whole Church, including its leaders, who make up the laos or the people of God.

The whole church is called to ministry and service

In the last fifty years there has, thankfully, been a re-discovery of the truth that baptism and confirmation are not only a rites of entry but a commissioning to service.

All the members of God’s people, therefore, are called to serve each other and are especially required to make contact with the world around them.

When did you last really share something of your Christian faith with anyone ?

Ministry is not something that belongs to the clergy, who begrudgingly delegate bits of it to others. Ministry is something which is essentially collaborative, for which all the people of God, laity and clergy together, are responsible. The young woman curate is right in stating that it is the one-to-one which can powerfully move hearts and minds to God. But she is wrong in presuming that this duty essentially belongs to the priest alone. Clergy numbers in the Church in England are dropping sharply at the present time. The clergy are increasingly being seen as the enablers and trainers of the ministry of others, rather than as the people who will do all the ministry by themselves. As the number of clergy declines, and parishes are managed in new ways, Christ’s ministry will continue through the whole People of God.

Whatever the future of the institutional Church two things are clear. The Holy Spirit will continue to move us forward to meet the challenges of a largely unbelieving and secular world and in so doing bestow gifts among all the people of God. For the Church on earth is not a hierarchy of power but a sharing in ministry and service. The loss of either the ordained or non-ordained ministry of the Church damages the whole. Given the immense changes we are experiencing in both society and the Church, Christian ministry in our times requires focussing on support that can make resources available, enabling local leadership and building genuine collaborative relationships. It will be in developing this kind of service that the ministry of the clergy is likely to find its most natural and effective expression.

The Rev. Peter E. Bristow

Cakes, Teas, Tombola, Massive Raffle  and all the usual stalls.

Christmas Bazaar 27^th November in the Village Hall at 2.00 pm. All the usual Stalls and we do hope you will all come along and support this annual event. You never know Santa Claus may pop in again!!

Remembrance Sunday 14^th November. The PCC of All Saints’ Parish Church invite you all to attend the 9.30 am service, we will then process to the War Memorial in the Village Square for the laying of the wreaths.

Poppies will be on sale in Church in early November and we do hope you will buy a poppy and support the work of the Royal British Legion. This is not a charity just involved with the two world wars. Every day they represent more than a dozen ex Service men and women at tribunals so they can receive the War Disablement Pension that they rightly deserve. Every week they spend £1 million to continue their welfare work. Every year the Legion responds to around 300,000 calls for help. Everyone who has served in the British Armed Forces for 7 days or more can ask for their help, as can their dependents.

The Churchyard Many thanks to the wonderful lady who spent hours of her valuable time raking up the cut grass in the churchyard, and as the grass growing season comes to an end renewed thanks to all those who have kept the grass under control this season.

7^th November and 12^th December at 10.00 am. We invite all children to these special services. All the children in the village of Bramham are invited to attend and if you have not had a “flyer” posted through your front door or handed to you at School, please accept this notice as your invitation to join us. We would love to see you. Come along with your friends and all the people in your house on that day, Grannies and Granddads, Mums and Dads, Aunts and Uncles.

Harvest Festival Thank you to everyone who was involved with the decoration of the church for Harvest – as always the Church looked beautiful.

Methodist Service at All Saints’ We were delighted to welcome Bramham Methodist Church to a United Service at the end of September. We are looking forward to more United Services in All Saints’ in the next few months, please check the church calendar for details.

There will be changes in the calendar, so make a point of checking the magazine. We will try to keep the changes to the absolute minimum as we appreciate this can be very annoying.

Annual Group Memorial Service 4.00 pm in All Saints’ Church Bramham.

ADVENT SUNDAY Churches Together United Act of Worship

6.00 pm All Saints’ Church Bramham with instrumentalists from Boston Spa School.

The Annual Guides & Brownies Carol Service 6.00 pm All Saints’ Bramham

November is poppy month, the time of the year when we wear a red poppy in memory of those who sacrificed their lives for us during wars.

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the Armistice on 11th November 1919 to signal the end of World War One. At 11 am on 11th November 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years continuous warfare.

Remembrance Day is on 11th November. It is a special day set aside to remember all those men and women who were killed during the two World Wars and other conflicts. At one time the day was known as Armistice Day and was renamed Remembrance Day after the Second World War.

Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November, which is usually the Sunday nearest to 11th November. Special services are held at war memorials and churches all over Britain. A national ceremony takes place a the cenotaph in Whitehall, London.

Throughout the world the poppy is associated with the remembrance of those who died in order that we may be free, but how many of us are aware of the reason of how and why the poppy became the symbol of remembrance and an integral part of the work of the Royal British Legion.

Flanders is the name of the whole western part of Belgium. It saw some of the most concentrated and bloodiest fighting of the First World War. There was complete devastation. Buildings, roads, trees and natural life simply disappeared. Where once there were homes and farms there was now a sea of mud - a grave for the dead where men still lived and fought. Only one other living thing survived. The Poppy, flowering each year with the coming of the warm weather, brought life, hope, colour and reassurance to those still fighting.Poppies will be on sale in our village.

Thursday 11th November at 11.00 am informally at the War Memorial in the  Village Square. Reading the Names of the Fallen.

After the morning service on Sunday 14th November, at about 10.20 a procession will walk from the church to the War Memorial in the Square where a short service will take place and wreaths placed by village organisations.

We would like to take this opportunity to say “Thank you” to everyone who came along to support our “Open Garden”, held on Bank holiday Monday 30^th August, and to those unable to attend, who kindly gave a donation instead.

It was a most enjoyable afternoon, and helped to raise the sum of £276.00, which will be used for research to help find a cure for the childhood illness called “Progeria”. (this is a rapid ageing disease that affects only children.)

This day was made a success with the help from friends in the village, so a warm “Thanks to you all,” without you it wouldn’t have been such a fun afternoon. Such a shame so many of you villagers have missed seeing our Straw House, maybe next time!!

Our first day back at school established that everyone was delighted to be back (that was just the parents) and most pupils appear to have had a very good summer break.

My holiday was so good I did not find the time to subscribe to the Sept. issue of the magazine. However, everyone is keen to get this term moving including our Parent Support Group.

We have already had a very good AGM with some good ideas suggested for the coming year. The year 6 pupils have been out on their bikes for a day of cycle training and this will eventually enable parents to decide if these pupils are capable of coming to school on a bike.

We have a duty to give our pupils as many opportunities as we can to develop skills and ideas that will help them become better citizens and better school members. The School Council has met already this term and is looking at many suggestions for enhancing school life.

Our Harvest Assembly is open to all the usual supporters of school but this note may be too late for some of you so you will have a surprise parcel from us towards the end of the month.

Although we have made progress with our involvement in Leeds Healthy Schools Standard we have always had a strong ethos of a healthy mind in a healthy body. Our pupils have been taking part in a Walk to School Week and we are very pleased with the efforts many parents and children are making. I hope this can continue but the coming winter weather may put some people off walking to school.

Class 4 will soon be offered the opportunity to go on a residential field week to a centre in the Yorkshire Dales. The week will be an exciting opportunity to take part in activities that will take the children over the moors and underneath them in cave systems with qualified personnel. We hope all of the class will be able to go. Read the newspapers and watch TV and we are told it is too dangerous/risky to get out of bed. How did our generation ever grow up without compensation money from litigation because of “accidents”?

We have begun another year building on the links with our local churches and Wednesday morning assemblies have started well.

Two letters were waiting for us when we came back to school this term. Both letters were from Education Leeds and both letters were congratulating us on our school . One was pleased to see that we have been obtaining some very good results in our national tests this year and the other was from a supply teacher who had written to the Chief Executive at Education Leeds to say what an excellent experience he had had teaching in our school during the Summer Term. Both letters were passed around the staff and shared with parents. What a good start to the term.

Bob Shelton

Work is now underway to complete applications for grants to provide the funding for the alterations at the Village Hall. We would like to raise as much as £100,000 to undertake all the work needed to bring the hall up to a 21^st century facility. We know this is a tall order and we are grateful for all grants and donations. The Committee hopes that 2005 will see the start of work to upgrade the electrical wiring and general facilities in the hall. This might mean that the hall has to close for several weeks but we hope this will be minimal and confined to the holiday periods, when there are fewer users. Notice will be given to those using the hall regularly, and we hope we can avoid clashing with bookings already taken.

It is great to see that more and more people are using the hall for parties and events, although this is usually confined to evenings and weekends. Please remember that the hall is available during the day, especially mornings, for groups or individuals wishing to use it. Bookings can be made by phoning Kath Hardy on 01937 844928.

Saturday nights are probably the most popular evenings and the hall is booked every Saturday through October, November and December. As this goes to press we are preparing for the return of Boccigalupe and the Badboys in October, with all bar profits going to the restoration fund. Many thanks to Keith Robinson for arranging this event.

Tickets will soon go on sale for the Jazz and Soul Bands from Boston Spa, who will be playing on Saturday 20 November, again with bar profits going to the restoration fund and a donation to the bands. Adult tickets will probably be £5, with concessions for students (watch for posters with more details).

Finally the October village hall draw winners were numbers:

55 (£25), 7, 22, 24, 26, 30, 45, 120, 123, 136, 162 (all £5).

Christine Suddaby