A version of the order of service from our special 150th anniversary service on Trinity Sunday is now online. To view it click here. It is in rich text format and should open in most word processing applications.

Dear Friends,

It is sometimes easier to work backwards in recounting some events than to start way in what seems the distant past. I’m beginning to write this just after a hugely successful Trinity Weekend. We had our May Ball on the Friday and our visit of the Archbishop of Armagh on the Sunday. I think the May Ball was one of our best formals yet. Everybody seemed to be so relaxed and ready to enjoy themselves and it was a real and fitting celebration for a Church. As I said on the night, it is an entirely appropriate thing for a Church to do. However, it didn’t just happen and we are indebted to various people who organised all the proceedings and who gave of their influence, and valuable time and expertise; I have mentioned their names before and they know who they are! I am so glad that so many people felt comfortable being there, not least our oldest parishioner who got special mention on the night; Eva Sythes was born in the year when Glencraig Church was only 58 years old! Thank you to everyone. As you know, the Ball was not a fundraising event, deliberately so. However, we did have Tombola in aid of Clare McBrien’s visit to the slums of Lima in Peru with Service in Mission. It will be an incredible experience for her and she will be away for nine months. It is also a costly venture, hence the Tombola. Thank you to those who donated the wonderful prizes and it’s great to be able to tell you that we raised for Clare £765. Her Mom graciously spoke briefly afterwards to say thank you.

To have the Archbishop in Glencraig for the very first time was a real honour. He even agreed to give the Children’s talk, which not every Bishop would do, and he was also able to stay for our Christian Aid lunch. I thought the Service was really quite special and Ian Mackrell had the choir singing beautifully. I’m sure we all enjoyed the setting of the 23rd Psalm which Howard Goodall composed as the theme to the The Vicar of Dibley television comedy. The Introit and hymns and Anthem were all sung so well and we are so grateful to Ian and the choir for leading us in true praise! We had a great turn out for the lovely lunch in the Church Hall and, again certain very important people are responsible for that. The amount of preparation (by a number of people) and all the running around on the day were just wonderful while we all sat like Lords, rooted to our seats! Thank you to everyone, and if you don’t mind I’ll just refer to them as Hazel Johnston and her gang. Again, we all know who they are. We didn’t want to deprive ourselves too much over our lunch and Howard Hastings had asked me could he bring some wine for the occasion. (I thought to myself, does the Pope have a balcony?). We are very grateful to Howard for providing wine for all! A Grand Total is being counted, but I believe it is looking very promising, even over the £6000 mark. So thank you to everyone for being so generous. I have always felt that Christian Aid is one of the most worthwhile charities to have on our list and I am sure it is the reason why so much of Bishops’ Appeal ends up with them. Perhaps we will arrange another visit from Christian Aid to Glencraig soon! Just before I leave Trinity Weekend, you may have noticed a certain Clergyman sitting in our congregation that you may not have seen before. He ended up sitting at the ‘top table’ at our lunch. He is none other than the Rev. Ray Rennix from Dromara and from the 1st June he is to be our new Assistant Priest. I have asked him to send me some news about himself for this edition of our Parish News! We were desperately saddened and shocked that Brian Parker felt he had to leave us so suddenly. He had been such a loyal and faithful cohort and I was waxing lyrical about him only the Wednesday before at our Easter Vestry. As I said shortly afterwards, I had already started to do some scheming and we are so fortunate to have found someone so able and so willing in such a short time. Not unlike Brian, I knew Ray when he started the whole process of being ordained while I was Diocesan Director of Ordinands. No doubt, he will bring a style of Churchmanship which will suit quite a few in Glencraig and I feel he will fit in here very well. I have often thought over the last while that we should have, some Sunday, a ‘Name Badge’ Sunday. I don’t know how many times people have asked me names of certain individuals who often actually sit beside each other regularly at Church. With the introduction of a new Assistant Priest to Glencraig, this may be a perfect pretext!

Still moving backwards! Trinity Weekend came on the tale end of General Synod! Not many probably even noticed that the Vicar was away on a jaunt to Galway city! I’d rather leave it to the experts to report on all the happenings of Synod, but a highlight was the visit of Mary McAleese, President of Ireland. It was the first time a sitting President has ever addressed the General Synod of the Church of Ireland and she was given a sustained round of applause at the end of her address. It was, genuinely, a momentous occasion.

The organising committee for our 150th year of celebrations has been doing a marvellous job. The Family Fun Day at the end of last April was a tremendous success with thanks due to a lot of people, but especially Maurice Dowds. It was another occasion when the community saw that Glencraig Church is a good place to belong, and it also helped to show to all our own young couples with young children that we really do value them as an important part of our family. I hope you don’t mind if I mention again Andrew Todd who is a graphic designer from Tandem Design in Holywood who put together the posters and handouts for that day and not least, most recently, designed our Order of Service for Trinity Sunday which, I think is a work of art in itself. Thank you to him. There are plenty of copies of that Order of Service if you wish to have one as a keep safe. I hope we’ll be able to send some abroad to folk who, I know, very much appreciate their connection with Glencraig. Please just ask; they are sitting in the Church Porch! The next big event, following the success of the Family Fun Day is the Family Barbecue Party with Geraldo the Magician on Saturday 21st June, 6-9pm. You can’t miss it!

With all the talk of design, please have a look at our website! There is a wonderful 150 year Time Line which was largely put together by Billy Mercer, but has been expertly crafted by Chris Kinnen and Derek for our Website, but you can read Billy’s article about it later in this Parish News! Billy also mentions our new Select Vestry and other appointments made at the Easter Vestry at the beginning of April. I would just like to say how delighted I am to welcome Wendy McBrien as our new people’s Churchwarden.

As you know, we have said before that our 150th year was going to be the year of three bishops! Our own Diocesan Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Harold Miller conducted our Holy Week series in the middle of March which we were so grateful for, we have just had our visit from the Archbishop and a gentle reminder now that on the 21st September, we plan to have a Full Attendance Sunday Service at 11.00am with the new Bishop of Connor, the Rt. Rev. Alan Abernethy. I hope you can keep up with all the goings on this year!

And a last little note! The Select Vestry very kindly suggested that we suspend Evening Services until the autumn in order to help my work schedule. (In recent years we haven’t had Evening Prayer during the summer months of July and August). I am very grateful to them for this and it means that there will be no Evening Services in Glencraig until Sunday 7th September.

Since we are about to enter our summer period, may I wish you all rest and relaxation wherever you may be.

With every blessing and every good wish,

Paul Hewitt

Select Vestry News

In the last Vestry News we were looking forward to an early Easter and the annual meeting of the General Vestry. Both of these events are now behind us and we look forward to our 150th anniversary as a church and, hopefully, the glorious summer months ahead.

The Annual General Vestry meeting was held much earlier than usual on 2 April and was attended by thirty-three members, which together with nine apologies gives us a total of forty-two. This is just about an average attendance for the meeting at Glencraig and is certainly more than in some larger parishes.

At the meeting we had reports from the Vicar, the Honorary Treasurer Jonathan Condell and our two Churchwardens, David and Noreen. On the financial side it was very heartening to hear that our finances show a surplus of about £11 000, due to some extent to a reduction in our contribution to the Diocesan Development Fund where it was found that we had been charged more than required as a result of some miscalculation by the Diocesan Office.

Jonathan has since that meeting resigned as Treasurer, after thirteen years, because of pressure of work which takes him to distant places. We have all very much appreciated Jonathan’s clear and succinct explanation of our finances over the years and wish him well in what we hope are just a few ‘gap years’ away from the Select Vestry. At the meeting he was presented with a gift from the Vestry to mark his efforts on our behalf over a very busy period of financial activity – a new roof on the church, the extension to the Church Hall and of course the major restoration to the church building itself.

As usual at the meeting the various officers and the Select Vestry were nominated an elected for the coming year. As this was also a triennial year, there were also elections for other posts. The full list of those elected is set out below:

  • Vicar’s Churchwarden – David McIlhagger
  • People’s Churchwarden – Wendy McBrien
  • Vicar’s Glebewarden – Richard Holmes
  • People’s Glebewarden – Jack Fraser
  • Parochial Nominators – Jonathan Condell, Hazel Johnston, Billy Mercer and Walter Moore
  • Supplemental Nominators (in this order) – Laurian Duff, Ken Craig, Derek Kinnen and Margaret Metcalfe
  • Diocesan Synodsmen - Hazel Johnston, Derek Kinnen, Walter Moore and Richard Holmes
  • Supplemental Synodsmen (in this order) – Jonathan Condell, David McIlhagger, Joan Carmody and Maurice Dowds
  • Select Vestry – Harry Beale, Irene Davidson, Maurice Dowds, Laurian Duff, Tony Gregg, Phil Houston, Hazel Johnston, Derek Kinnen, Billy Mercer, Noreen Moore, Walter Moore and Jim Starrett

We are delighted that Tony Gregg has been elected as Honorary Treasurer and agreed to take over this role and we wish him well in this new office. Billy Mercer was elected as Honorary Secretary for the incoming year.

Things continue to move on with the development plan for the vicarage site. Most of the trees obstructing the development have been removed and the electricity poles and cables have been taken away. The next stage will be the demolition of the old vicarage building and seeking outline planning permission for the proposed development. At this stage it is not possible to give any indication of the timescale. However, we hope that our aim of two years for completion of a new vicarage is still a practical goal.

It was surprise to everyone when early one Sunday morning, just as the Vicar was about to begin the early Communion service, a gang of workmen appeared, complete with power saws and shredders ready to start work on removing trees and briars to put in a security fence at our boundary with the railway line. All well and good, you might say. But early on a Sunday morning, unannounced! Tony Gregg happened to be down at the church at the time and explained to the workforce that it was not a good idea to raise the decibels around the church on a Sunday. And that saved the day for us. But having said that, the fence looks really well and what is more, much of the undergrowth on our boundary has been cleared up.

By the time this issue of the News reaches you, we will all be able to look back on our celebrations to mark our 150th year. It is hard to know what our predecessors would think of us now in the year of our Lord 2008. What is certain is that they would be impressed by the fact that the church is still standing and what is more is still vibrant and very much alive and thriving. The title of our history up to the year 1998 has the subtitle ‘Still other seed..’ .

It is certain that the ‘other seed’ has fallen on fertile ground and will continue to bear fruit over the next 150 years.

The Church Organ

While we are celebrating our 150th anniversary, the organ in Glencraig is celebrating its 40th year.

It was away back in the early 1960’s when the then organ was on its last legs, or stops! The organ was then housed in what is now the Watson Chapel and the choir in those days sat on either side of the chancel. So, some big decisions had to be made. The result was that the choir moved to where they now sit and the organ was moved to its present site and the pipes went to the west end of the church.

Decisions had to be made about what sort of organ was to replace the old one. The organist at that time was Patrick Freeman and it was through his advice and the urging of Canon George Hill that the decision was made to contract the Lancashire firm of organ makers, Thomas Pendlebury, to design and construct the new organ. Finance was of course needed and the parish came up with the total of about £2500 for the organ. What would one cost nowadays?

Pendlebury organs had been built since the early 1890’s and were well known in churches and chapels throughout the north of England. Thomas Pendlebury himself died in 1933 and the firm was taken over by his son James, and the firm moved to Blackpool in 1952. James, in turn, passed the firm on to his son Stanley who was in charge when our organ was built. When Stanley died in 1988 the Pendlebury organ building company came to an end.

The organ is now beginning to show its age and we are grateful to all of our organists over the years for their tender loving care of the instrument.