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Saturday, September 26, 2015

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Thursday, September 17, 2015

City of Benares 17 September 1940


September 17 is the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the City of Benares and the death (in the morning of the next day) of Michael Rennie, son of the Vicar of St Jude's.

The Mersyside Maritime Museum currently has a wonderful online exhibition about the story and a blog entry recording the author's visit to St Jude's.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

St Jude's: A Vision for the Future (click on image)

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A Christian presence in every online community

Underneath the logo on the Church of England website is the tagline “a Christian presence in every community”. And while this is seen through many churches up and down the country on a daily basis - we often neglect one community.
The online community. 
Before going any further, there are a few myths we need to bust:
First, social media isn’t a fad. 83% of UK adults now go online and 66% of those online adults have a social networking profile such as Facebook or Twitter. It’s not just for young people either - one of the fastest growing groups on social media is the over 50’s and those aged 65-74 are almost twice as likely to use a smartphone now compared to 2012. 
Secondly, while it does take a certain amount of time and effort, social media with a good strategy and framework behind it doesn’t have to take up all your time. It’s more about quality than quantity. 
With such high numbers of people on social media, people are turning to it to find jobs (some jobs are now only advertised online, including Church of England jobs shared through Twitter and LinkedIn), to share major life events, and to follow the news - websites like Twitter are now reporting before before the mainstream media. 
After major incidents in the UK and around the world, the Church of England has begun to respond via social media with prayer, recognising people’s need to ‘light a candle’ and publicly show their support. Most recently, prayers for the attacks in Tunisia reached more than 100,000 people. 
In the same way that people are turning to social media for news, your church’s social media activity has become the new church noticeboard or magazine. For some, social media is the first place they will look to find out what kind of church you are. It’s the perfect place to let your church’s personality shine through and make people want to be a part of it.
The power of social media is astounding, with stories regularly making the news about organ donors or long lost relatives found through Facebook and most notably the ALS (motor neurone disease) ice bucket challenge last year which raised over a $100 million in the space of a few months. 
A little closer to home, social media can have a real impact: one church uses social media to find out about needs in their community for which they can offer support; another helps to boost messages from local foodbanks or charities. 
As numbers on social media rise, it’s important that the church is there too, to offer alternative ways to seek a relationship with God, to be there for those who might use social media to ask for help, and to spread the good news of Jesus Christ - as well as to be part of the everyday conversations happening online. 
There is a whole new community of people who may only be reached through social media. This is our opportunity to be the church online, perhaps through live-streaming of church services (the new app from Twitter called ‘Periscope’ is a great tool churches can use for this) or through other innovative means. 
Recent campaigns from the Church of England include @OurCofE, a Twitter account which follows the life of a different CofE member each week, revealing the breadth of the Church of England and #ChristmasMeans/#EasterMeans, a hashtag which people used in tweets to talk about what Christmas/Easter meant to them which reached more than 30 million people around the world. 
It’s not a question of if your church should be on social media, but how is your church going to make a difference through social media - and when?
Take a look at the Church of England on social media:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/c_of_e
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thechurchofengland
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/churchofengland/
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/ArchbishopsCouncil
 Talitha Proud – Digital Media Officer, Archbishops’ Council
Published in Outlook - The magazine of the Diocese of Canterbury:

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Sunday, September 13, 2015

László Moholy-Nagy

László Moholy-Nagy by Lucia Moholy c1925
An interesting entry in the St Jude’s Register of Baptisms records the christening in March 1937 of Claudia, the daughter of the Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy.  

Originally László Weisz, her father changed his name to Nagy, that of his mother’s Christian lawyer, after his Jewish father abandoned the family.  He later added Moholy after Mohol the town in which he grew up.  After serving in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War he studied art in Budapest, and in 1923 became an instructor at the Bauhaus.  When the Nazis came to power he left Germany first for Amsterdam, and then in 1935 for London where he lived in the ISOKON building in Belsize Park, before moving to Farm Walk in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

While trying to establish an English version of the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy worked as a designer for Simpson's of Piccadilly and London Transport. He was commissioned by John Betjeman, the assistant editor of the Architectural Review, to photograph contemporary architecture, and published his own documentary photography studies: Street Markets in London and Eton Portrait. He made a documentary film, Life of the Lobster, and special effects for the director Alexander Korda.

Although a supporter of the short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, and a habitué of extreme left wing circles,  Moholy-Nagy was never a member of the Communist Party.  In 1918 he had joined the Hungarian Reformed Church and in London was known to the comrades as ‘Holy Mahogany’, perhaps because of his attendance at St Jude’s.

The family moved to the United States in 1937 where László established himself as one of the major artists of his period with works today in many of the world's leading galleries. He died in 1946. In Budapest in 2006 the Hungarian University of Arts and Design was renamed the Moholy-Nagy University.

Claudia Moholy-Nagy, baptized at St Jude’s on 21st March 1937, died in 1971.





Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Monday, September 07, 2015

Mission Action Planning


Mission Action Planning

On Saturday 12 September there will be a short 'workshop' to reflect on the future direction of the church and the preparation of a mission action plan. 

All PCC members are committed to attending, as are the junior church leaders, but the meeting is open to all.  It would be particularly good to have representatives of the different 'rotas': readers, intercessors, servers, flower arrangers, church minders, sidesmen.  


The meeting will be led by the Reverend Neil Evans, Director of Training and Development for the Diocese and will run from 1000 to 1300 with the hope that people will bring a sandwich and stay for lunchtime.  The venue is the Vicarage Rooms.  


Please let the vicar know if you are able to come.

City of Benares Memorial Service