Let The Light Shine Through
Glass Doors in memory of the Man of Glass
Monk Bretton Methodist Chapel has now completed the final stage of its redevelopment with a new entrance. Through a bequest from the family of Stanley Race, new glass doors for the main entrance are now in place with a beautiful stone surround enhancing their white aluminium framework.
Light now floods into the foyer, creating a greater sense of space and welcome whilst the illuminated mural in the entry can now be clearly seen from the street by passers-by, with its own invitation.
From within, as we look out into High Street with its bungalows and busy road, the open view engages our attention and challenges us also to our mission within our community.
Stanley Race:
Stanley rejoiced in a living faith and served the people of Monk Bretton through his great faithfulness to his chapel (where he declined high office) and through his role as Chairman of Redfearn National Glass. He chose to live throughout his life in the community where he worked and alongside the workforce he was responsible for.
There is, of course, a memorial to Stanley in every community in our land for it was he who suggested and initiated the provision of 'bottle-banks' for recycling glass – a man of vision. The first two were sited in Barnsley and in Oxford, as a trial. It was noted that one filled mainly with wine bottles, the other with beer bottles – no prizes for guessing which! But it is an indication of Stanley's influence at a national level in the UK Glass industry.
It is therefore fitting that the entrance to the place where he worshiped and which continues to be a lively place of church and community activity should now be entered through doors of glass given in his memory.
So let us learn how to serve
and in our lives enthrone him,
each others needs to prefer,
for it is Christ we're serving. (StF 272)
Registered Charity no. 1135240
circuitoffice@btconnect.com
01226 321522
Barnsley Methodist Circuit
c/o Emmanuel Methodist Church
Huddersfield Road
Barnsley
S75 1DT