The Grand Scheme

Let’s try to raise a Grand for St Luke’s and have a whole lot of fun doing it! After an 8-year gap, 2023 is the year to bring back The Grand Scheme

EVENTS PLANNED (with more to be announced, check back regularly)

• 18-Feb | The Food of Love: Concert of Music & Poetry

• 04-Mar | Sacred & Profane: Writing Workshop

• 08-Mar | Menopause Matters

• 11-Mar | Film Night: Boyhood

• 11-Mar | Bigger Birding

• 17-Mar | Salsa Party

• 18-Mar | Easy Peasy Birding

• 29-Mar | Silver Hallmarking

• 31-Mar | Games Evening

• 19-Apr | Local History Talk

• Date TBC | Climate Fresk

THE FOOD OF LOVE

A Valentine’s cocktail of love songs, music and poetry from Greensleeves to Gershwin performed by Justin Butcher, Caroline Faber & Daniel Zappi.

Songs by Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, John Dowland, George Gershwin, Paul Simon & Hank Williams. Arranged by Harvey Brough (of the Wallbangers).
Click here for the flyer.

Date: Saturday 18 February
Time: 8pm (doors open at 7.30pm)
Location: St Luke’s Church
Tickets: £10 available here

SACRED & PROFANE, A WRITING WORKSHOP

Co-hosted by the prize-winning poet Jenny Mitchell and Martin Wroe.

Anyone interested in writing is welcome to join us as we explore ‘how poetry can reimagine traditional ideas of the sacred and profane’. 
Email for more info - martinwroe@mac.com

Beginning at 10, the day will be conversational and informal and finish up with a reading at 3 where people are invited to share their work - and Jenny and I will read from our poems. Here's the flyer. 

Date: Saturday 4 March
Time: 10am – 4pm
Location: St Luke’s Church
Tickets: £8 - £15 available here

MENOPAUSE MATTERS

Are you going through the (peri)menopause? Can you see menopause on the horizon and are wondering what to expect? Or have you come through the other side and want to reflect on your experience and share your wisdom? Then this event is for you.

Learn what the menopause really is, options for dealing with symptoms (medical solutions, complementary therapies and lifestyle), how to protect your future health, and more. It will also be a safe space for women to share their experiences and swap information about what they’ve found helpful.

You’ll receive a free PDF copy of the book First Steps Through The Menopause by Cath Francis after the session.

This is a female-only event. However, if partners or family members want to learn how to support the menopausal woman in their life, PDF or paperback copies of the book can be purchased for £5 (all money goes to St Luke’s Grand Scheme) – speak to Cath.

Joy Hinson is a retired professor and research scientist specialising in endocrinology (hormones).
Cath Francis is a magazine journalist, health writer and author.

Date: Wednesday 8 March (International Women’s Day!)
Time: 7pm (TBC)
Location: St Luke’s Small Hall
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

FILM NIGHT – BOYHOOD

Filmed from 2002 to 2013, Boyhood depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans Jr. from ages six to eighteen as he grows up with divorced parents. Highly acclaimed and with a host of nominations and awards.
Drinks and Nibbles provided.

Date: Saturday 11 March
Time: 7pm (TBC)
Location: St Luke’s Small Hall
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

2 BIRDWATCHING WALKS

With Andy Harrison
Bad Birdwatching Rules apply - if there's nothing to see, we get bored and/or it's wet we’ll adjourn to the pub.

Bigger Birding
Bring binoculars and sandwiches.
(Binoculars for hire, sandwiches, snacks available at reserve centre)
N.B. the £10 ticket fee for this is the donation to St Luke’s for Andy’s expert guidance and facilitating.
Participants will need to pay their train fare and £6 entry to the RSPB Reserve.
Date: Saturday 11 March
Time: 11am – 3pm (approx.)
Location: Meet Finsbury Park Station - rear entrance outside M&S at 9.15 (Blackhorse Road, Barking, train arrives Purfleet at 10.36). Or people make their own way to Rainham Marshes.
All meet in Rainham Marshes RSPB reserve visitor centre at 11.15am.
Entry free for RSPB members, £6 adults.
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

Easy Peasy Birding
Bring packed lunch.
Bring binoculars.
Date: Saturday 18 March
Time: 11am – 3pm
Location: Meet Oxford Road entrance to Finsbury Park 11am. Check the park then stroll to and around Woodberry Down reserve
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

SILVER HALLMARKS

What are they and what do they do?

If you have ever wondered what Hallmarks are, come along and learn all about them.
Bring along any silver item that you would like to learn more about.
Norman Willson will lead us through an evening of discovery with a glass of wine and a magnifying glass.
Date: Wednesday 29 March
Time: Evening
Location: TBC – St Luke’s or nearby
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

CLIMATE FRESK

St Luke's is Going Green – Are you?
Play Climate Fresk and be inspired, consoled and informed about the reality, dangers and demands of climate change.
This is a collaborative workshop with a card game that teaches all the causes and effects of global warming, directly from the UN IPCC scientific reports. The team must layout out the concepts of climate change in sequence of cause and effect, with help from the descriptions on the cards, the pooled knowledge of the group, and the trained Fresk facilitator (if you really get stuck), followed by a discussion of what this means for us, personally and socially.
Facilitated by EcoCounts volunteer Adam Hardy.

Halfway through we will break for a supper of home-made soup and bread.

Date: We’re currently working out the best date and time for the people who have signed up
Location: hosted in the Cagnoni Kitchen in Penn Road
Numbers are limited so please email pccsecretary@saintlukeschurch.org.uk asap to secure your place and be sent full details.
Tickets: £10

GAMES NIGHT
An evening of “Parlour Games” facilitated by Stef and Bernadette, hosted by Adrian and Bridget. Maybe “the Colander Game”, maybe “Guests at our Party”, maybe Charades – come along and find out!

Date: Friday 31 March
Time: 7pm
Location: Adrian & Bridget’s (Hillmarton Road)
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

LOCAL HISTORY TALK
How did St Luke’s church come to be? What is its shared history with the neighbouring parish of St Georges? How did Islington and West Holloway in particular develop over the centuries from open farmland to the streets we know today?
Caroline Jackson and Stefano Cagnoni can tell you all this and more…

Date: Wednesday 19 April
Time: 7pm
Location: St Luke’s Small Hall
Tickets: £10 buy at church on Sunday or email to reserve your place

BACKGROUND OF THE GRAND SCHEME
What is it?
An opportunity to combine fundraising and the good people of St Luke’s getting together in small groups for social events.

How does it work?
Individual members of the community offer to organise and host an event (in the church, in their home, in whatever location is appropriate). Tickets are sold for the events and the money goes to St Luke’s.

What sort of events?
Whatever you are inspired to organise – do you have a skill to share? A fun activity to facilitate? Hospitality to offer? In the past we have had things like;

• Dinner Parties

• A Bird Watching Walk

• Local History Talk

• Afternoon Tea

• Film session in the Small Hall (both interactive with singing and popcorn or more cerebral with discussions afterwards)

• Crochet lessons

• Sunday Lunch

• Organised Sing-around

• Games Night (charades, board games)

How do I get involved?
Offer to host an event and, more importantly, buy tickets to attend events.

What you do

• Define your event

• How many attendees are invited

• What price the tickets should be

• The date

• The location (if you want it to be at St Luke’s, we’ll need to liaise with Federico to check availability)

What we do

• Co-ordinate all the events

• Sell tickets

• Liaise between host and attendees

• Publicise and support

When is it happening?
Planning has already begun and the aim is to schedule events throughout February and probably early March.

Call to Action
Email pccsecretary@saintlukeschurch.org.uk with your suggestions. We are happy to discuss ideas if you don’t have a firm proposal or want a sounding board before you commit.

Join in and support The Scheme.
(It will be Grand.)

The Rough Mark Performance

The Rough Mark Performance - Friday 14 October

London première with the first live performance of the whole of the Gospel According to St Mark in a new translation by the respected biblical scholar, the Rev’d Canon Professor Richard Burridge. It will also be simultaneously live-streamed.

Starring Justin Butcher as ‘Mark the Narrator’ and Andy Harrison as ‘All the Other Voices’, with author Richard Burridge reading the words of Jesus.

The performance is available to view here.

Please make a donation (£10 minimum is suggested or whatever you want to give) towards the costs of the performance on the St Luke’s Church giving page and please remember to mark it as for The Rough Mark, even if you do not wish to provide your name.

Lyrical - Wednesday 19 October

UNPLUGGED TUNES & WIRED UP POEMS

Lyrical, our periodic mellow evening of lo-fi music and hi-fi poetry, returns to St Luke’s on the evening of Wednesday October 19th.

Poets this time out include Jenny Mitchell, Rhi Roberts and Martin Wroe while music comes from Luke Sital-Singh, Loa (featuring Rick Leigh of this parish and Genevieve Dawson) and Eliza Oakes.

More information and tickets here.

Matt Smith 60th Birthday Party

RSVP to matthewevansmith@hotmail.co.uk

Sunday Morning Talks on Catch Up

Missed a Sunday talk in the last few weeks, here’s a sample of some of the most recent. You can read the text or (usually) listen to the audio on our Talks pages.

Rev John MacKenzie on siblings, adoption and family… and how The Lords Prayer is  a prayer for us to pray in community. Sarah Roweberry with Ten Thoughts About Church… on leaving St Luke’s After Ten Years. Martin Wroe on how our relationship to church is changing post-pandemic and ‘Why Do We Keep Meeting Like This?’ Rhian Roberts with a playlist of mountains that inspire us…and how 'St Luke’s, West Holloway is my meeting house’. And Rev Lizzie Campbell on rethinking the biblical metaphor of sheep and herd…and what the Good Shepherd is always saying to us.

In September and October we have some guest speakers taking part at St Luke’s including: Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson, authors of 'At the Gates:

Disability, Justice and the Churches’; Charlie Bell author of 'Queer Holiness: The Gift of LGBTQI People to the Church’ and Rev Peter Farley-Moore, Archdeacon of Hackney.

Notice of a petition for a faculty

St Lukes would like to repair stonework on the West side, repair the roof and add solar PV panels

The Petition is available to view here

If you would like to see details, please click the following:

Overview

Condition Report

PV Panel Quote

Stonework Repair Schedule

Livestream Discussion, Tues 26 April 7pm

On Tuesday 26 April at 7pm we're holding an open meeting to discuss live-streaming. It's open to as many people who wish to join, the meeting will be held on zoom, chaired by Joy with notes taken and circulated.

At present we have an arrangement in place which allows for alternative filming of the 9.15am and 11.00am services. This will be reviewed by the PCC in June. There have been a number of technical issues with live-streaming of the 9.15am service, which is why the open meeting is set for late April, to allow for these issues to be resolved and a fairer assessment of the 9.15am livestream.

We recognise that within the congregation there continues to be polar opposite views: those who feel uncomfortable with live-streaming and would like it to cease and those who appreciate being able to join services remotely. There are also people who do not hold strong views either way, whilst being sympathetic to those who do.

The previous open meeting in February was designed for people to speak and to listen. However, towards the end the participants expressed a desire to be part of finding a solution. This second meeting in April will focus on finding a solution that hopefully can be recommended to the PCC.

Zoom Meeting ID: 6035065548 / Password: Francis

Getting to know you: Rev Lizzie Campbell

Meet Lizzie, curate at St Luke’s

Last summer, St Luke’s welcomed a new curate, Rev Lizzie Campbell. A curate is like an apprentice vicar. After being ordained as a deacon (being ‘priested’ generally comes a year later), a curate usually spends three years serving in a parish, while learning the ins and outs of running a church. After that, they can become a vicar at their own church. We’re delighted Lizzie has joined us for her curacy. Now it’s time to go behind the clerical collar and get to know her better…

Hi, Lizzie. How have you settled in at St Luke’s?

Really well. Everyone has been super welcoming and I’ve had lots of lovely dinner invitations. I’ve lived in London before, but I did my theological training in Cambridge, so it’s been good to be back, catching up with old friends and making new ones. My social life has exploded!

Tell us about your faith journey…

I grew up Roman Catholic, but I’d often sneak a book into the pews and read Harry Potter instead of listening. By sixth form, I was a staunch atheist. I went to university to study physics, and there my sense of the awesomeness of the universe grew into philosophical enquiry. I also joined a choir, sometimes leading evensong in a church. Initially, I fell in love with the music, but my interest in spirituality grew. Perhaps my search initially brought me to Christianity because it was familiar, but over time I learned it really is the faith for me. Jesus has a lot to do with that – the idea of being both human and divine, and of God being very close. I’m also interested in other faiths and have recently finished a Masters degree in philosophy of religion and theology, looking at aspects of neo-paganism.

How did you end up training for ministry?

After my physics degree, I worked as a software developer for five months – and hated it. I got a job at a Catholic retreat centre in the Lake District, and while there, I started thinking about long-term ministry, but I didn’t know what that would look like. I joined a Church of England Ministry Experience Scheme internship in Stepney for a year, and ended up staying for two. I was involved in all aspects of church life – preaching, prayers, toddler and youth groups, Messy Church, visiting parishioners. It was an intense and emotionally taxing two years, and by the end, I felt my calling was to the priesthood. However, the discernment and selection process is long and gives you time to explore your calling and be sure it’s the right path. Eventually, I set off for Westcott House in Cambridge to study for a BA in Theology and Practical Theology, followed by my MA.

What spiritual influences did you pick up along the way?

I enjoy the writings of the medieval women mystics – Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila. They were real trailblazers. Contemporary writers I admire include Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sara Miles.

Both writers who are appreciated at St Luke’s. So how did you end up joining us here in Holloway?

I considered going back to Stoke-on-Trent, where I grew up, but my Diocesan Director of Ordination suggested St Luke’s might be a good match. I visited and met your vicar John, and it felt like the right place for me. St Luke’s has quickly become home – I feel able to relax and be myself. John is a great teacher – we have a laugh and I’m not afraid to make mistakes. I feel very welcome.

That’s good to hear. What else can we, as St Lukers, do to support you in your curacy?

Don’t be afraid to share your expertise with me – I have a lot to learn and I’m very open to advice and guidance. I’m learning a lot about presentation from the actors and musicians here. I’m keen to get to know everyone and pub trips are welcome, but please don’t be offended if I turn down invitations – I’m sometimes a little overwhelmed with offers!

You’re in your late 20s – what do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of going into the priesthood at a young age?

On the plus side, I’m enthusiastic about everything – it’s all fresh and exciting, and I’m keen to get stuck into everything. I have a long time to grow into the role, and for the young people of the parish, I’m not so far from their age that they won’t want to talk to me. On the down-side, I’m still growing as a person and there are gaps in my life experience, although I like to think I have empathy even if I don’t have experience. It’s good to have teams that are diverse. John and I have different experiences and I think that makes us a stronger team.

What do you hope to learn during your curacy, what would you like to contribute to St Luke’s, and where do you see your ministry taking you in the future?

I hope that during my time at St Luke’s, I’ll learn to run a parish well, and pick up a lot from the skills and creativity of the people here. I want to work hard on bringing back youth events and introducing a new generation of young people to St Luke’s. I also want to help bring a return to a community social life after lockdown. As for the long term, I’m not thinking too much about it. I’ll see where God leads, but I’m interested in chaplaincy in hospitals and hospices, or in universities, so that may be in my future.

When you’re not running the youth club or leading services, how do you enjoy your time off?

I’m a guitarist, playing bluegrass and folk music. I do sessions and play in bands, perform at bluegrass festivals, and have toured with my friend, folk musician Ciaran Algar. I love in-line skating [rollerblading] and join the LFNS [London Friday Night Skate, a mass skate through the streets] when I can. I also enjoy running, hanging out with friends, visiting museums, going to concerts and all that London has to offer.

QUICK FIRE:

Windsurfing or walk in the woods? Walk in the woods.

Lark or night owl? Lark.

Tea or coffee? Coffee, milk no sugar.

Winter or summer? Autumn. I love the colours of the season, and all the cosying up and celebrating. Plus it’s my birthday season.

Top takeaway? Indian.

Favourite holiday? The Solomon Islands. During my training, I spent six weeks with the Melanesian Brotherhood. It was remote and gorgeous, with no home comforts or WiFi, and I loved it.

Favourite book? I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith. It’s a nostalgic story set in a rose-tinted time, and the characters are magical.

What animal would you like to be? A Labrador, so I could spend time with people, eat a lot and be happy!

Interview: Cath Francis
Photo: Clemency Flitter

LYRICAL - An Evening of Unplugged Songs And Wired-Up Poetry

Eventbrite Tickets - Search Lyrical Poetry

LYRICAL

Polly Gibbons

Zena Kazeme

Deborah Boateng & Freya Johnson

Rhian Roberts

Martin Wroe

(…with maybe another guest or two)

7.30pm Friday February 11th

St Luke’s Church
Hillmarton Road
London N7 9JE

St Luke's 11am Service Broadcast

Dear All, 

The PCC had a meeting on Wednesday 26 January 2022 and has agreed that in order to both create camera free services at 11am and ensure a provision of Sunday morning services for those unable to attend in person, livestreaming will alternate between the 9.15am and 11am services.

Summary of services up to the next PCC meeting: 

Sunday 30th January 11am service will be livestreamed.

Sunday 6th Feb 9.15 service will be livestreamed (not the 11am)

Sunday 13th Feb 11am service livestreamed

Sunday 20th Feb 9.15 service livestreamed

Sunday 27th Feb 11am service livestreamed

The services can be accessed via the St Luke’s Church website 

These arrangements will be in place until reviewed at the next PCC meeting on 2 March 2022.