Feeling festive

If you happen to visit St Luke’s over the August bank holiday weekend, you’d be forgiven for thinking the congregation is on the sparse side. That’s because a lot of St Lukers will be decamping to Northamptonshire for the weekend for the Greenbelt festival.

If you haven’t heard of Greenbelt, it’s a fantastic faith, arts and justice festival, where around 20,000 people gather to listen to great music, learn and debate at talks and seminars, spend time catching up with old friends and new, and chill out in the famous Tiny Tea Tent.

St Luke’s has a long association with Greenbelt. For many years, Greenbelt had its offices in St Luke’s (before we opened up the east aisle of the church to make space for our growing congregation). Many of our members are involved in running and overseeing different parts of the festival. You may even see a few familiar faces on the programme, including our vicar, Dave Tomlinson, who will be speaking on his new book, and leading an All Souls service.

To learn more about our favourite festival, check out the website at www.greenbelt.org.uk.

However, if you’re in London on Sunday 24 August, rest assured that St Luke’s will still be open for business. There’ll be an 11am service as usual, and friendly faces to greet you. The rest of us will see you when we get back!

Vox Holloway commemorates The Great War by celebrating universal harmony

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. St Luke’s community choir, Vox Holloway, will be marking the centenary with a performance on Sunday 20 July – not with a war requiem or medley of popular wartime songs, but by celebrating harmony across the ages.

The 70-strong choir will explore the concept of universal harmony through works by composers from Germany, Austria and England. Entitled “From Harmony”, the programme includes Handel’s Ode For St Cecilia’s Day, Vaughan Williams’ Serenade To Music, and Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai. The choir will be joined by a 20-piece baroque orchestra and acclaimed guest tenor soloist, Simon Walton.

Justin Butcher, founder and artistic director of the choir, says, “We needed a way to commemorate World War I that also reflected the ethos of our choir, which is that music brings people together. What better way than to sing some of the most beautiful music from Germany, Austria and England that celebrates harmony and humanity? As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, ‘Music is the universal language of mankind’. And so, as a way of remembering conflict, we’re celebrating the unifying power of music.”

Founded in 2009, Vox Holloway (“Voice of Holloway”) is a community choir open to all, which performs an eclectic range of classical, ecclesiastical, folk, pop and world music. Its performances have raised more than £60,000 for charities all over the world, including over £10,000 for Hand In Hand for Syria in December 2013.

Tickets for this musical spectacular on 20 July cost £12 (£8 concessions) and are available from http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/from-harmony-tickets-12110487795?aff=es2&rank=1 or on the door. Doors open at 7pm, and the performance begins at 7.30pm. We hope to see you there!

Another successful year for the St Luke’s Nightshelter

Our biggest project each year at St Luke’s is our part in the Islington Churches Cold Weather Shelter. Throughout January-March (the coldest three months of the year), we open our doors each Saturday to offer a bed and meals to homeless people (six other churches in the area cover the rest of the week). Now the dust has settled on the 2014 project, we’re pleased to report it was another successful season. Over 13 Saturday evenings, we hosted 80 homeless guests. As well as food, friendship and a warm, comfortable place to sleep, Nightshelter also offered services such as hairdressing. Activities are another valued part of the experience and this year, guests were able to enjoy three evenings of live music and one evening of dance, participate in a photography project, and have fun at a pizza-making evening. Over 100 volunteers from the church and local area helped to make Nightshelter 2014 run smoothly – without them, the project would be impossible. Church members also donated clothes, toiletries and food. Guests particularly appreciated the new shower cubicle and washroom, which St Luke’s was able to install thanks to fundraising efforts by the church and individual members. The success of Nightshelter is a testament to the hard work and commitment of Dan Northam Jones. Special thanks also goes to Alex Smith, who volunteered at all but one night shift. ‘The shelter would not have been possible without Alex’s dedication,’ says Dan. Plans are already underway for the 2015 Nightshelter, and will begin in earnest after the summer break. Please speak to Dan if you’d like to help out in any way – from supervising shifts, to doing laundry and cooking meals, to raising sponsorship money to keep the project afloat. Thank you!

Comedian Juliet Burton returns to St Luke’s

Here at St Luke’s, one of our favourite stand-up comedians is Juliette Burton. The acclaimed comedy actress and writer performed her Edinburgh show for us back in January, in aid of our Nightshelter for homeless people. And what a night it was!

If you enjoyed that show – or you have yet to sample the delights of Juliette’s docu-comedy style – you now have another chance. This Friday, 27 June at 7.30pm, Juliette will be performing her latest work-in-progress at St Luke’s. She’s currently perfecting a new show called ‘Look At Me’ for this year’s Edinburgh Festival, exploring our relationship with our appearance, and how much we are who we appear to be.

This performance will give Juliette a chance to try out new material on an appreciative audience – and it gives us an insight into how a skilled comedian develops their performances (expect a script in the hand and some experimentation).

Tickets cost just £5 (£2.50 concessions), with proceeds once again going towards St Luke’s Nightshelter. The show is suitable for children aged 12 and over (there may be a few swear words).

To learn more about Juliette and her work, visit www.julietteburton.co.uk.

(St Lukers, if you’re available to help out on the night, running the bar or box office, please get in touch with Pat or Lucy.)

Church Breakfast

This Sunday,15th June, instead of a church lunch there will be a church breakfast from 9.30am - 10.45am. All are welcome, but if possible the St Luke's foodie team would appreciate a thumbs up if you intend to partake - email saintlukeschurchlunch@gmail.com. Come and join us!

Bethlehem Unwrapped documentary and auction at St Luke’s

Back in December, our own Justin Butcher – actor, writer and choirmaster at St Luke’s – launched a major art protest project down the road at St James, Piccadilly.

On 23 December, an 8 metre high Wall installation was built across the courtyard of the historic Christopher Wren church, blocking it from view and ‘unwrapping’ the reality of Bethlehem at Christmas – a city and a people imprisoned by the Separation Wall. Around 30,000 visitors from all over the world added their own graffiti drawings and messages. The Wall became a major collective work of protest art, and drew global media attention.

At the closing ceremony on 5 January, the Wall was transformed into a bridge, a symbol of hope and connection. On 6 January, the Feast of the Epiphany, the Wall was dismantled.

Meanwhile, the festival itself was a major cultural event, including contributions from musicians (Nigel Kennedy), chefs (Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi), comedians (Mark Steel, Jeremy Hardy), speakers (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Jeff Halper), and many more. You can learn more about what happened here: http://bethlehem-unwrapped.org/

This week, on Wednesday 4 June at 7.30pm, you have a chance to see the premiere of a documentary about the Bethlehem Unwrapped project, right here at St Luke’s. There’ll also be an auction of the graffitied Wall panels – a historic snapshot of when the Wall came to London. Light refreshments will be provided by Zaytoun CIC (artisan Palestinian produce).

All proceeds from the event will go to the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem.

A Lot To Look Forward To...

A letter to the church included in the Annual Parish Report for 2014: The solemn benediction of ‘The Notices’ at the end of the service at St Luke’s isn’t to everyone’s liking. Some of us think it goes on a bit too long.

However, this assessment was placed in a whole new light earlier in the year when a visiting church minister on sabbatical from his church said that the notices were the most inspiring part of our service.

That morning there were notices about the sale of fairly traded goods after the service, an invitation to sing in a home for people with dementia, a request for Christmas gifts for the children of prisoners in Holloway Prison, a request for food donations to the food bank, an invitation for newcomers to join a pub group where they could get to know people in the church, and an appeal for volunteers for night shelter.

The visiting minister was flabbergasted to discover that these were overwhelmingly the initiatives of individuals in the church without any central organisation. ‘If things like that were to happen in my church, it would me who would make them happen’, he said.

At St Luke’s we don’t take the view that in order for a church to prosper it requires strong top-down leadership with a single vision to which everyone must subscribe. Our aim is to be a fellowship of enabling, releasing energies and initiatives within the community.

A major piece of work was done by a forward planning group this year, designed to set some direction for the next five years at St Luke’s, and this drew strongly on the research that came from questions we asked everyone to answer in a Sunday service some months ago. We were delighted at the imagination and energy that emerged from the community as a whole, and look forward to seeing how the plan unfolds.

So here’s to plenty more quirky and innovative notices!

Dave Tomlinson & Martin Wroe

Give Aid Direct: a new way to help those in need

When you give to charity, do you worry about how much of your money makes its way to the people who really need it? Do you wish you could give directly to individuals affected by poverty or disaster, so they could have more control over their lives and the resources you give?

Amos Doornbos, a member of St Luke's, has been working in international development and humanitarian aid for over a decade. Last September, he co-launched a groundbreaking new organisation called Give Aid Direct. Using mobile technology, it allows donors to send funds directly to an individual or a project (such as a school or local health worker) in some of the world's poorest communities. This gives the recipient more control over how best to spend that money to improve life for their family or community.

“Give Aid Direct enables person-to-person giving, while providing the dignity of choice to people affected by disasters,” explains Amos. “We believe in the capacity of individuals to make the best decisions for themselves and their families when affected by disasters such as drought, flood, food shortages and the cycle of stresses that come with chronic poverty. We also believe in minimum administration costs and maximum impact, with money going directly to those who need it urgently. Our vision is to make this a reality for 40,000 families over the next four years.”

Visit www.giveaiddirect.com to learn more about this innovative new way of giving, and to view the project and individuals that currently need help.

Photo exhibition and family fun day to raise money for Nightshelter

Every year, St Luke’s participates in the Islington Churches Cold Weather Shelter, opening our doors throughout January-March (the coldest three months of the year), to offer a bed and meals to homeless people. This year’s project was once again a great success, thanks to the hard work of Dan Northam Jones and many volunteers from within the church.

Running Nightshelter costs a lot of money, so St Luke’s has a fundraising event this Saturday, 26 April, 4-7pm, to help generate funds and awareness. The money raised will go towards providing hospitality to our homeless guests, and the facilities needed to do that (such as the new shower).

The centre piece of the afternoon will be a preview exhibition of photographs taken by guests themselves, part of a fascinating project revealing the daily lives of homeless people in London.

There’ll also be a raffle with some great prizes donated by local businesses, live music and entertainment, and family-friendly activities. Plus there’ll be a tea party with sandwiches and cake to keep you fuelled throughout the fun.

Tickets are on sale on the door at £10 each (£5 concessions, children free). We hope to see you this Saturday for a great event, and to raise money for this vital project.

Holy Week & Easter

This year we are very pleased to have Jake Lever's brilliant new large-scale art work as the centrepiece of our Holy Week and Easter celebrations. The Blue and the Dim and the Gold is a mixed-media piece featuring an image of a lone figure in a boat on a gilded lake, dwarfed by a vast landscape of lake, hillside and evening sky. Jake describes the painting as a meditation upon the universal human experience and seeks to awaken spirituality and paths to inner healing, integration and wholeness. During Lent The Blue and the Dim and the Gold has been exhibited in Birmingham Cathedral, so we are very pleased and honoured to welcome it to St Luke's over Easter.

Our services for Holy Week and Easter are as follows:

Maundy Thursday 8pm A bring and share meal with table communion

Good Friday Noon A Meditation focussing particularly on Jake Lever's 'The Blue and the Dim and the Gold' painting and other pieces of art.

Easter Vigil of Fire & Midnight Mass 11.15pm A dramatic experience of darkness and light to welcome Easter Day

Easter Day NB. There will be no 9.15am service on Easter morning 11am A family Eucharist to celebrate Easter