• Fountains Group of Churches Safeguarding Notice

    For details of the Church Services in the Benefice
please use the Calendar, or click on the link below:

    June 2021 Church Services 

    We will be holding short services of Holy Communion (sharing the bread only). We hope you can join us. Face coverings are currently obligatory at services

    Please note that the there will be no Wednesday morning services for the time being.

                                    ~~o~~o~~

    Sunday 20th June - Revd Ian Kitchen will be holding a Zoom Service at 10am. Please contact Ian if you would like to join us - email ian.kitchen@leeds.anglican.org.

    The Service we will be following on Zoom will be available to download here:

    Sunday 20th June Zoom

    A Service to use at home, if not following the Zoom service, will be available to download here:

    Sunday 20th June

     

                                                                ~~o~~o~~

    Private prayer in church

    We now have the go-ahead for people to go into our church buildings for private prayer if they wish to do so.

    The churches in Aldfield, Kirkby Malzeard, Mickley and Sawley are now open for private prayer every day. Grewelthorpe will be open Monday-Friday. Access to Dallowgill and Winksley for prayer can be arranged with the priest in charge. 

    Find Live Streamed Events Nearby

     

    All editions of The Fountain magazine, since April 2020, are now available using the menu at the top of this page.

    Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance from The Church of England - This link contain prayers, readings and links to useful resources at this difficult time. It also contains the updated guidance we are following as we move forward. 

    Please take time to follow the latest updates from the Diocese of Leeds

    Welcome

    The Fountains Benefice lies between Nidderdale and Lower Wensleydale in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the west of the North Yorkshire cathedral city of Ripon. Its name is taken from Fountains Abbey – a former Cistercian monastery dating back to the 12th century. Today, it is one of the largest monastic ruins in the country. 

    The benefice consists of four parishes and eight churches serving their rural communities:

    Kirkby Malzeard – St Andrew's Church
Dallowgill – Chapel of the Resurrection
Mickley – St John the Evangelist Church
Grewelthorpe – St James and the Methodist Church
Fountains: Aldfield – St Lawrence the Martyr
                   Sawley – St Michael & All Angels;            
                   Winksley – St Cuthbert & St Oswald; 
St Mary's Church, within Studley Royal park, holds occasional services

    The Fountains Benefice Ministry Team

    Priest in Charge: Revd Ian Kitchen, who joined us at the end of October 2019. He is based at The Rectory, Ringbeck Road, Kirkby Malzeard HG4 3SL. Email: ian.kitchen@leeds.anglican.org . Tel: 01765 650369.(Day off usually Friday)

    House-for-Duty Associate Priest: Revd Kathy Couchman 07435 882112 kathy.couchman@leeds.anglican.org

    Readers: Mrs Liz Jarvis 01765 620508           Mr Adrian Roberts 01765 650275

    Administrator: Isabelle Munyard Please note new hours: Thurs 9.30 am - 3.30 pm e-mail parishfountains@gmail.com. If you need information about any of the churches, services and events or would like to enquire about a baptism, confirmation, wedding or funeral, please get in touch with Isabelle.

     

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  • Daily Reflections

    Sunday 20th June

    Our reflections this week are looking at some of the ways in which water is used as a symbol in the Bible.

    1 Corinthians 10:1-4
    [The people of Israel, escaping slavery in Egypt] were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
    ______________

    Paul here refers to the people’s escape through the Red Sea, led by God’s pillar of cloud. God provided food and drink for them in various strange ways, and Paul focuses here on a time when Moses was told to strike a rock and water came out for the desperate people (which may remind you of yesterday’s reflection). You can find the story in Exodus 17.
    Although there was a physical rock and actual water came out of it, Paul sees a deeper truth here. The water symbolises life and it drives him to see Christ at work. Although the incident took place about 1500 years before Jesus was born, he knows that the same God is at work, meeting the same human need for rescue and salvation that Jesus would come to deliver in its fullness.
    This water which the Israelites drank, then, takes us back to the ‘wells of salvation’ in our first reflection in this series. Because water is so essential for life, it is the perfect picture of our reliance on God. Sometimes God drove that message home in the history of Israel. Let us try to remember it when we use water at so many moments of our daily lives.
    _____________

    Lord, we cannot live without water, and we cannot live rightly without you. In the end, we cannot live at all without you. Open our eyes to every way in which you are bringing life to us, and help us to trust that you are no less able to reach our gasping souls than you were to bring water from a rock to the gasping people. May we constantly turn to the rock that is Christ, and receive all you want to pour out for us. Amen.

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