July - The Diocese of Manchester

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zyx-CRUX.JUL.11 30/6/11 10:20 am Page 12 12 July 2011 Stewarship : Spending to save (without getting hot under the collar!) IT’S NOT just about money. Stewardship is about how well we use and manage the resources that God has given us. This includes our care of the environment and its raw materials. St John’s Hey opted to pay out more in order to become a ‘greener’ church. RICHARD HAWKINS, Medlock Team Rector, has the story. IN THE autumn of 2009 we received the unwelcome news that our two church boilers would not pass the annual gas inspection again. We could have nursed them on for a year but we grasped the nettle and with the necessary faculty grants we replaced them with two Buderus Bosch 65Kw condensing boilers. It was tough financially as the outlay was considerable but we were advised there would be savings in gas consumption and they were far more environmentally friendly than conventional boilers. The story might have ended there - but a year later we realised the system of blown warm air, heating the church hall, was literally rusting away! The cheapest option would have been to do a ‘like for like’ replacement, but gas consumption was high and the system was never that efficient. The company which installed the boilers was convinced the two boilers heating the church had sufficient capacity, when managed by computer, to heat both church and the adjacent hall. So instead of replacing the boiler we installed a wet system of fan-assisted radiators throughout the hall, thereby reducing from three to two boilers. We did have lengthy discussions with the DAC as the traditional heat loss calculation required a third boiler. Having persuaded them that we would run the risk (and we had space for a third boiler if we were proved wrong) we were granted a faculty. The work was done in early November 2010 and almost immediately we started a prolonged period of snow and sub zero temperatures. The Buderus controls continually monitor outside temperature, inside temperature and desired temperatures set for specific time periods. The system is never ‘off’ or ‘on’ but constantly adjusting the heat curve, automatically raising/lowering rates of burn to optimise efficiency. Throughout a hard winter the hall and church were never below the temperatures set and never fell below the night setback/frost setting of 10 degrees. By constantly holding the temperature at 10 degrees, less energy is used in raising the temperature as the fabric of the building absorbs less of the initial heat. Did the system work? Without doubt it did! Two boilers are now heating better the space previously heated by three. Both hall and church are always at the levels required and in the period from November to February we consumed one-third less gas than the previous equivalent quarter. In the long term we hope to see an even greater saving in gas consumption as the boilers are far more environmentally friendly and we have warmer buildings. A separate story, but of interest to those who have suffered repeated lead thefts, is that we have been granted a faculty to replace some lead with GRP (fibreglass) on our listed building. We, at St John the Baptist, Hey, would be happy to share our experiences with others who may be planning similar work.
zyx-CRUX.JUL.11 30/6/11 10:20 am Page 13 CRUX – Keeping you in touch WHAT IMAGE does the word ‘ordinary’ conjure up for you? According to the Dictionary it describes what is ‘regular, commonplace, customary, not exceptional’. Which is why it’s often struck me as odd that having celebrated Pentecost as we did last month where we rejoice in the coming and gift of the Holy Spirit, we suddenly go back in the Anglican Liturgy to what is called ‘ordinary time’! On the face of it ‘ordinary time’ sounds boring and dull - surely the antithesis of what we always should be as Spirit-empowered people of God. Furthermore, might not the word only serve to confirm many people’s worst impressions that we as Christians, and the faith we represent, are indeed dull, boring and irrelevant? Pointing (By the way, did you know that Bishops are called ‘ordinaries’ not because we are boring - hopefully not anyway! - but because we are charged with the responsibility of creating ordered communities in which everybody can find their place.) When it comes to the word ‘ordinary’ referring to a season of the Church’s year, it is actually meant to convey something that is basic to our humanity. We can only be fully human when we are ‘ordered’, meaning ‘pointing away from ourselves’. Ordered A fresh look at being ordinary from BISHOP CHRIS Our lives are meant in this sense to be ordered towards God and also one another. Understood this way, ordinary time is therefore about a season in which we are pointed towards living more 13 ordered lives and thereby extending the values of the Kingdom. It is no accident that the liturgical colour of ordinary time is green - a colour which represents life and fertility. We talk at this time of year about watching the grass grow. We can’t actually see this happening - yet we certainly know that it does! If nothing much appears to be happening in our lives in this ordinary season, it’s because often the periods of deeply significant growth occur unseen. In reality it is in fact the ordinary and not the special or spectacular that largely determines the quality of our lives. Obsessed In a world obsessed with ‘celebrity’, in which some people are famous just for being famous, as Christians I believe we can learn to value and celebrate ordinariness in ourselves and in others. A friend recently passed on to me this quote: ‘In Christ ordinary people are used to do extraordinary things’. So, this summer, why not take whatever opportunities you can to carry out acts of kindness or work for justice as a means of extending God’s Kingdom? In doing so you may well discover that in turn it will serve to bring about hidden, but essential ongoing growth in your own life too. And don’t forget that when God became human in Jesus he was made ‘ordinary’ for us and embraced us in our ordinariness. What better example could we ask for? The Rt Revd Chris Edmondson is Bishop of Bolton ‘In Christ, ordinary people are used to do extra-ordinary things’
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July - The Diocese of Manchester

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