All Saints Newton Heath

Home
United Kingdom
Manchester
All Saints Newton Heath

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from All Saints Newton Heath, Manchester.

For our Safeguarding Policy please see:
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/47923/view/

For Safeguarding information please see:
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/47925/view/

16/01/2026

Sunday 18th January, The Second Sunday of Epiphany
10.00 am Sung Eucharist

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Behold, the Lamb of God

Week by week after Christmas we are presented with people and elements that are integral to Jesus’s ministry, culminating in the events of Holy Week. We witness these as the baptised.
Baptism, this re-orientation towards God, and our being marked out for God’s work, is to the fore again here. We have John, Jesus, Andrew and Simon, who was to become Cephas, described elsewhere as Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church. A look from Jesus is enough.
Andrew makes the introduction and his brother is transformed. Simon becomes Peter, petros, the rock; but the rock that was to deny Christ three times. On such as him the church is built: a person inclined to mess up and fail, just like you and me. What do we think about this, so early in the Jesus story?
In St John’s more “mystical” presentation of John the Baptist and Jesus today we have another insight into both their relationship—over and above being cousins—as well as our relationship with the Word made flesh.
The Evangelists wrote with different purposes to different audiences, impelled by the passing of time and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Our understanding is unique because the Holy Spirit speaks to us as a Church and as individuals. Listen and respond. This Epiphany, and beyond, let’s make our faith manifest.
Fr A

10/01/2026

Sunday 11th January 2026, The Baptism of Christ.
10.00 am Sung Eucharist

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves…” but what about Jesus?

Epiphany seasons: Jesus the infant; Jesus at twelve years old, separated from his parents in the Temple complex; and here he’s thirty or so; next week, similar age, then at Candlemas, a babe in arms again. (We take a break from the Jesus sequence on 25th to celebrate the Conversion of St Paul.)
Does the lectionary sequence, different across years A, B and C, tell us something? For me, each year the readings for the The Baptism of Christ are an early punctuation point in the Christian year when we consider what baptism means, and especially what it means for us, as we reflect on those who support us in baptism, whenever it was, and support us in our formation as human beings. So consider this: why should Jesus seek baptism? After all, we believe Jesus is without sin. Thus, there’s nothing to wash away. Jesus is also the Son of God.
It is essential in our understanding of Jesus, as it appears in all four gospels, each with their different theological slants. We might infer that it is an expression of Jesus’s humanity and a desire, in God, to identify with the human form we share. Also, that in this physical and symbolic gesture we are marked out and made separate and holy as God’s children; unique but united as creatures of the same heavenly Father, mindful of our connections, human and divine
Fr A

Image: from The Baptism of Christ, Giotto, 1305, Scrovigno Chapel, Padua

05/01/2026

Captured today by a PCC member. All Saints looking mighty fine on a crisp January morning.

03/01/2026

Sunday 4th January 2026 The Epiphany (tr)
Sung Eucharist

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown

This is possibly the most famous line across this pair of Shakespeare plays and studies in kingship: Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, scene 1.
The head of our newborn king will be lying easy for a good long time yet. Contrast that with the heads of the two King Herods in Jesus’s life: Herod the Great, at the time of Jesus’s birth, paranoid, jealous and duplicitous; and his weak son, Herod Antipas, outmanoeuvred into serving up the head of John the Baptist on plate— a man whom he had admired—for the sake of honouring a careless promise to a dancing girl.
These Herods were uneasy, insecure people, pushing the limits of their power as puppet kings under Roman puppet masters. They may well have been aware of the essays in kingship found in Isaiah 60.1-12. They were too weak and compromised to adhere to the advice, etched into the memory of Matthew.
The magi (literally ‘possessors of mysterious wisdom’) are not really kings, but they bring ‘kingly’ symbols as gifts, and also are models of wise governance: they seek, they find, and they adapt or moderate their expectations, lessons for us all.
Fr A

27/12/2025

Sunday 28th December 2025, The Innocents
10.00 am Holy Communion, (BCP) (sung)

Image: The Massacre of the Innoncents. Mid 15th Century, St Peter Mancroft, Norwich

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay.

In our own time, the slaughter of innocent lives continues. Millions of children around the world suffer from malnutrition. Countless others are killed in war. Some conflicts, such as those in Ukraine and Gaza, are very familiar to us; others, such as the conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar, are almost forgotten. We sanitize our complicity by using language such as 'collateral damage, whereas, in reality, each dead child represents a life-changing loss. That loss ripples outwards from the unique and irreplaceable life that has been taken, affecting their family, their community and our common humanity. We, too, must refuse to be consoled or to accept easy platitudes. In the face of such loss, we must bring before God our outrage and our heartfelt desire for change.
In all these conflicts, it is the children who suffer most. They are deprived of their homes, their schools, and often their parents and siblings. They lose opportunities for play and, in short, are deprived of their childhood and the security that enables them to grow up in a loving, secure environment.

That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
“Bye bye, lully, lullay.”

Fr A (with acknowledgement RSCM)

22/12/2025

An highly atmospheric all-in-one Crib and Christingle Service last night, with a little bit of Blue Christmas for the longest night: a chance to place a light to represent things heavy on our hearts this year.
Joy too, as we assembled the cast of our temporary Crib scene, with younger members invited to dance and sing to "Come, join the celebration" as they came forward.

20/12/2025

3.30 pm Sunday 21st December
Crib and Christingle Service

The service begins in darkness, as an exhausted Christmas shopper wanders in having seen the church in the distance, and is inspired by their memories of the Christmas Story.
Young people take the readings. There is a mixture of traditional carols and seasonal songs.
There is a quiet space when we can light a candle as a visible symbol of something which may lie heavy on our heart this year.

We gather round the body of the church, surrounding it with the light of our Christingle candles and listen to the Mystery of the Incarnation from St John's Gospel.
We sing "Hark the herald angels" and go on our way with our Christingles, and maybe some chocolate!

20/12/2025

21st December 2025, The Fourth Sunday of Advent
10.00 Parish Sung Eucharist

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Doubting Joseph

We began Year A for readings on Advent Sunday. This means it’s Joseph rather than Mary who is the focus of the Gospel reading today, the Sunday when we light the candle on the Advent Crown traditionally associated with her not him.
Joseph too has clearly been selected by God, but it’s not made easy as doubt is sown initially about the probity of his
fiancee. She had been unfaithful to him, as she was with child and the child wasn’t his, so he would have thought, quite reasonably too. However, the nativity is not about reason: it’s about love from the very beginning of the world.
After having been challenged by the initial knowledge that Mary was pregnant, clearly he passes that test and proves he is a decent man. Then the backfilling of the story begins.
Whichever account of we read how Jesus came to be born, I hope we can be drawn into the mystery and beauty, rather than distracted by the biology.
The mystery is epitomised in four words on Christmas Night, this time from St John:

The word became flesh

O come, let us adore him.
Fr A

17/12/2025

Almost the final push for this. Please come. It's free entry with retiring collection. Raffle, and refreshments including hot chocolate and squirty cream!

13/12/2025

Please join us for this spectacular. Traditional carols, and festive pieces. Thanks to some terrific, genrerous sponsorship we have been able to make this free entry. There is a retiring collection. Please give what you can towards the charitable work of the Choir and All Saints Church. There is also a raffle. Christmas Hampers; bottles of fizz with Holts Brewery vouchers (which can be spent on food or drink, or both).
The Rector is doing a turn.
See you there. Share this widely please!

13/12/2025

The Third Sunday of Advent, 14th December 2025, Gaudete

10.00 am Parish Sung Eucharist
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Poetry and practical advice.

There’s poetry and practical advice across our readings today. The prophet and author we call Isaiah is actually a collection of writers putting things down on papyrus over at least two centuries. What they share is poetry, and there’s a lot of theology which is poetry. One of the ways we can read this is to replace the issues front and centre of their minds with our equivalents today.
Fresh water was a major preoccupation for them. We take fresh water for granted. We just turn on a tap. What are the worries we have which give us stress and get in the way of wholesome relationships with one another; and get in the way of our relationship with God?
The water issue was also present in John the Baptist’s day. Maybe even mores pressing was the ‘existential’ threat of the Roman occupation of what we call the Holy Land. Occupation, and other factors pressing down on us, cause frustration which we may take out on other people, as we project that and our frustration with ourselves onto others. Who are we? I think James alludes to that today.
The solution? Hard though it is when the going is tough, but is not Jesus saying in John 11 that being His disciple is the only identity for us which really matters?
Fr A.

11/12/2025

Something for everybody this Christmas. The Crib and Christingle Service, 3.30 pm Sunday 21st is our gift to the community. Everyone will have candles, as the service starts in darkness.
Christmas is not easy for everyone. To reflect this there is an opportunity to come forward to light another candle as a visual prayer for someting or someone we miss or are worries about. Then we surround the church with our lit candles, and hear about Jesus coming into the world.
Then we sing Hark the Herald Angels sing, and go on our way with our Christingle kits for assemble at home.
Share this widely please!

Address

Manchester
M401LR

Telephone

+441612191807

Website

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when All Saints Newton Heath posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Manchester?