vicars-letter

From the Vicar_May 2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 16:23:52 +0100

Dear Friends,

A question I keep asking myself is, "Is my faith making a difference to my life?" If so, how is it affecting my life? I think it's important for me to keep asking myself those questions, especially if I am supposed to be encouraging others in their faith. Recently I asked some people at a small service what difference their faith made to their lives. One said that it gave her purpose in life; another, that it gave her comfort. So what about Easter and then the Ascension and Pentecost? Do these festivals in the Christian calendar have meaning for us and a bearing on our lives?

Peter Smith spoke powerfully on Easter Day; you can read his sermon on our Church website. Easter is surely about God bringing hope out of a hopeless situation, God declaring that He is in charge despite everything, and that He acts. We desperately need a sense of that, don't we, in our own lives and in our world! And the Ascension and Pentecost some weeks later? Jesus' mission completed triumphantly and then God's representative, the Holy Spirit, coming to be with us instead of Jesus. I get huge strength from finding God with me in my day to day life, seeing signs of him at work in surprising ways, and from God's assurance that He is in charge and will bring good through all the whirligig of life.

Best wishes to you as you perhaps also consider what effect the Christian faith has on your life - if you have a faith!

Chris

Verse of the Month:
"He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree [i.e. cross], so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

From the Vicar_April 2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 16:10:38 +0100

Dear Friends,

Recently Kathy and I went to visit my mother in South Africa. We stayed part of the time with a clergywoman in Durban, and somehow we got on to the subject of funerals! Margot told me that it is becoming fashionable in South Africa for funerals to take place without the person lying there in the coffin; some churches even refuse to allow the coffin to be there in church! These aren't memorial services but actual funeral services. It's as if death is not a pleasant topic, so they refuse to think about it. And the churches which ban coffins in church presumably are saying, "The Christian faith is all about joy and triumph and hope." forgetting that, that joy and triumph and hope can only come THROUGH suffering. We all know only too well how much grotty stuff there is in the world, and I think it is ridiculous to try to hide from it. I find hugely reassuring the fact that someone's death is at the heart of the Christian faith, and yet that death achieved something and brought hope. A flimsy, cosy pretty faith, which doesn't face up to pain and suffering and death will collapse after a time, whereas the true Christian faith keeps us firmly on the ground but brings hope in the midst of pain.

That is surely what Holy Week is all about. Again, it's a nonsense to jump straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Day. It was, after all, on the Cross that Jesus took our sin on himself and enabled us to be put right with God. Easter Day is meaningless without Good Friday; the Resurrection is meaningless without the crucifixion; the joy and triumph mean little without appreciating the horror of the week before Easter Day. But what a comfort to know that Jesus experienced the worst of living in this world and yet triumphed through it, and that he wants to bring us through as well! That's something really worth celebrating!

This Holy Week we will be holding services virtually every day to help us go through it with Jesus. If you are able to, do come to some of them.

With best wishes to you for a powerful Holy Week, and a marvellous Easter!
Chris

Verse of the Month:
"He himself bore our sinsin his body on the tree [ie cross], so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

From the Vicar_March 2012

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:14:36 +0100

Dear Friends wherever,

At the end of last year I was asked to go and visit woman going through a very difficult time because of bereavement. While I was with her I asked her if she would like me to write down some Bible verses which might help her, and when I phoned her up this year she told me that she had been using them to buoy herself up and to build up her faith. Certainly, I have found it EXTREMELY helpful myself to have some Bible verses in my head, so that I can use them at times of difficulty.

And after all, Jesus used the Bible as a weapon to help him in his temptations. Three times he was tempted, we are told, and each time he replied, "It is written . . ." He had learned verses from the Jewish scriptures, and he had them in his mind ready to help him at tough times.

What's good enough for Jesus must be good for us too! I remember when I was going through a time of depression years ago, I got to know one verse so well that it was in my head as I woke up every morning:

"The Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness."

I thought it might be appropriate to begin Lent, but to carry on all year, to have a Verse of the Month, in church and in the magazine. I will give it in two versions, and I do encourage you, if you find it helpful, t learn one of them by heart and perhaps put it by your mirror. Then you will have it in your head for if you might need it at a difficult time. Let's be like Jesus and be able to quote helpful scripture!

With best wishes,
Chris

VERSE OF THE MONTH:
"The Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness." OR The Lord's true love is surely not spent, nor has his compassion failed; they are new every morning, so great is his constancy."
(Lamentations 3: 22,23)

From the Vicar_February 2012

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:30:58 +0100

Dear Friends in the Parish and beyond,

Those of you who come to services at the church will know that we are having a series of sermons at present on "Modern Christians we can admire." It wasn't my suggestion - I wish I had thought of it! Seven people have offered or been cajoled into choosing people to speak on and their subjects have ranged all over the twentieth century: Canon Andrew White (chaplain in Baghdad at present), Desmond Tutu, Amy Carmichael (who went as a missionary to India), Joni Eareckson Tada (paralysed after a swimming accident), C. S. Lewis etc.

What has struck me is the enormous pain that all of them have suffered at times, and which gives their stories authority and power. If they have a strong faith despite what they have gone through, that must encourage and challenge us.

I see the same thing in some people I know who are seriously ill or who have lost close relatives: a huge dignity and courage despite the pain they are going through.

Lent, which starts in February, is about Jesus beginning his time of ministry with 40 days of harsh living and having his faith tested. And, of course, his few years of ministry led on to the cross. Our Christian faith isn't about the tinsel of Christmas decorations or about smiles, happiness and pretty songs and hymns. It's about a God who meets us in the hardest times, who went through it himself, and who is there for us to hang on to. That's a real faith worth hanging on to!

With best wishes
Chris

P. S. To read our sermon series: Modern Christians we can admire, go to our sermons page to download them and read at your own leisure.

From the Vicar_December 2011 - January 2012

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:45:21 +0100

Dear Friends,

As I drive round the parish in December, it seems that many people take down their Christmas decorations and throw out their trees around the turn of the year. It's as if people think Christmas is a happy party at the end of the year, a reward for getting through the year, but is not appropriate at the beginning of a new one. " Christmas, nice as it is, is unreal. Cold January is a time for serious work, so tidy up, get on with serious living, and close your curtains again." That seems to be how some people feel.

The church takes a different view. We take some time celebrating Christmas (the twelve days of Christmas), and that celebration carries on into the new year and ends with Epiphany on 6th January. That's the day we remember the Wise Men finding the child Jesus (the Bible calls Him a child, not a baby, at this stage). And, of course, the Wise Men were probably Gentiles, not Jews, so are our ancestors in a way.

All this surely reinforces the Bible's claim that God wants the joy and hope of Christmas to carry through into the new year. It's we who throw out the joy and hope with the Christmas tree; God wants it to last. And the journeying after truth that the Wise Men did is for us as well, searching for the truth, through the year.

A happy Christmas to you and best wishes to you all as you search after the truth. Let's be determined together to take the joyous hope of Emmanuel - God with us - into January and 2012.

Chris

From the Vicar_November/December 2011

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:02:11 +0100

Dear Friends wherever you are,

I was thinking recently what an odd assortment of events/festivals we mark in the Autumn in this country: Harvest gives way to the witches' hats and pumpkins of Halloween; then it's Remembrance, and then straightaway the poppies and wartime films disappear, obliterated by the tinsel and crackers of Christmas for the next frenzied six weeks.

Of all these four events and festivals, only Remembrance has kept to its original purpose. Harvest used to be very much to thank God for all He has provided and to pray for future blessing and protection; Halloween was merely the eve of All Saints and then All Souls' Day; and Christmas, as Christians believe, is the birth of God Himself in His Son Jesus. When you look at it, it's the God but that has largely been taken out; Remembrance, being more about people than God, has stayed truer to its original purpose.

But if you take God out of Harvest, Halloween and Christmas, all you're left with is tins of food, Trick or Treat, and, finally, tinsel, food and exhaustion. What a desolate prospect! Thank God for God! For me he gives meaning, not only to these festivals, but to each day. The challenge, I find is to keep inviting Him in rather than just getting swept along!

Best wishes for these next few busy months,
Chris

From the Vicar_October 2011

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:02:37 +0100

Dear Friends, wherever you are,

A thought for Harvest:

I always seem to choose the wrong checkout queue in the supermarket, which gives me plenty of time to look at what everyone else is buying. And since I am nosy, I look at what people in front and behind me are buying; sometimes I get into discussion with them about their purchases - to Kathy's embarrassment! I'm often surprised at what they have chosen, and at the combination of articles; they must have some strange meals, I often think! Of course, it depends whether they are buying basic foodstuffs for survival or whether they are buying luxury things for special meals.

Jesus gave his disciples bread the night before He died and compared himself to bread, "The Bread of Life". Something basic, not a luxury, something they ate every day in those days, and probably today too. Something, too, that it is easy to take for granted or to lose interest in, in the search for more exotic foods.

So how essential to us is Jesus, how much do we take Him for granted, and how much strength do we get from Him, the Bread of Life?

with best wishes
Chris

From the Vicar_September 2011

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:02:47 +0100

Dear Friends in the parish and beyond

Along with many, many churches throughout the country, we are organising special services for Back to Church Sunday on 25th September. In fact we are planning a weekend rather than just a Sunday as "The Friends" are holding another jazz concert in the church on the Saturday evening.

In the past few weeks a couple of people have told me how much they have appreciated coming back to church. They had decided for different reasons that they preferred to be Christians on their own, but then decided to come back to church and had found how much it had helped them; it had given them a family, company, encouragement and a Christian challenge. After all, unless we are challenged in our attitudes and beliefs, we can easily become stale, unquestioning or set in our own ways. I find that when somebody says something completely different about their faith from what I believe, it may be daunting at first, but then, it's immensely stimulating. I have to work out whether I agree with them or not, and why. That's how we grow as Christians. No wonder Jesus said that we need each other.

Do come along to the concert and then on the Sunday, and do bring others with you!

with best wishes
Chris

From the Vicar_July/August 2011

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:02:57 +0100

Dear Friends wherever you are,

Would you prefer a church which claimed that it had all the answers or one that left everything up to the individual because "Anything is OK"? I suspect that either extreme would drive people away because it's not God's way. The first view leads to smug self-assurance, the feeling that, "We've got God taped", while the second leads to a weak church full of people unsure what they believe and not daring to stand up for anything. You can find both sorts of church in England today.

The bible is there for us to be able to work out our faith, and God expects us to think about what we believe and to question it. A blind faith won't last through all that life throws at us; God wants us to have a core certainty, which should grow as we test it and Him out and find it to be true for us. At the same time, for all the Bible and The Holy Spirit's guidance of us, there are many issues about which seem contradictory. Surely we must constantly ask ourselves whether what we ARE sure of compensates for all that we don't know.

In this long period through the Summer our Bible readings follow the young church's growth after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and the colour of the altar cloth is green, to suggest growth in the Church and in our faith. It's good to ask ourselves whether we ARE growing in our faith. That can only come through questioning it and testing it out, hard as that often is.

With best wishes to you as you, like me, work at your faith.
Chris

From the Vicar_June 2011

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:30:31 +0100

Dear Friends in the parish and beyond,

At the last Family Service, while holding one of the babies being baptised, I managed to drop my service sheet into the font, as I frequently seem to do! But I was amused and interested at what happened next: a boy of about 11 or 12, who was standing right next to the font, started smearing some of the water dripping off the service sheet all over his face. A sort of instinctive desire for holiness perhaps, a desire to be in real contact with God.

Why do people try to touch celebrities and why was there a huge queue of tourists to go into Westminster Abbey immediately after the Royal Wedding? I suppose it's in some way to get close to celebrity, so that somehow it rubs off on us.

With God, it's something of the same desire: we want to get close to Him, to have something of Him rub off on us. In one way, "touching" God is more difficult than touching a celebrity since we can't see Him. But in another way "touching" Him is much easier: we don't need to travel to another part of the world and we don't have to buy expensive tickets or queue overnight for a brief glimpse of Him. We can get in touch with Him wherever we are and get to know Him well over time! That's an amazing privilege which I supspect we take for granted all too often. And as we do get closer to Him, then He will affect us and change us, which is what that child seemed to be wanting at the Family Service a few days ago.

With best wishes to you as you try to "touch" Him too.
Chris