News from the Vestry
March 2020
God in the night time
by Rev Charity Hamilton
“My whole world and future was swept from under my feet and all the walls that I had taken so long to build around me collapsed” wrote Caroline Flack a few weeks before the 40 year old presenter found herself in a ‘night-time place’ and died by suicide. For any who haven’t found themselves in ‘night-time places’ Flack’s description of her world and future being swept from under her feet is an accurate one. In such places we lack the familiarity and security of our known environment, everything is in flux, outside our control. So destructive is that lack of security and control that the very ground on which we stand is swept away; the instability of our selves becomes evident. Norman Sartorius writes, ‘Suicide is a fundamental breakdown of trust between individual and social environment’; it is exactly as Flack suggests. With no firm ground on which to plant ourselves, with no light we fail to thrive and the best option soon appears to be death.
Christianity has historically condemned suicide as homicide of the self, a willingness to take a life – even one’s own – has been seen as a significant sin. For centuries Christian burial was denied to those who died by suicide, and many were taught that those who die by suicide will be barred from heaven. Suicide in England and Wales was ‘committed’ as a criminal act, based upon the Church’s moral stance that suicide was ‘self-murder’. This view persisted until the 1961 Suicide Act decriminalised suicide. The idea of suicide as a significant sin comes primarily from Augustine who taught that if we do not love our own lives then we cannot love the lives of others, or God. This Christian theological approach to suicide is further developed in the reformation and by Luther, emphasizing our calling: that we each have a calling from God and so to die by suicide is to refuse God’s call to us.
In 1996 Rowan Williams developed an argument that sees all human life as vocation, writing that ‘it is hard to see how the resignation of life because of its intolerable burden can express the nature and activity of God.’ He explores how our lives are intricately bound up in the lives of others and so the decision to end one’s life is also a decision about the lives of others.
When confronted with difficulties, the question I find myself asking is ‘where is God in this?’ I agree with Williams, that all human life is bound up in God’s calling and that on each of our lives there is a specific vocation. However, I believe that in the resignation of life there is much that can be expressed about the nature and activity of God; a story to be told about suffering, night-time, wrestling and being overwhelmed – in which God is an ever present speck of light within the darkest of nights. Suicide is not failure to live up to God’s calling, it is simply a catastrophic severing or disconnection between an individual and their context in which God’s calling becomes obscured by distress, trauma and a seeming never-ending night-time. God is still there though.
Within suicide it isn’t enough for us to ask the question ‘Where is God in this?’ because for those of us who are not feeling our ‘world and future swept from under our feet’ our calling is to be the community which enacts God. In 2018 Middlesbrough was recorded as having the highest suicide rates out of 152 local authorities with twice the number of people dying to suicide than the national average. In a bid to reduce the number of deaths by suicide a Tees wide taskforce has been established to lower suicide rates. We are trying to create hope-filled communities in which suicide becomes less of an option but in which we recognise that for some, suicide will seem their only option. And that makes them no less called by God.
by Rev Charity Hamilton
“My whole world and future was swept from under my feet and all the walls that I had taken so long to build around me collapsed” wrote Caroline Flack a few weeks before the 40 year old presenter found herself in a ‘night-time place’ and died by suicide. For any who haven’t found themselves in ‘night-time places’ Flack’s description of her world and future being swept from under her feet is an accurate one. In such places we lack the familiarity and security of our known environment, everything is in flux, outside our control. So destructive is that lack of security and control that the very ground on which we stand is swept away; the instability of our selves becomes evident. Norman Sartorius writes, ‘Suicide is a fundamental breakdown of trust between individual and social environment’; it is exactly as Flack suggests. With no firm ground on which to plant ourselves, with no light we fail to thrive and the best option soon appears to be death.
Christianity has historically condemned suicide as homicide of the self, a willingness to take a life – even one’s own – has been seen as a significant sin. For centuries Christian burial was denied to those who died by suicide, and many were taught that those who die by suicide will be barred from heaven. Suicide in England and Wales was ‘committed’ as a criminal act, based upon the Church’s moral stance that suicide was ‘self-murder’. This view persisted until the 1961 Suicide Act decriminalised suicide. The idea of suicide as a significant sin comes primarily from Augustine who taught that if we do not love our own lives then we cannot love the lives of others, or God. This Christian theological approach to suicide is further developed in the reformation and by Luther, emphasizing our calling: that we each have a calling from God and so to die by suicide is to refuse God’s call to us.
In 1996 Rowan Williams developed an argument that sees all human life as vocation, writing that ‘it is hard to see how the resignation of life because of its intolerable burden can express the nature and activity of God.’ He explores how our lives are intricately bound up in the lives of others and so the decision to end one’s life is also a decision about the lives of others.
When confronted with difficulties, the question I find myself asking is ‘where is God in this?’ I agree with Williams, that all human life is bound up in God’s calling and that on each of our lives there is a specific vocation. However, I believe that in the resignation of life there is much that can be expressed about the nature and activity of God; a story to be told about suffering, night-time, wrestling and being overwhelmed – in which God is an ever present speck of light within the darkest of nights. Suicide is not failure to live up to God’s calling, it is simply a catastrophic severing or disconnection between an individual and their context in which God’s calling becomes obscured by distress, trauma and a seeming never-ending night-time. God is still there though.
Within suicide it isn’t enough for us to ask the question ‘Where is God in this?’ because for those of us who are not feeling our ‘world and future swept from under our feet’ our calling is to be the community which enacts God. In 2018 Middlesbrough was recorded as having the highest suicide rates out of 152 local authorities with twice the number of people dying to suicide than the national average. In a bid to reduce the number of deaths by suicide a Tees wide taskforce has been established to lower suicide rates. We are trying to create hope-filled communities in which suicide becomes less of an option but in which we recognise that for some, suicide will seem their only option. And that makes them no less called by God.
February 2020
Portrait Stories
Rev Dr Barbara Glasson – President of the Methodist Conference
With a couple of hours free on one of my increasingly frequent trips to London, I resolved to visit the National Portrait Gallery. I had forgotten just how engaging the place is and was drawn to a portrait of the physician of immunology Edward Jenner painted in 1803 by the artist James Northcote. The picture shows Jenner in a ponderous pose seated at his desk on which are placed his papers, a book on the origin of vaccines and, if you look very carefully, a cow’s hoof. As in many portraits, the fall of the light onto face and hands, the detail of the background and the expression in the eyes indicate not only the story of a life but the significance of the subject in the course of a wider history; a significance I called to mind again when accompanying my youngest grandson Oliver for his three month ‘jabs’. Thanks to Jenner and his work Oliver and his contemporaries in the U.K. have little fear of contracting the smallpox that killed nearly 20% of their forbears.
Unlike a CV or a passport photo, the art of painting a portrait is not simply a documentation of facts but an engagement in an empathetic relationship. Portraiture seeks to express the essential nature of the subject, not simply through the pose but also in the demeanour and surroundings in which the subject is described. In the case of the Jenner portrait we see a man who has apparently turned aside from his work for a moment with the artefacts of his research around him. We are given an insight into a particular moment in history, an ink pot standing to hand for the real work to resume at any moment.
During the first six months of our Presidential theme ‘So What’s the Story …?’, the Vice President, Professor Clive Marsh and I have heard a lot of stories! We have also begun to ask some follow-on questions, ‘Is God in every story?’, ‘Are all stories of equal value?’, ‘Do we need keepers of stories and story-tellers?’ and, crucially for me, ‘What do we do with the stories we hear?’ Being entrusted with a story is a precious thing, is it sufficient to simply receive a story or are their further responsibilities in the light of what we are hearing?
In an academic context, ‘Portraiture’ describes an ethnographic research method that enhances the analysis of narrative. Portraiture seeks to offer an in depth understanding of the subject in relation to all other aspects of their lives, history, environment, faith or other influences. It also takes into account the ‘painters’ or ‘hearers of the story’. In our context, we might say that the story teller is the subject, the Methodist church, faith perspectives, political environment, historical insights provide the ‘background’ , Clive and I and any other ‘hearers’ are the portraitists.
Pioneer in the research method of portraiture, Lawrence-Lightfoot says: “In the process of creating portraits, we enter people’s lives, build relationships, engage in discourse, make an imprint and leave. We engage in acts (implicit and explicit) of social transformation, we create opportunities for dialogue, we pursue silences, and in the process, we face ethical dilemmas and a great moral responsibility. This is provocative work that can disturb the natural rhythms of social reality and encounter; this is exciting work that can instigate positive and productive change. We need to appreciate the benign, generous impact of portraiture, even as we recognize the huge ethical responsibilities weighing on the portraitist.”
This insight from the academic study of portraiture is helpful in our understanding of the further responsibilities that come from hearing stories. Portraiture offers a method for ethnographic research which not only enables us to listen to a story but for a story. In the case of the Jenner portrait the artist has only one story in mind, the invention of the vaccine for cowpox, and yet in the depiction of the scientist himself we see a depth of interaction between the man and the work. We see historical content, in costume and artefacts, we see his hands and eyes intent on the task. In listening ‘for’ the story of the invention of vaccine the portrait painter has produced a rich, deep and strong ‘story line’. This reflects back to another of the questions we are asking about God’s presence within the story – are we listening to somebody talking about God or are we listening for God’s presence? Is the God story in the lips of the teller or the ears of the hearer?
Portraiture is a way of capturing a deep and rich narrative and helps us to interpret what we hear with greater insight. Portraiture offers the possibility of nuance and complexity, we literally see the subject differently. And portraiture not only tells us about a person but helps us to question other things too.
So, half way through this Presidential year I see that we have only just begun to scratch the surface of our story-telling theme! I wonder how we are to listen to and for stories, how we are to capture the richest depth of all that we are hearing and what this means for us in relation to the transformation of us as the Methodist Church.
January 2020
Whither the Ecumenical Pilgrimage?
By Rev. Ian Howarth.
Reading Israel Selvanayagam’s recent history of the Church of South India, ‘The Greatest Act of Faith,’ with his passionate advocacy of the importance of organic union if the church is to have any credibility in a secular world, I am led to reflect on the ecumenical journey as I have seen it over my lifetime.
Dr Selvanayagam finishes his book with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., ‘who at the heart of his struggle with the nexus of evil forces, declared: “We, the Roman Catholics, Orthodox and the Protestants, either come together as brothers and sisters or die as fools”,’ and I am left almost with a feeling of guilt that I cannot generate the enthusiasm for pursuing the goal of organic union between God’s people that I had in the early days of my Christian faith. Dr Selvanayagam is adamant that coming together ultimately must mean organic union, but his book also outlines the danger of dominant partners using organic union as a means to assimilate smaller units into the larger, for which he cites the assimilation of the CSI into a province of the Anglican Communion, without discussion with the other partners as an example.
When I was confirmed in 1969, it was at one of the first joint Anglican/Methodist confirmation services, even if the school where it happened did have to import a retired bishop of a diocese in the Middle East, and we were actually confirmed in two queues one going to the bishop and the other to the Methodist school chaplain, who was standing in for the President of Conference whose train had been cancelled! It was the comments that it was a good job it was the President’s train that had been cancelled and not the bishop’s, which gave me one of my first insights into a key difference in our ecclesiology!
I began my presbyteral training at the ecumenical Queen’s College, in 1982, and our first guest lecture was from David Edwards, the Anglican lead for the proposed English Covenant, which despite support from the Methodist Church and URC, had recently been voted down in the house of clergy of the Church of England, thus effectively bringing to an end the processes that might lead to an organic union between the churches. There was much wringing of hands and a sense that a dream had died.
Throughout my ministry the quest for organic union has gradually slipped off the table, and the Covenant with the Church of England was seen by many as an end of the process. On the ground ecumenical co-operation has been patchy. Some flexibility in Anglican Ecumenical Canons has allowed joint work and worship in LEPs and across particular areas. Yet, I have become acutely conscious that ecumenical working at a local level relies far too much on the personalities and outlook of local church leaders – usually the ordained ones!
As I approach the end of my ministry, I have to say that I react to the current proposals of ‘Mission and Ministry in Covenant’ with a deep sense of tiredness. I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that I think this is at the top of the list of our priorities. The sense of banging a head on a brick wall is too strong.
As I look back over the story I have told above, I am conscious of how church based it all is. For all the talk of mission the discussions have become increasingly institutional, and the issues seem to resemble arguing about the number of angels you can get on a pin head. The things I thought important and exciting forty years ago, now seem echoes of a past age. They also speak of a world where the church was a much more powerful influence in society and the thought of coming together organically could have made a significant difference to the Christian voice.
So what do we do with that statement of Martin Luther King? And perhaps more important, what do we make of Jesus’ prayer in John 17, that ‘they may be one as you, Father and I are one, and they may be one in us?’
We can argue that that does not mean organic union but another sense of oneness, but meanwhile the church becomes more divided. The issues around sexuality threaten our oneness in a very different way from questions of episcopacy and church governance. The rise of independent churches with a Congregationalist form of governance has in many ways sidelined the smaller denominations like Methodism.
The question of whether we can be in unity with those with whom we profoundly disagree with theologically is a pressing one, which Methodism is currently struggling with on its own, let alone across denominations.
If I am honest, I think that organic unity will probably have to wait for the eschaton. However, I believe we have to find a new way of demonstrating our oneness across our divisions, and that can be a key witness to a divided nation.
That starts within Methodism. If we can show we truly can express what it is to be one in Christ with contradictory convictions around marriage, then we can have something to say to our fellow Christians in other traditions facing similar challenges, but above all, we can offer a witness to a world that sees disagreement as inherently leading to division, and we can truly preach a Christ, in whom there is ‘no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’
By Rev. Ian Howarth.
Reading Israel Selvanayagam’s recent history of the Church of South India, ‘The Greatest Act of Faith,’ with his passionate advocacy of the importance of organic union if the church is to have any credibility in a secular world, I am led to reflect on the ecumenical journey as I have seen it over my lifetime.
Dr Selvanayagam finishes his book with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., ‘who at the heart of his struggle with the nexus of evil forces, declared: “We, the Roman Catholics, Orthodox and the Protestants, either come together as brothers and sisters or die as fools”,’ and I am left almost with a feeling of guilt that I cannot generate the enthusiasm for pursuing the goal of organic union between God’s people that I had in the early days of my Christian faith. Dr Selvanayagam is adamant that coming together ultimately must mean organic union, but his book also outlines the danger of dominant partners using organic union as a means to assimilate smaller units into the larger, for which he cites the assimilation of the CSI into a province of the Anglican Communion, without discussion with the other partners as an example.
When I was confirmed in 1969, it was at one of the first joint Anglican/Methodist confirmation services, even if the school where it happened did have to import a retired bishop of a diocese in the Middle East, and we were actually confirmed in two queues one going to the bishop and the other to the Methodist school chaplain, who was standing in for the President of Conference whose train had been cancelled! It was the comments that it was a good job it was the President’s train that had been cancelled and not the bishop’s, which gave me one of my first insights into a key difference in our ecclesiology!
I began my presbyteral training at the ecumenical Queen’s College, in 1982, and our first guest lecture was from David Edwards, the Anglican lead for the proposed English Covenant, which despite support from the Methodist Church and URC, had recently been voted down in the house of clergy of the Church of England, thus effectively bringing to an end the processes that might lead to an organic union between the churches. There was much wringing of hands and a sense that a dream had died.
Throughout my ministry the quest for organic union has gradually slipped off the table, and the Covenant with the Church of England was seen by many as an end of the process. On the ground ecumenical co-operation has been patchy. Some flexibility in Anglican Ecumenical Canons has allowed joint work and worship in LEPs and across particular areas. Yet, I have become acutely conscious that ecumenical working at a local level relies far too much on the personalities and outlook of local church leaders – usually the ordained ones!
As I approach the end of my ministry, I have to say that I react to the current proposals of ‘Mission and Ministry in Covenant’ with a deep sense of tiredness. I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that I think this is at the top of the list of our priorities. The sense of banging a head on a brick wall is too strong.
As I look back over the story I have told above, I am conscious of how church based it all is. For all the talk of mission the discussions have become increasingly institutional, and the issues seem to resemble arguing about the number of angels you can get on a pin head. The things I thought important and exciting forty years ago, now seem echoes of a past age. They also speak of a world where the church was a much more powerful influence in society and the thought of coming together organically could have made a significant difference to the Christian voice.
So what do we do with that statement of Martin Luther King? And perhaps more important, what do we make of Jesus’ prayer in John 17, that ‘they may be one as you, Father and I are one, and they may be one in us?’
We can argue that that does not mean organic union but another sense of oneness, but meanwhile the church becomes more divided. The issues around sexuality threaten our oneness in a very different way from questions of episcopacy and church governance. The rise of independent churches with a Congregationalist form of governance has in many ways sidelined the smaller denominations like Methodism.
The question of whether we can be in unity with those with whom we profoundly disagree with theologically is a pressing one, which Methodism is currently struggling with on its own, let alone across denominations.
If I am honest, I think that organic unity will probably have to wait for the eschaton. However, I believe we have to find a new way of demonstrating our oneness across our divisions, and that can be a key witness to a divided nation.
That starts within Methodism. If we can show we truly can express what it is to be one in Christ with contradictory convictions around marriage, then we can have something to say to our fellow Christians in other traditions facing similar challenges, but above all, we can offer a witness to a world that sees disagreement as inherently leading to division, and we can truly preach a Christ, in whom there is ‘no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’
October 2019
Harvest Hands by Rev Elaine Lindridge
When he (Jesus) looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. "What a huge harvest!" he said to his disciples. "How few workers! On you knees and pray for harvest hands!"
Matthew 9:36-38
I wonder when you read this passage what kind of harvest scene comes to mind? Perhaps you see rolling, yellow fields with full crops ready to be gathered in by the farmer. In my mind’s eye I don’t see that calming picture postcard scene –I see people. Lots and lots of people. Crowds like one might expect to see in the city centre High Street on the Saturday before Christmas. Fields of people, people who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
In this passage recorded in Matthew we read that when Jesus saw the crowds he was heartbroken, or as most translations put it, he had compassion on them. These people are important to Jesus and his love for them is evident in his reaction.
We know that the decline in membership, attendance and new disciples that we see – for most of us, it’s all we’ve ever known. Therefore it can be tempting to pray for a harvest of new people. But note the specific call from Jesus to pray not for the harvest, the harvest is already there, but to pray for harvest hands, to pray for missionaries.
When I visit churches and circuits, so many times I see that the problems they have are not so much about a lack of money, or the rule book (CPD), or opportunities or good ideas. Rather, it’s about people, namely not having enough people to be involved in the mission activities – the labourers are few. (Note I’m not talking about having people just to fill the many vacant jobs ‘needed’ in each local church).
So, I find myself asking, am I, are we, praying for more harvest hands, for more missionaries?
Throughout my District (Newcastle upon Tyne) I’ve been making a plea that we join in prayer for more harvest hands and at 10am on Mondays many of us pause to pray this prayer;
Lord of the Harvest, we pray for more Harvest Hands. We come to you knowing that the Harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. We pray for willing Harvest Hands to join in your work in our communities so that all may come to know they are loved and cherished. As we commit ourselves to pray, renew our hope and restore our passion so that we might welcome your guidance and influence. May your kingdom come and your will be done. Amen.
Percentage wise, there are less and less people in Britain today involved in church or professing Jesus as Lord. We can see that as a huge problem, or we can see it as a wonderful opportunity. The mission/harvest field is literally on our doorstep, in our supermarkets, in the gym, the pub and the coffee shop. It’s at the bus stop and at the sport event. The mission field even walks through the doors of our church buildings and pays us to book our hall. We are not overwhelmed with problems but with opportunities.
When we pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send missionaries, more Harvest Hands, we ought to consider listening very carefully. It may well be that God is calling us to respond, maybe we are to be part of the answer to our own prayers.
When he (Jesus) looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. "What a huge harvest!" he said to his disciples. "How few workers! On you knees and pray for harvest hands!"
Matthew 9:36-38
I wonder when you read this passage what kind of harvest scene comes to mind? Perhaps you see rolling, yellow fields with full crops ready to be gathered in by the farmer. In my mind’s eye I don’t see that calming picture postcard scene –I see people. Lots and lots of people. Crowds like one might expect to see in the city centre High Street on the Saturday before Christmas. Fields of people, people who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
In this passage recorded in Matthew we read that when Jesus saw the crowds he was heartbroken, or as most translations put it, he had compassion on them. These people are important to Jesus and his love for them is evident in his reaction.
We know that the decline in membership, attendance and new disciples that we see – for most of us, it’s all we’ve ever known. Therefore it can be tempting to pray for a harvest of new people. But note the specific call from Jesus to pray not for the harvest, the harvest is already there, but to pray for harvest hands, to pray for missionaries.
When I visit churches and circuits, so many times I see that the problems they have are not so much about a lack of money, or the rule book (CPD), or opportunities or good ideas. Rather, it’s about people, namely not having enough people to be involved in the mission activities – the labourers are few. (Note I’m not talking about having people just to fill the many vacant jobs ‘needed’ in each local church).
So, I find myself asking, am I, are we, praying for more harvest hands, for more missionaries?
Throughout my District (Newcastle upon Tyne) I’ve been making a plea that we join in prayer for more harvest hands and at 10am on Mondays many of us pause to pray this prayer;
Lord of the Harvest, we pray for more Harvest Hands. We come to you knowing that the Harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. We pray for willing Harvest Hands to join in your work in our communities so that all may come to know they are loved and cherished. As we commit ourselves to pray, renew our hope and restore our passion so that we might welcome your guidance and influence. May your kingdom come and your will be done. Amen.
Percentage wise, there are less and less people in Britain today involved in church or professing Jesus as Lord. We can see that as a huge problem, or we can see it as a wonderful opportunity. The mission/harvest field is literally on our doorstep, in our supermarkets, in the gym, the pub and the coffee shop. It’s at the bus stop and at the sport event. The mission field even walks through the doors of our church buildings and pays us to book our hall. We are not overwhelmed with problems but with opportunities.
When we pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send missionaries, more Harvest Hands, we ought to consider listening very carefully. It may well be that God is calling us to respond, maybe we are to be part of the answer to our own prayers.
August / September 2019
When Nelson Mandela became the first black President of South Africa 25 years ago he made his former enemy F. W. De Klerk of the national Party his Deputy. The handshake between two extreme enemies, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness at the beginning of the Good Friday Peace Agreement in Northern Ireland is miraculous. People who are poles apart can be friends, reconciled, and work together.
I love Charles Wesley’s lines: “He deigns in flesh to appear, Widest extremes to join.”
Focus on the words “widest extremes to join”. It is possible. We, as a church, are a rich mixture of people. We have all the range of diversity, not least the widest extremes in terms of theology. We want to enable each other to grow and flourish in our relationships. In any context we do make mistakes. We hurt each other. We can be become poles apart. But we are called and committed to a ministry of constructive dialogue and reconciliation.
We can go down two tracks as we do this. We can see conflict as a place of different opinions, good or bad, depending on your place in the conflict. In this scenario, one side tries to overcome the other. Conflict can get ramped up and up and up, and can build resentment, hatred and mistrust.
It is then about conflict management, or conflict transformation – neither of which tackles the root causes. Alternatively, we can see conflict in terms of mistakes that have been made, come to admit the mistake made, confess, repent and respond with grace and respect, and learn from our mistakes.
In either case, the important factor is to cross the river of turmoil upstream, before it becomes a torrent, or so wide that people are on two sides wondering how to bring the parties on different sides together. The Bible gives us two important pillars, two legs, on which we build our theology of community and church, Image of God, and the Body of Christ.
All are made in the Image of God. This means we are all created, not the same, but equal. The theology of the Body of Christ brings in the idea of difference. These two themes of Image of God and the Body of Christ allow no room for any practice of exclusion or discrimination. The Body of Christ model is used in the early church to address diversity and integration, and holding people together, preventing disintegration. In Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12, this model is used to address hierarchy, factions, divisions and disrespect within congregations, especially if not only at Holy Communion.
1 Corinthians 12 particularly refers to “Jews or Greeks, slaves or free” (verse 13). In using these categories, the writer is referring to people who were the furthest apart from each other in terms of ethnicity and rank, and is insisting that with all the differences in a congregation, all are one.
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (verse 12). And all of us are called to exercise the ministry of reconciliation. The Bible records and reflects Gods continuing reconciling work in the history of a people on a journey who are in regular conflict, constantly desiring nothing less than a restoration and renewal of their relationship with God, and their relationships among themselves, and ultimately the renewal of all creation.
There is a claim in the New Testament that this journey reaches a climax in the decisive revelation of God in Jesus Christ, following which God’s work of reconciliation moves to a new level towards renewing and building a “new heaven and a new earth”, realising the fullest potential of all creation. The crucifixion of Christ at the centre of God’s work of reconciliation insists that reconciliation comes at a cost, even to God. Reconciliation requires holding and healing each other through remembering, sharing stories of hurt, arriving at repentance, forgiveness, and a commitment to living with more grace and generosity. We dare to hope for and dream of a different society, a decent society where “widest extremes” can be joined, all people can be safe, flourish and have equal opportunity, and enjoy the fullness of life; where different parties agree to be in an open and honest relationship in which they can share openly and honestly in what are undoubtedly difficult conversations. A reconciled society, or congregation or church will not be one without differences and disagreements but it will be one where division is not destructive because there is a shared commitment to the enhancement of life for all.
Dr. Rev. Inderjit Bhogal OBE
I love Charles Wesley’s lines: “He deigns in flesh to appear, Widest extremes to join.”
Focus on the words “widest extremes to join”. It is possible. We, as a church, are a rich mixture of people. We have all the range of diversity, not least the widest extremes in terms of theology. We want to enable each other to grow and flourish in our relationships. In any context we do make mistakes. We hurt each other. We can be become poles apart. But we are called and committed to a ministry of constructive dialogue and reconciliation.
We can go down two tracks as we do this. We can see conflict as a place of different opinions, good or bad, depending on your place in the conflict. In this scenario, one side tries to overcome the other. Conflict can get ramped up and up and up, and can build resentment, hatred and mistrust.
It is then about conflict management, or conflict transformation – neither of which tackles the root causes. Alternatively, we can see conflict in terms of mistakes that have been made, come to admit the mistake made, confess, repent and respond with grace and respect, and learn from our mistakes.
In either case, the important factor is to cross the river of turmoil upstream, before it becomes a torrent, or so wide that people are on two sides wondering how to bring the parties on different sides together. The Bible gives us two important pillars, two legs, on which we build our theology of community and church, Image of God, and the Body of Christ.
All are made in the Image of God. This means we are all created, not the same, but equal. The theology of the Body of Christ brings in the idea of difference. These two themes of Image of God and the Body of Christ allow no room for any practice of exclusion or discrimination. The Body of Christ model is used in the early church to address diversity and integration, and holding people together, preventing disintegration. In Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12, this model is used to address hierarchy, factions, divisions and disrespect within congregations, especially if not only at Holy Communion.
1 Corinthians 12 particularly refers to “Jews or Greeks, slaves or free” (verse 13). In using these categories, the writer is referring to people who were the furthest apart from each other in terms of ethnicity and rank, and is insisting that with all the differences in a congregation, all are one.
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (verse 12). And all of us are called to exercise the ministry of reconciliation. The Bible records and reflects Gods continuing reconciling work in the history of a people on a journey who are in regular conflict, constantly desiring nothing less than a restoration and renewal of their relationship with God, and their relationships among themselves, and ultimately the renewal of all creation.
There is a claim in the New Testament that this journey reaches a climax in the decisive revelation of God in Jesus Christ, following which God’s work of reconciliation moves to a new level towards renewing and building a “new heaven and a new earth”, realising the fullest potential of all creation. The crucifixion of Christ at the centre of God’s work of reconciliation insists that reconciliation comes at a cost, even to God. Reconciliation requires holding and healing each other through remembering, sharing stories of hurt, arriving at repentance, forgiveness, and a commitment to living with more grace and generosity. We dare to hope for and dream of a different society, a decent society where “widest extremes” can be joined, all people can be safe, flourish and have equal opportunity, and enjoy the fullness of life; where different parties agree to be in an open and honest relationship in which they can share openly and honestly in what are undoubtedly difficult conversations. A reconciled society, or congregation or church will not be one without differences and disagreements but it will be one where division is not destructive because there is a shared commitment to the enhancement of life for all.
Dr. Rev. Inderjit Bhogal OBE
June / July 2019
The Methodist Quadrilateral
by Tom Stuckey.
The American scholar Albert Outler has given us the ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’. We are encouraged to do our theology within the dynamic framework of four components; scripture, reason, tradition and experience. I contend that our context has changed so dramatically that the quadrilateral is no longer fit for purpose.
Reason: The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, provided the Wesley’s with a new framework for settlement, growth and progress. Today with the rise of popularism and post-truth, reason has lost its cutting edge.
Experience: ‘Personal experience’, is highly valued today but understood very differently from the Wesleys. Now it has little to do with the Holy Spirit and everything to do with existential ‘self-fulfilment’.
Bible: Any consensus about the authority of the Scripture has long since disappeared. Methodists today have seven different ways of looking at the Bible.
Tradition: The 1932 Deed of Union highlights the ‘fundamental principles’ of the historic creeds, the Protestant Reformation and the remembrance of Methodism’s providential purpose. Today we live in an age of amnesia. Pragmatic Methodist practice no longer ‘remembers.’ Gill Dascombe has suggested that ‘wisdom’ should replace Bible, ‘science’ for reason, ‘culture’ for tradition and ‘community’ for experience. I propose an evangelical alternative which bears more directly on the Deed of Union: a sort of quintilateral in which faith, information, memory and mystery revolve about the central pillar of Scripture.
SCRIPTURE: Donald English argued that the Bible was the ‘centre piece for our knowledge of God through Jesus by the Holy Spirit.’ He saw reason, tradition and experience revolving around the Bible like the dangling pieces of a baby’s mobile. The Faith and Order statement that ‘the Bible bears witness to God’s self-revelation, but the Word of God itself is far greater than the words of the Bible’ is broad but divests the Bible of authority. Furthermore the first part of the sentence tends to exclude the possibility that the Bible might indeed be the witness to God’s self-revelation. Following Karl Barth, I contend that the Bible ‘becomes’ the Word of God analogous to the Word ‘becoming’ flesh. Putting a Methodist slant on this, it is the ‘preached word’ from Scripture which in the power of the Spirit becomes ‘the Word of God’.
FAITH: For grass root Methodists, faith is a ‘doing’ faith. Timothy Keller in his book Making Sense of God says that ‘all varieties of secularism are sets of beliefs, not the simple absence of faith’. He is arguing that each person, whether religious or not, chooses (sometimes unconsciously) their own paradigm of belief. Some Methodists will place their faith in Conference, others in the Bible, others in ‘reason’ but most swallow the unarticulated norms of their local church. The point I am making is that the authority we give to the Bible is something we ‘choose’ in a ‘faith’ decision. Having embraced this particular paradigm we need information, memory and mystery as qualifiers.
INFORMATION: All Christian theology is contextual. If we are to hear what God is saying in a particular place we must first ‘know’ the place. If the Word is to become flesh then the ‘flesh’ of that community must become part of my ‘flesh’ as I become identified in heart, mind and soul with the experience and the stories of the people who live there.
MEMORY: Information on its own does not produce wisdom. The American Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann highlights the importance of memory which like a magnet draws the people of God back in order to stimulate prophetic imagination in the present. It serves a subversive purpose and energizes new action. ‘Only memory allows possibility’. A church suffering from amnesia has no future.
MYSTERY: A functional fast consumer context has no place for mystery. Mystery suggests surprise, wonder, and the unexpected. It has no name, apart from Trinity, but comes from beyond to quicken the pulse, stimulate the imagination and fire the emotions. In Wesleyan language it is the action of prevenient grace. Charles Wesley turned Methodist theology into sing able poetry which entered our veins. Unless this ‘numinous’ quality touches the interactions of any quadrilateral or quintilateral we simply produce dead utilitarian theology.
Conclusion.
The central pillar of Scripture around which the components of faith, information, memory and mystery move is ‘the preached Word’. If we are to preach the Word in today’s context we must take lessons in ‘dialogue’ from poets, artists and story tellers to ensure that people ‘hear and experience the Word’
by Tom Stuckey.
The American scholar Albert Outler has given us the ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’. We are encouraged to do our theology within the dynamic framework of four components; scripture, reason, tradition and experience. I contend that our context has changed so dramatically that the quadrilateral is no longer fit for purpose.
Reason: The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, provided the Wesley’s with a new framework for settlement, growth and progress. Today with the rise of popularism and post-truth, reason has lost its cutting edge.
Experience: ‘Personal experience’, is highly valued today but understood very differently from the Wesleys. Now it has little to do with the Holy Spirit and everything to do with existential ‘self-fulfilment’.
Bible: Any consensus about the authority of the Scripture has long since disappeared. Methodists today have seven different ways of looking at the Bible.
Tradition: The 1932 Deed of Union highlights the ‘fundamental principles’ of the historic creeds, the Protestant Reformation and the remembrance of Methodism’s providential purpose. Today we live in an age of amnesia. Pragmatic Methodist practice no longer ‘remembers.’ Gill Dascombe has suggested that ‘wisdom’ should replace Bible, ‘science’ for reason, ‘culture’ for tradition and ‘community’ for experience. I propose an evangelical alternative which bears more directly on the Deed of Union: a sort of quintilateral in which faith, information, memory and mystery revolve about the central pillar of Scripture.
SCRIPTURE: Donald English argued that the Bible was the ‘centre piece for our knowledge of God through Jesus by the Holy Spirit.’ He saw reason, tradition and experience revolving around the Bible like the dangling pieces of a baby’s mobile. The Faith and Order statement that ‘the Bible bears witness to God’s self-revelation, but the Word of God itself is far greater than the words of the Bible’ is broad but divests the Bible of authority. Furthermore the first part of the sentence tends to exclude the possibility that the Bible might indeed be the witness to God’s self-revelation. Following Karl Barth, I contend that the Bible ‘becomes’ the Word of God analogous to the Word ‘becoming’ flesh. Putting a Methodist slant on this, it is the ‘preached word’ from Scripture which in the power of the Spirit becomes ‘the Word of God’.
FAITH: For grass root Methodists, faith is a ‘doing’ faith. Timothy Keller in his book Making Sense of God says that ‘all varieties of secularism are sets of beliefs, not the simple absence of faith’. He is arguing that each person, whether religious or not, chooses (sometimes unconsciously) their own paradigm of belief. Some Methodists will place their faith in Conference, others in the Bible, others in ‘reason’ but most swallow the unarticulated norms of their local church. The point I am making is that the authority we give to the Bible is something we ‘choose’ in a ‘faith’ decision. Having embraced this particular paradigm we need information, memory and mystery as qualifiers.
INFORMATION: All Christian theology is contextual. If we are to hear what God is saying in a particular place we must first ‘know’ the place. If the Word is to become flesh then the ‘flesh’ of that community must become part of my ‘flesh’ as I become identified in heart, mind and soul with the experience and the stories of the people who live there.
MEMORY: Information on its own does not produce wisdom. The American Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann highlights the importance of memory which like a magnet draws the people of God back in order to stimulate prophetic imagination in the present. It serves a subversive purpose and energizes new action. ‘Only memory allows possibility’. A church suffering from amnesia has no future.
MYSTERY: A functional fast consumer context has no place for mystery. Mystery suggests surprise, wonder, and the unexpected. It has no name, apart from Trinity, but comes from beyond to quicken the pulse, stimulate the imagination and fire the emotions. In Wesleyan language it is the action of prevenient grace. Charles Wesley turned Methodist theology into sing able poetry which entered our veins. Unless this ‘numinous’ quality touches the interactions of any quadrilateral or quintilateral we simply produce dead utilitarian theology.
Conclusion.
The central pillar of Scripture around which the components of faith, information, memory and mystery move is ‘the preached Word’. If we are to preach the Word in today’s context we must take lessons in ‘dialogue’ from poets, artists and story tellers to ensure that people ‘hear and experience the Word’
May 2019
Learning through God’s story
by Sandra Brower.
I’ve just returned from a week teaching at Wesley State University in Ondo, Nigeria, about a five-hour drive northeast of Lagos. It was a fresh reminder that theology is, indeed, everywhere. I always jump at the chance to leave my desk, and its associated duties, in order to visit and engage with sisters and brothers in Christ around the world. It’s so good to hear stories which are very different from mine, yet aligned to the story that we share. As soon as we arrived on campus, we were greeted by many different individuals who had come from various districts to participate in their first week of a Doctor of Ministry programme. One minister shared his desire that we would take away the good and positive stories about his country, as a foil to the negative press we were likely to get on our newsfeeds.
Storytelling is at the forefront of my mind. Back home now, I’ve been madly trying to meet a deadline for the Postgraduate Certificate of Higher Education programme I’m enrolled on this year. My allocated small group has to submit material this week on the topic of ‘storytelling as a learning tool’. It’s been fascinating to look at storytelling as a learning theory; much research supports the claim that ‘whatever we learn, we’re learning it through someone else’s story and through their eyes’ (Ashton & Stone, 2018, p. 147). My week in Nigeria was no exception.
I was invited to deliver lectures on liturgical worship. The Church has long proclaimed the motto ‘lex orandi, lex credendi’ as we pray, so we believe. In other words our liturgy leads to and informs our theology. During our week together, the students and I considered the proposition that in corporate worship, we gather together as a community of faith to be guided by the God who seeks after us. The scattered community brings the various stories that have developed in the time apart, gathering once again to have these stories shaped by and oriented to God’s story. At the end of my teaching week, I asked each student to answer the question, ‘what was the most significant learning point this week?’ A common response was the concept that Christian worship starts and ends in community. It doesn’t start with us, individually, or even corporately; it starts with the Triune God, a community in his very being, who calls us to worship, gathering us to himself. By his Son and his Spirit, the Father draws us in to participate in the life of God.
One of the PowerPoint slides for my PGCHE group’s presentation on storytelling defines storytelling as ‘a learning tool to make sense of experience’ and a ‘way of knowing that it is socially constructed.’ I can’t help but think how this relates to theology and corporate worship. Stated as simply as possible, theology is ‘God-talk’ – talking about God. It is the conviction of many that we can’t engage in this task in any meaningful way unless the God of whom we speak reveals himself to us. If he doesn’t, how on earth can we know what to say? But where is God revealed to us?
When I lecture on worship, I often come back to David Peterson’s definition of worship as ‘an engagement with God, on the terms that he proposes, and in a way that he alone makes possible.’ In worship, we don’t simply gather to talk about God, we meet with him. The Latin motto begins to make sense. Worship is the fount of theology, because it is where we meet with God, and come to know him. And in coming to know God, we come to know and understand ourselves. It is in this engagement, then, that our stories become meaningful and we are, indeed, able to make sense of our experience.
I find it frustrating when worship leaders assume that we call ourselves to corporate worship (the latest fashion being ‘countdowns’ to worship). It turns the framework of Christian worship on its head – we gather ourselves to call on God, often expressed in an initial time of songs of praise and adoration. Certainly corporate worship must incorporate our adoration and praise, but these must always be understood in the context of response. Worship leaders (and planners) are instrumental in determining whether or not our worship, from the outset, expresses a gospel of grace. If whatever we learn is indeed through someone else’s story and through their eyes, let it be God’s story and through God’s eyes. Then, and only then, will we have eyes to see and ears to hear the good and positive stories my Nigerian brother challenged us to bear witness to.
by Sandra Brower.
I’ve just returned from a week teaching at Wesley State University in Ondo, Nigeria, about a five-hour drive northeast of Lagos. It was a fresh reminder that theology is, indeed, everywhere. I always jump at the chance to leave my desk, and its associated duties, in order to visit and engage with sisters and brothers in Christ around the world. It’s so good to hear stories which are very different from mine, yet aligned to the story that we share. As soon as we arrived on campus, we were greeted by many different individuals who had come from various districts to participate in their first week of a Doctor of Ministry programme. One minister shared his desire that we would take away the good and positive stories about his country, as a foil to the negative press we were likely to get on our newsfeeds.
Storytelling is at the forefront of my mind. Back home now, I’ve been madly trying to meet a deadline for the Postgraduate Certificate of Higher Education programme I’m enrolled on this year. My allocated small group has to submit material this week on the topic of ‘storytelling as a learning tool’. It’s been fascinating to look at storytelling as a learning theory; much research supports the claim that ‘whatever we learn, we’re learning it through someone else’s story and through their eyes’ (Ashton & Stone, 2018, p. 147). My week in Nigeria was no exception.
I was invited to deliver lectures on liturgical worship. The Church has long proclaimed the motto ‘lex orandi, lex credendi’ as we pray, so we believe. In other words our liturgy leads to and informs our theology. During our week together, the students and I considered the proposition that in corporate worship, we gather together as a community of faith to be guided by the God who seeks after us. The scattered community brings the various stories that have developed in the time apart, gathering once again to have these stories shaped by and oriented to God’s story. At the end of my teaching week, I asked each student to answer the question, ‘what was the most significant learning point this week?’ A common response was the concept that Christian worship starts and ends in community. It doesn’t start with us, individually, or even corporately; it starts with the Triune God, a community in his very being, who calls us to worship, gathering us to himself. By his Son and his Spirit, the Father draws us in to participate in the life of God.
One of the PowerPoint slides for my PGCHE group’s presentation on storytelling defines storytelling as ‘a learning tool to make sense of experience’ and a ‘way of knowing that it is socially constructed.’ I can’t help but think how this relates to theology and corporate worship. Stated as simply as possible, theology is ‘God-talk’ – talking about God. It is the conviction of many that we can’t engage in this task in any meaningful way unless the God of whom we speak reveals himself to us. If he doesn’t, how on earth can we know what to say? But where is God revealed to us?
When I lecture on worship, I often come back to David Peterson’s definition of worship as ‘an engagement with God, on the terms that he proposes, and in a way that he alone makes possible.’ In worship, we don’t simply gather to talk about God, we meet with him. The Latin motto begins to make sense. Worship is the fount of theology, because it is where we meet with God, and come to know him. And in coming to know God, we come to know and understand ourselves. It is in this engagement, then, that our stories become meaningful and we are, indeed, able to make sense of our experience.
I find it frustrating when worship leaders assume that we call ourselves to corporate worship (the latest fashion being ‘countdowns’ to worship). It turns the framework of Christian worship on its head – we gather ourselves to call on God, often expressed in an initial time of songs of praise and adoration. Certainly corporate worship must incorporate our adoration and praise, but these must always be understood in the context of response. Worship leaders (and planners) are instrumental in determining whether or not our worship, from the outset, expresses a gospel of grace. If whatever we learn is indeed through someone else’s story and through their eyes, let it be God’s story and through God’s eyes. Then, and only then, will we have eyes to see and ears to hear the good and positive stories my Nigerian brother challenged us to bear witness to.
April 2019
Easter...Mary and the gardener...the women and their news...Peter and John running...the Empty Tomb...the Road to Emmaus...the Risen Christ...Breakfast by the Lakeside...Wherever you look new life, excitement, amazement, movement. Whatever happened on that first Easter Morning, that Great Spring Morning, changed men and women's lives for ever and continues to do so 2000 years on. Every Sunday we celebrate, we remember that first Easter Morning. Sunday, the first day of the week, is forever the day of Resurrection. But as Christians we are called upon not just to remember but to live out Easter every day.
John Pritchard, the former Bishop of Oxford, tells the story of Mr. Wrigley. Mr. Wrigley was a northerner. He was one of the sidesmen in the church in Blackpool where the Bishop of Oxford's father was vicar. Mr Wrigley was a quiet, no-nonsense Lancastrian. He didn’t say much; he just got on with his job. But once a year he came into his own.
On Easter morning Mr Wrigley would walk purposefully down the length of the church to the vicar’s vestry – it was a long journey in a thousand seater church. He would stand in the doorway of the vestry and he’d say, ‘Christ is risen, vicar!’ And the bishop's father would reply, ‘He is risen indeed, Mr Wrigley!’ And Mr Wrigley would nod – satisfied – and set off for the back of the church again for the rest of the year.
What a delightful exchange. Here was this undemonstrative sidesman bearing witness to the basic belief that sustained him throughout his life, and kept him giving out hymn books, and loving his wife, and following his conscience, and giving to charity, and doing everything else he held dear. Mr Wrigley didn’t live a spectacular Christian life – he wouldn’t have known what that meant. But he knew what he believed, and it was simply this: Christ is risen! And so everything else would be all right.
Every blessing to you all this Eastertide
Rev. Allan Taylor
John Pritchard, the former Bishop of Oxford, tells the story of Mr. Wrigley. Mr. Wrigley was a northerner. He was one of the sidesmen in the church in Blackpool where the Bishop of Oxford's father was vicar. Mr Wrigley was a quiet, no-nonsense Lancastrian. He didn’t say much; he just got on with his job. But once a year he came into his own.
On Easter morning Mr Wrigley would walk purposefully down the length of the church to the vicar’s vestry – it was a long journey in a thousand seater church. He would stand in the doorway of the vestry and he’d say, ‘Christ is risen, vicar!’ And the bishop's father would reply, ‘He is risen indeed, Mr Wrigley!’ And Mr Wrigley would nod – satisfied – and set off for the back of the church again for the rest of the year.
What a delightful exchange. Here was this undemonstrative sidesman bearing witness to the basic belief that sustained him throughout his life, and kept him giving out hymn books, and loving his wife, and following his conscience, and giving to charity, and doing everything else he held dear. Mr Wrigley didn’t live a spectacular Christian life – he wouldn’t have known what that meant. But he knew what he believed, and it was simply this: Christ is risen! And so everything else would be all right.
Every blessing to you all this Eastertide
Rev. Allan Taylor
March 2019
‘Calling Disciples: Cast-as-nets?’
Reflection: ‘Net-á-Peter’? – based on Luke 5:1-11
High and dry. That’s how he left me: high and dry .And not once. Twice – in the same day.
The first time was … understandable.
It had been a long, frustrating night: out on the lake, all night – in perfect conditions.
And what had I caught? Nothing. Nothing! From the Sea of Galilee – a body of freshwater so abundant, it was literally teeming with fish!
Nothing.
It was unheard of! And, to make matters worse, my ‘home port’ is Bethsaida: it means “fishery”: “place of nets”. The shame!
Despite the lack of catch, the rest of the usual morning routine continued: boats beached, as the sun began to rise, net-care commenced.
My costly linen threads were washed clean, so my lines would last longer, and be invisible to the fish. The entangled weed and pebbles were carefully picked out, so I would not be weighed down, and could hang freely in the water. The few new tears were skilfully mended, sewn so, my square mesh complete, I would be most effective in my task. I was stretched out to dry, prepared, in readiness for service.
Then, about mid-morning, He came along. The stranger. The teacher.
The non-fisherman.
He stood at the water’s edge. He got into the boat. He spoke to my
master, Simon:
He wanted the boat put out a little from the shore. The crew obliged: the boat was rowed out into the shallows; the anchor was dropped. The Rabbi sat down. He talked to the crowd of people on the beach. Whilst He talked, Simon took me down, carefully folding me, this way and that, as he did every day, arranging me for the following night’s fishing. Carrying me in his strong arms, he waded out to the boat, and settled me on the deck. At last, time to rest; to recuperate; to relax.
But, no. The stranger from the shore had other plans. I was rudely awakened by hands hauling me up, and heaving me into the sea. We were going … fishing! But …it was the middle of the day! What was going on? Everyone knows that fish descend to the depths during the day, and, in the sunlight, they’re more likely to see me coming. It was …unheard of! But the stone sinkers were pulling me down, a long way down, down into deep water.
I was being stretched taut as the weights dragged me towards the bottom, and the cork floats tied me to the surface. Suspended midwater, I was set. Slowly, silently, I was pulled around into a circle. There was a tug against my twine. Then another. And another. Suddenly, the water was frantic, alive with fish, twisting, turning, tangling. I was encircling a whole shoal: enclosing so many fish that my threads strained to contain them. I was literally at breaking point.
The burden was too great: I couldn’t hold on any longer; strands would snap; mesh would disintegrate; I would burst apart. Then I felt the yank of many strong hands dragging me upwards and dumpling me down on supportive decks. Straddled over, and between, two semi-sinking boats I was pulled steadily towards the shore.
And the catch! Amazing! Astonishing! A great multitude of fish. It was unheard of! Biggest catch I’ve ever made. The greatest day’s fishing! Before long, the boats were pulled up at the lakeside, and I was laid out. Eager hands worked nimbly, disentangling the fish, one by one. And then, for the second time that day, I was hung up: left high and dry.The stranger told Simon that “from now on ”he would “catch men”. He … would … catch? How would that work? He was the fisherman. I was the net. ‘Catching’ was my job! How was Simon like me? Was he made of delicate threads, needing constant care and attentions? Did he need regular washing, to preserve the very fabric of his being? Did he need ensnared ‘dirt’ to be repeatedly removed, to free him and prevent him from being weighed down? Did he have ‘holes’ that needed mending, to be able to fulfil his purpose? Was he prepared to be stretched, daily, to ready him for active service? Would he allow someone else to determine where he went, and when, and how he was deployed? Would he submit to difficult work, harsh conditions, and long hours, in the dark, and out of his depth? Would he hold on to what was precious, when he was at the point of being broken? Was he willing to become a ‘tool of the trade’, in this ‘catching of men’? I didn’t know. I would never know. Because … he followed the stranger, and left me, high and dry.
© Elizabeth Gurd 2019
Reflection: ‘Net-á-Peter’? – based on Luke 5:1-11
High and dry. That’s how he left me: high and dry .And not once. Twice – in the same day.
The first time was … understandable.
It had been a long, frustrating night: out on the lake, all night – in perfect conditions.
And what had I caught? Nothing. Nothing! From the Sea of Galilee – a body of freshwater so abundant, it was literally teeming with fish!
Nothing.
It was unheard of! And, to make matters worse, my ‘home port’ is Bethsaida: it means “fishery”: “place of nets”. The shame!
Despite the lack of catch, the rest of the usual morning routine continued: boats beached, as the sun began to rise, net-care commenced.
My costly linen threads were washed clean, so my lines would last longer, and be invisible to the fish. The entangled weed and pebbles were carefully picked out, so I would not be weighed down, and could hang freely in the water. The few new tears were skilfully mended, sewn so, my square mesh complete, I would be most effective in my task. I was stretched out to dry, prepared, in readiness for service.
Then, about mid-morning, He came along. The stranger. The teacher.
The non-fisherman.
He stood at the water’s edge. He got into the boat. He spoke to my
master, Simon:
He wanted the boat put out a little from the shore. The crew obliged: the boat was rowed out into the shallows; the anchor was dropped. The Rabbi sat down. He talked to the crowd of people on the beach. Whilst He talked, Simon took me down, carefully folding me, this way and that, as he did every day, arranging me for the following night’s fishing. Carrying me in his strong arms, he waded out to the boat, and settled me on the deck. At last, time to rest; to recuperate; to relax.
But, no. The stranger from the shore had other plans. I was rudely awakened by hands hauling me up, and heaving me into the sea. We were going … fishing! But …it was the middle of the day! What was going on? Everyone knows that fish descend to the depths during the day, and, in the sunlight, they’re more likely to see me coming. It was …unheard of! But the stone sinkers were pulling me down, a long way down, down into deep water.
I was being stretched taut as the weights dragged me towards the bottom, and the cork floats tied me to the surface. Suspended midwater, I was set. Slowly, silently, I was pulled around into a circle. There was a tug against my twine. Then another. And another. Suddenly, the water was frantic, alive with fish, twisting, turning, tangling. I was encircling a whole shoal: enclosing so many fish that my threads strained to contain them. I was literally at breaking point.
The burden was too great: I couldn’t hold on any longer; strands would snap; mesh would disintegrate; I would burst apart. Then I felt the yank of many strong hands dragging me upwards and dumpling me down on supportive decks. Straddled over, and between, two semi-sinking boats I was pulled steadily towards the shore.
And the catch! Amazing! Astonishing! A great multitude of fish. It was unheard of! Biggest catch I’ve ever made. The greatest day’s fishing! Before long, the boats were pulled up at the lakeside, and I was laid out. Eager hands worked nimbly, disentangling the fish, one by one. And then, for the second time that day, I was hung up: left high and dry.The stranger told Simon that “from now on ”he would “catch men”. He … would … catch? How would that work? He was the fisherman. I was the net. ‘Catching’ was my job! How was Simon like me? Was he made of delicate threads, needing constant care and attentions? Did he need regular washing, to preserve the very fabric of his being? Did he need ensnared ‘dirt’ to be repeatedly removed, to free him and prevent him from being weighed down? Did he have ‘holes’ that needed mending, to be able to fulfil his purpose? Was he prepared to be stretched, daily, to ready him for active service? Would he allow someone else to determine where he went, and when, and how he was deployed? Would he submit to difficult work, harsh conditions, and long hours, in the dark, and out of his depth? Would he hold on to what was precious, when he was at the point of being broken? Was he willing to become a ‘tool of the trade’, in this ‘catching of men’? I didn’t know. I would never know. Because … he followed the stranger, and left me, high and dry.
© Elizabeth Gurd 2019
February 2019
Wait Awhile
If after church you wait awhile,
Someone greets you with a smile.
But if you quickly rise and flee,
We’ll all seem cold and stiff maybe.
The one beside you in the pew,
Perhaps is just a stranger too.
All we, like you, have fears and cares,
All of us need each other’s prayers.
In fellowship we bid you meet
With us around, God’s mercy seat.
January 2019
Getting back to basics!
by Gill Newton
“I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you, as and where you choose.” Covenant Prayer, Methodist Worship Book
Although some Methodist congregations celebrate their Covenant service at the beginning of the Connexional year in September, for many, this month of January, provides the opportunity for a renewal of our commitment. Having served in churches where both options have been explored, it has always struck me that, whilst any opportunity to renew our commitment is wonderful, there is something timely about holding this service at the beginning of the calendar year. The commercial Christmas season with all its glitzy advertisements and tempting offers encourages us to focus on what we want and spend more than we have in order to obtain it. So, it’s perhaps no bad thing, early in the New Year to have this opportunity to place things back in perspective and for us to be reminded of the sacrificial nature of our commitment as followers of Jesus. After all, it is the time of resolutions, so here’s the chance to include some spiritual resolution at the beginning of the New Year.
This Covenant Service is treasured and valued by many Methodists, coveted by many of our ecumenical colleagues. However, like me, you may have observed that many seem to consciously avoid this annual opportunity to renew commitment. Why? And what does this say to us about the nature, language, context and value of this service each year? It was back in 1755 that John Wesley originally created a service which has evolved into the Covenant Service as we know it today. He based the words of the Covenant prayer, which is at the heart of the service, on words from the Puritan tradition which had been so important in the lives of his parents Samuel and Susanna. He included in his original covenant prayer phrases that we would recognise from our marriage service, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for all times and conditions ….” suggesting that Wesley saw this covenant relationship between God and his people as being like a marriage, an image reflected in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Wesley seems to be suggesting that through this covenant relationship, we are, both individually and corporately, partners together with God in his mission in the world. The words of this prayer, in both its traditional and modern forms, offer us a clear description of what it might really mean for us to be disciples of Jesus. We could suggest that it offers a practical description of what Jesus was suggesting when he said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” So, sharing in this prayer helps us to remember what living as Jesus calls us to live really looks like! There is no doubt that this is demanding stuff, so perhaps people avoid the Covenant service for fear of failure? However, as I reflect upon the words of the covenant prayer in preparation for a Covenant service that I will lead this week I am reminded of the context in which Wesley developed this service. When he and the other early Methodists prayed this prayer, there would have been an expectation that they were all part of a class meeting or band. In that way they were supporting one another and holding one another to account for this challenging way of living and loving – a way of life that is surely only possible in a community where you know you are loved, supported and being upheld in prayer.
Research also suggests that the Covenant service was not some standalone event that came around once a year. A whole series of gatherings were held in the run up to the Covenant service so that through study, prayer and sermons, everyone could understand more fully what the Covenant was all about. Then after a day of prayer and fasting, those who chose to, would participate in the Covenant Service, but that certainly wasn’t the end of the matter for another year! From then on, everyone was encouraged to think about what the implications of having prayed that prayer might be in their own situation, and through their class meetings were given all the help and encouragement that they needed to sustain this way of life.
How much of that kind of nurture and support is really being offered in our churches today I wonder? Is the lack of gathering together regularly for support and accountability one of the reasons why so many people find this prayer so difficult to say? What difference might it make to our individual and corporate sense of identity and vocation if we really helped each other to live out this prayer?
The Covenant prayer is an extremely important part of our Methodist tradition. It helps us to know who we are and to whom we belong. It reminds us that being a Christian is a way of life which demands much of us, but only in response to the self-giving love of God in Christ. As we share in this prayer again this year, perhaps we could reflect not only on what living out the prayer might demand of us individually, but what it might demand of us as a church, if we are to really help one another to truly share in this covenant.
Our Covenant service is on Sunday 20 January 2019 at 10.30 am
by Gill Newton
“I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you, as and where you choose.” Covenant Prayer, Methodist Worship Book
Although some Methodist congregations celebrate their Covenant service at the beginning of the Connexional year in September, for many, this month of January, provides the opportunity for a renewal of our commitment. Having served in churches where both options have been explored, it has always struck me that, whilst any opportunity to renew our commitment is wonderful, there is something timely about holding this service at the beginning of the calendar year. The commercial Christmas season with all its glitzy advertisements and tempting offers encourages us to focus on what we want and spend more than we have in order to obtain it. So, it’s perhaps no bad thing, early in the New Year to have this opportunity to place things back in perspective and for us to be reminded of the sacrificial nature of our commitment as followers of Jesus. After all, it is the time of resolutions, so here’s the chance to include some spiritual resolution at the beginning of the New Year.
This Covenant Service is treasured and valued by many Methodists, coveted by many of our ecumenical colleagues. However, like me, you may have observed that many seem to consciously avoid this annual opportunity to renew commitment. Why? And what does this say to us about the nature, language, context and value of this service each year? It was back in 1755 that John Wesley originally created a service which has evolved into the Covenant Service as we know it today. He based the words of the Covenant prayer, which is at the heart of the service, on words from the Puritan tradition which had been so important in the lives of his parents Samuel and Susanna. He included in his original covenant prayer phrases that we would recognise from our marriage service, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for all times and conditions ….” suggesting that Wesley saw this covenant relationship between God and his people as being like a marriage, an image reflected in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Wesley seems to be suggesting that through this covenant relationship, we are, both individually and corporately, partners together with God in his mission in the world. The words of this prayer, in both its traditional and modern forms, offer us a clear description of what it might really mean for us to be disciples of Jesus. We could suggest that it offers a practical description of what Jesus was suggesting when he said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” So, sharing in this prayer helps us to remember what living as Jesus calls us to live really looks like! There is no doubt that this is demanding stuff, so perhaps people avoid the Covenant service for fear of failure? However, as I reflect upon the words of the covenant prayer in preparation for a Covenant service that I will lead this week I am reminded of the context in which Wesley developed this service. When he and the other early Methodists prayed this prayer, there would have been an expectation that they were all part of a class meeting or band. In that way they were supporting one another and holding one another to account for this challenging way of living and loving – a way of life that is surely only possible in a community where you know you are loved, supported and being upheld in prayer.
Research also suggests that the Covenant service was not some standalone event that came around once a year. A whole series of gatherings were held in the run up to the Covenant service so that through study, prayer and sermons, everyone could understand more fully what the Covenant was all about. Then after a day of prayer and fasting, those who chose to, would participate in the Covenant Service, but that certainly wasn’t the end of the matter for another year! From then on, everyone was encouraged to think about what the implications of having prayed that prayer might be in their own situation, and through their class meetings were given all the help and encouragement that they needed to sustain this way of life.
How much of that kind of nurture and support is really being offered in our churches today I wonder? Is the lack of gathering together regularly for support and accountability one of the reasons why so many people find this prayer so difficult to say? What difference might it make to our individual and corporate sense of identity and vocation if we really helped each other to live out this prayer?
The Covenant prayer is an extremely important part of our Methodist tradition. It helps us to know who we are and to whom we belong. It reminds us that being a Christian is a way of life which demands much of us, but only in response to the self-giving love of God in Christ. As we share in this prayer again this year, perhaps we could reflect not only on what living out the prayer might demand of us individually, but what it might demand of us as a church, if we are to really help one another to truly share in this covenant.
Our Covenant service is on Sunday 20 January 2019 at 10.30 am
December 2018
1 Corinthians 13 (A Christmas version)
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I am just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies,preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at meals times, but do not show love to my family, I am just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen or food bank, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the tree with shimmering angels and lace snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on those I love most, I have missed the point.
……in other words
Love stops the cooking to hug a child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the spouse.
Love is kind, although harried and tired.
Love doesn’t envy another house that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way but is thankful that they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in giving to those who can’t.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust,
But this gift of love will endure for ever.
November 2018
‘Do this in remembrance of me', Jesus said to his disciples at the final meal – almost the last instruction he left before his death.
And that act of remembrance has remained essential to the Christian faith ever since. At the heart of every communion service is a remembrance, both casting back to a previous story and making the present moment more holy because it carries the weight of history within it.
Our Christian life and worship is always partly an act of remembrance, whether it is a communion service or not. We are always living with a sense of remembering our own lives, our own experiences of the divine, our own failings and successes, our joys and tears – combining these individual experiences with the whole Christian tradition and the stories of millions of people who have contributed to the collective memory of the body of Christ, the church.
On Remembrance Sunday, the whole Western world acknowledges something that the Church is always practicing: remembering the past helps to change the present and even the future. Remembrance Sunday is an important and solemn act in which we honour those killed in and affected by war. That is an important thing to do, but Remembrance Sunday really comes into its own as a tool for peace and transformation. In practicing remembrance, we hope to avoid a repeat of the World Wars and subsequent conflicts. Each year, on 11th November, we have fewer survivors, for whom those two enormous European conflicts in which so many suffered are living memory. In that context, our acts of remembrance become more important, not less so and will be of particular significance this year which marks the end of the Great War 1914 -1918. This is not something we do to help people who have lived through war, rather this is their opportunity to share something with those of us who have not.
This should be a helpful analogy for us in our spiritual lives and the lives of our churches. Can we practice transformative remembrance? Is that not what Jesus was really calling his disciples to do at the Last Supper? Not just calling them to a ceremonious act, but to see them transformed every time they broke bread together – to recognise that in remembering their experiences of walking around Galilee with Christ, they would live different lives.
Do we have experiences we could be drawing on that would make us better people? Maybe it was a time you encountered something of God, perhaps it is a particular passage of scripture, a particular story or hymn that gives you courage and hope, an experience you had of receiving or giving love, a precious memory of someone you hold in high regard.
The figure of Jesus is key here – what can we remember of him that can help us be better, help us transform ourselves?
There are many stories from the Bible and from our own experiences of God that help to teach us important lessons about how we live. Are there any you think are particularly important this Remembrance Sunday? Of course, there is a great deal still to be done as we hope and pray for world peace – at times it certainly feels as if we are going backwards. But the act of Remembrance Sunday is an important tool for us if we want to build a better world. Perhaps it can help us ‘begin with me’ – help us to remember the stories we know about Christ, remember our experiences of God, and remember the best versions of ourselves that we want to be.
There is much work to be done, but as one of the characters in JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ says: ‘it’s the job that never gets started, as it takes longest to finish’.
Let’s start the work of peace and transformation again today, in Jesus’ name.
And that act of remembrance has remained essential to the Christian faith ever since. At the heart of every communion service is a remembrance, both casting back to a previous story and making the present moment more holy because it carries the weight of history within it.
Our Christian life and worship is always partly an act of remembrance, whether it is a communion service or not. We are always living with a sense of remembering our own lives, our own experiences of the divine, our own failings and successes, our joys and tears – combining these individual experiences with the whole Christian tradition and the stories of millions of people who have contributed to the collective memory of the body of Christ, the church.
On Remembrance Sunday, the whole Western world acknowledges something that the Church is always practicing: remembering the past helps to change the present and even the future. Remembrance Sunday is an important and solemn act in which we honour those killed in and affected by war. That is an important thing to do, but Remembrance Sunday really comes into its own as a tool for peace and transformation. In practicing remembrance, we hope to avoid a repeat of the World Wars and subsequent conflicts. Each year, on 11th November, we have fewer survivors, for whom those two enormous European conflicts in which so many suffered are living memory. In that context, our acts of remembrance become more important, not less so and will be of particular significance this year which marks the end of the Great War 1914 -1918. This is not something we do to help people who have lived through war, rather this is their opportunity to share something with those of us who have not.
This should be a helpful analogy for us in our spiritual lives and the lives of our churches. Can we practice transformative remembrance? Is that not what Jesus was really calling his disciples to do at the Last Supper? Not just calling them to a ceremonious act, but to see them transformed every time they broke bread together – to recognise that in remembering their experiences of walking around Galilee with Christ, they would live different lives.
Do we have experiences we could be drawing on that would make us better people? Maybe it was a time you encountered something of God, perhaps it is a particular passage of scripture, a particular story or hymn that gives you courage and hope, an experience you had of receiving or giving love, a precious memory of someone you hold in high regard.
The figure of Jesus is key here – what can we remember of him that can help us be better, help us transform ourselves?
There are many stories from the Bible and from our own experiences of God that help to teach us important lessons about how we live. Are there any you think are particularly important this Remembrance Sunday? Of course, there is a great deal still to be done as we hope and pray for world peace – at times it certainly feels as if we are going backwards. But the act of Remembrance Sunday is an important tool for us if we want to build a better world. Perhaps it can help us ‘begin with me’ – help us to remember the stories we know about Christ, remember our experiences of God, and remember the best versions of ourselves that we want to be.
There is much work to be done, but as one of the characters in JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ says: ‘it’s the job that never gets started, as it takes longest to finish’.
Let’s start the work of peace and transformation again today, in Jesus’ name.
October 2018
Prayer's Ability
Prayer in the time of trouble brings peace to the weary soul,
Prayer in the time of triumph acknowledges God’s in control.
Prayer is never irrelevant; it is essential to our life,
It is not a crutch which to lean on, or to use in times of strife.
Prayer is a type of thanksgiving, a greeting to God for His grace,
Prayer is the essence of morning, the fragrance of life to embrace.
Prayer is a holy connection, a quiet time at God's feet,
In prayer we acknowledge dependence, a place where God and man meet.
Prayer is the means of sustaining
A faith that at times can grow weak,
The power of prayer is enriching, uplifting to hear our God speak.
It is not an audible message, no finger to write out His plan,
But a still small voice known as conscience is God's way of speaking to man.
When all other avenues falter, and man's ingenuity fails,
God, in His infinite wisdom, is the source who always prevails.
Nothing can bring such contentment
As spending an hour in prayer,
God is a most willing listener and He is eternally there.
Poet: Greta Zwaan, ©2011
Prayer in the time of trouble brings peace to the weary soul,
Prayer in the time of triumph acknowledges God’s in control.
Prayer is never irrelevant; it is essential to our life,
It is not a crutch which to lean on, or to use in times of strife.
Prayer is a type of thanksgiving, a greeting to God for His grace,
Prayer is the essence of morning, the fragrance of life to embrace.
Prayer is a holy connection, a quiet time at God's feet,
In prayer we acknowledge dependence, a place where God and man meet.
Prayer is the means of sustaining
A faith that at times can grow weak,
The power of prayer is enriching, uplifting to hear our God speak.
It is not an audible message, no finger to write out His plan,
But a still small voice known as conscience is God's way of speaking to man.
When all other avenues falter, and man's ingenuity fails,
God, in His infinite wisdom, is the source who always prevails.
Nothing can bring such contentment
As spending an hour in prayer,
God is a most willing listener and He is eternally there.
Poet: Greta Zwaan, ©2011
September 2018
Our new Minister - Sydney Samuel Lake
Hello, my name is Sydney Samuel Lake. I join the Wey Valley Circuit with pastoral oversight for Addlestone, Walton-on-Thames and Weybridge Methodist Churches. My wife is Hawa, who is a qualified social worker and we care for our two children.
Prior to full time ministry I studied Accountancy, completed an MBA and then worked as a Chartered Management Accountant in the Public Sector particularly for Local Authorities. Since studying Theology Ministry and Mission at the Queens Foundation in Birmingham, I now consider myself as a traditional Methodist. I love to practice the best of Methodist original traditions in addition to new ways of doing church. Loving regards.
Our new Superintendent Minister - Keith Beckingham
Keith Beckingham comes to the Wey Valley Circuit from the Brownhills & Willenhall Circuit where he was superintendent. Prior to that he was the Superintendent of the Christchurch & Lymington Circuit from 2003 to 2012. He previously served for 16 years in the Swinton and Chorley Circuits.
Before transferring to the Methodist Church Keith was a Salvation Army officer, subsequently studying for two years at Hartley Victoria College Manchester. He holds a postgraduate diploma in Applied Theology from Westminster College Oxford. Keith's wife, Hilary, (who is a local preacher), was also a Salvation Army officer and they have a grown up family living in Hampshire and South Yorkshire. Keith has experience of chaplaincy in a variety of settings and is particularly interested in developing links between mission and pastoral counselling as well as the use of music as a tool for mission.
Hello, my name is Sydney Samuel Lake. I join the Wey Valley Circuit with pastoral oversight for Addlestone, Walton-on-Thames and Weybridge Methodist Churches. My wife is Hawa, who is a qualified social worker and we care for our two children.
Prior to full time ministry I studied Accountancy, completed an MBA and then worked as a Chartered Management Accountant in the Public Sector particularly for Local Authorities. Since studying Theology Ministry and Mission at the Queens Foundation in Birmingham, I now consider myself as a traditional Methodist. I love to practice the best of Methodist original traditions in addition to new ways of doing church. Loving regards.
Our new Superintendent Minister - Keith Beckingham
Keith Beckingham comes to the Wey Valley Circuit from the Brownhills & Willenhall Circuit where he was superintendent. Prior to that he was the Superintendent of the Christchurch & Lymington Circuit from 2003 to 2012. He previously served for 16 years in the Swinton and Chorley Circuits.
Before transferring to the Methodist Church Keith was a Salvation Army officer, subsequently studying for two years at Hartley Victoria College Manchester. He holds a postgraduate diploma in Applied Theology from Westminster College Oxford. Keith's wife, Hilary, (who is a local preacher), was also a Salvation Army officer and they have a grown up family living in Hampshire and South Yorkshire. Keith has experience of chaplaincy in a variety of settings and is particularly interested in developing links between mission and pastoral counselling as well as the use of music as a tool for mission.
August 2018
The Black Telephone
When I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighbourhood.I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know.’ Information Please’ could supply anyone's number and the correct time.
My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer; the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear.
"Information, please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information."
"I hurt my finger" I wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open the icebox?" she asked. I said I could.
"Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts. Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, "Information Please," and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?" She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Wayne,always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone, "Information Please." "Information," said in the now familiar voice. "How do I spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please." Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. "Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time."
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered,
"Information." I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said. “Yes, a very old friend," I answered. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up, she said, "Wait a minute, did you say your name was Wayne?"
"Yes "I replied. “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." he note said, "Tell him there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean." I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.
Never underestimate the impression you may make on others.
Whose life have you touched today? Lifting you on eagle's wings.
May you find the joy and peace you long for. Life is a journey . .
NOT a guided tour.
When I was a young boy, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighbourhood.I remember the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know.’ Information Please’ could supply anyone's number and the correct time.
My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer; the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear.
"Information, please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information."
"I hurt my finger" I wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question.
"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."
"Can you open the icebox?" she asked. I said I could.
"Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.
After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts. Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary, died. I called, "Information Please," and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?" She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Wayne,always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone, "Information Please." "Information," said in the now familiar voice. "How do I spell fix?" I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and I somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about a half-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please." Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. "Information."
I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?"
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."
I laughed, "So it's really you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time."
"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls."
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."
Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered,
"Information." I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said. “Yes, a very old friend," I answered. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."
Before I could hang up, she said, "Wait a minute, did you say your name was Wayne?"
"Yes "I replied. “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." he note said, "Tell him there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean." I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.
Never underestimate the impression you may make on others.
Whose life have you touched today? Lifting you on eagle's wings.
May you find the joy and peace you long for. Life is a journey . .
NOT a guided tour.
July 2018
George Loveless
1797 – 1874
Tolpuddle Martyrs
When we drive to Dorset we always pass the road signs for the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ museum. Having learnt about them (or so I thought) whilst studying English social history in my ‘yoof’, we decided to detour the 10 minutes off the main road to visit the museum. I discovered that there was a major gap in my education! I was aware of their so called rebellion against a weekly wage of 10 shillings per week (50p in today’s money) and their quest for a living wage, the unfair trial (think Poldark - for those who watched a recent episode), their transportation, subsequent reprieve and eventual emigration to Canada. What was never mentioned during that period of study was that many of them, including George Loveless who was considered to be the leader, were Methodist local preachers. These men are accredited as founders of the modern day Trade Unions. After their pardon and return from Australia most of the group emigrated to Canada where they were instrumental in building a Methodist church at Siloam and continued to worship God amongst the local community.
The museum is situated a mere 10 minutes off the A35 in the village of Tolpuddle. Entry is free and it is well worth a visit (limited parking). So if you are in the vicinity of Dorchester or Wimborne or heading further west to the coastal towns of Weymouth, Bridport, Lyme Regis or even Sidmouth, why not break your journey and visit the museum.
http://www.dorsetmuseums.co.uk/tolpuddle-martyrs-museum
1797 – 1874
Tolpuddle Martyrs
When we drive to Dorset we always pass the road signs for the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ museum. Having learnt about them (or so I thought) whilst studying English social history in my ‘yoof’, we decided to detour the 10 minutes off the main road to visit the museum. I discovered that there was a major gap in my education! I was aware of their so called rebellion against a weekly wage of 10 shillings per week (50p in today’s money) and their quest for a living wage, the unfair trial (think Poldark - for those who watched a recent episode), their transportation, subsequent reprieve and eventual emigration to Canada. What was never mentioned during that period of study was that many of them, including George Loveless who was considered to be the leader, were Methodist local preachers. These men are accredited as founders of the modern day Trade Unions. After their pardon and return from Australia most of the group emigrated to Canada where they were instrumental in building a Methodist church at Siloam and continued to worship God amongst the local community.
The museum is situated a mere 10 minutes off the A35 in the village of Tolpuddle. Entry is free and it is well worth a visit (limited parking). So if you are in the vicinity of Dorchester or Wimborne or heading further west to the coastal towns of Weymouth, Bridport, Lyme Regis or even Sidmouth, why not break your journey and visit the museum.
http://www.dorsetmuseums.co.uk/tolpuddle-martyrs-museum
June 2018
We’ve all seen it (maybe even done it ourselves): two or more are gathered together with heads bowed. Praying? No, looking at their mobile phones! We live in an age of paradox:
Through electronic means we’re more connected than ever, but we’ve possibly never been less in relationships. Couples obviously on first dates or in the early stages of a relationship still have their phones out. Young women aren’t having smear tests because they are too embarrassed, yet they post intimate details of their everyday lives online. Nearly three quarters of young adults experience FOMO (fear of missing out), leading them to be constantly checking their social media accounts, but often adding to their fear rather than relieving it. Many use ‘selfies’ to project a particular image of themselves but end up being frustrated because they cannot be themselves. There can be an outpouring of grief on ‘Facebook’ in the face of a national tragedy, but a complete lack of sympathy for the homeless person under our noses.
This is the world we inhabit. We are not called to judge the world but to love it, so how, as Christians, can we speak into these
paradoxes? Jesus came to bring freedom – the freedom to be ourselves and to find ourselves in him. If we’re not then bringing that freedom for others, we’re not sharing in God’s work of salvation. We perhaps need to lift up our own heads and notice anew the world around us, the familiar things we pass by each day, and particularly the people we pass, seeing Christ in them and asking ourselves how can we be as Christ to them? We need to unplug our earphones to catch the snatches of conversations (if there is any audible conversation going on!) which tell us what others are interested in. As an activist, I could be in London nearly every Saturday marching for something or other. On the occasions when I do go, I’m always quite fascinated by those who are passionate about things like refugees and the environment but not for reasons of faith.
I’m not saying technology is a bad thing (and there’s certainly no putting the genie back in the bottle), but it touches on that old dilemma of whether Christians should engage with popular culture or stand above it. For me, it’s about engagement. Although I’m not convinced that there can be an electronic body of Christ, to be his hands and feet in the world, the church nevertheless needs to engage with the online world, just as Jesus went to the places where the people were. Like anything in life, however, there’s a need to strike a healthy balance or it will become an idol. If you are on social media or just play games on your tablet, ask yourself (and I include myself in this) are you prioritising it over the time you spend with God, either in prayer or reading the Bible? Do you need to redress the balance?
If you are on social media, you might post about that great party you went to, but do you ever say where you are on Sunday morning and what a great talk you heard? A woman at our church used Facebook to invite her cycling group to a carol service and was surprised by how many accepted the invitation and came along. Arguably, many are becoming disillusioned with materialism and individualism, and are longing for community and permanent relationships. This is the itch which the church can scratch! We need to find a way of tapping in to that sense of FOMO, for many are missing out – missing out on the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is our Christian calling to be ambassadors for him. That means making friends (maybe online in the first instance) and, in time, offering our Lord’s gracious invitation.
Deacon Angie Allport
Through electronic means we’re more connected than ever, but we’ve possibly never been less in relationships. Couples obviously on first dates or in the early stages of a relationship still have their phones out. Young women aren’t having smear tests because they are too embarrassed, yet they post intimate details of their everyday lives online. Nearly three quarters of young adults experience FOMO (fear of missing out), leading them to be constantly checking their social media accounts, but often adding to their fear rather than relieving it. Many use ‘selfies’ to project a particular image of themselves but end up being frustrated because they cannot be themselves. There can be an outpouring of grief on ‘Facebook’ in the face of a national tragedy, but a complete lack of sympathy for the homeless person under our noses.
This is the world we inhabit. We are not called to judge the world but to love it, so how, as Christians, can we speak into these
paradoxes? Jesus came to bring freedom – the freedom to be ourselves and to find ourselves in him. If we’re not then bringing that freedom for others, we’re not sharing in God’s work of salvation. We perhaps need to lift up our own heads and notice anew the world around us, the familiar things we pass by each day, and particularly the people we pass, seeing Christ in them and asking ourselves how can we be as Christ to them? We need to unplug our earphones to catch the snatches of conversations (if there is any audible conversation going on!) which tell us what others are interested in. As an activist, I could be in London nearly every Saturday marching for something or other. On the occasions when I do go, I’m always quite fascinated by those who are passionate about things like refugees and the environment but not for reasons of faith.
I’m not saying technology is a bad thing (and there’s certainly no putting the genie back in the bottle), but it touches on that old dilemma of whether Christians should engage with popular culture or stand above it. For me, it’s about engagement. Although I’m not convinced that there can be an electronic body of Christ, to be his hands and feet in the world, the church nevertheless needs to engage with the online world, just as Jesus went to the places where the people were. Like anything in life, however, there’s a need to strike a healthy balance or it will become an idol. If you are on social media or just play games on your tablet, ask yourself (and I include myself in this) are you prioritising it over the time you spend with God, either in prayer or reading the Bible? Do you need to redress the balance?
If you are on social media, you might post about that great party you went to, but do you ever say where you are on Sunday morning and what a great talk you heard? A woman at our church used Facebook to invite her cycling group to a carol service and was surprised by how many accepted the invitation and came along. Arguably, many are becoming disillusioned with materialism and individualism, and are longing for community and permanent relationships. This is the itch which the church can scratch! We need to find a way of tapping in to that sense of FOMO, for many are missing out – missing out on the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is our Christian calling to be ambassadors for him. That means making friends (maybe online in the first instance) and, in time, offering our Lord’s gracious invitation.
Deacon Angie Allport
May 2018
Multiplication of volunteers
I have observed over the years the astonishing achievements that are possible when every member of even a small congregation gets involved in praying, serving and giving.
The people of God faced a massive task in the building of the tabernacle. They achieved it through a multiplication of involvement of volunteers. Moses assembled ‘the entire congregation’ (35:1, MSG). This is what is needed in every church today:
All this was entirely voluntary. The people of God were ‘stirred up for God’ (35:21,26, AMP). The task was achieved by ‘everyone whose heart was roused, whose spirit was freely responsive’ (v.21, MSG). If we are to achieve what God is calling us to do as a community we need this multiplication of volunteers.
Enthusiasm is infectious. Don’t waste your time hanging around people who try to belittle your dreams. Associate with people who inspire and challenge you, lift you higher and make you better. Walk with the visionaries, the believers, the doers and the courageous. Great people make you feel that you too can become great.
Stir one another up to pray, serve and give. You will be astonished by how God is able to multiply your 57 cents and do more than you could ever ask or even imagine.
I have observed over the years the astonishing achievements that are possible when every member of even a small congregation gets involved in praying, serving and giving.
The people of God faced a massive task in the building of the tabernacle. They achieved it through a multiplication of involvement of volunteers. Moses assembled ‘the entire congregation’ (35:1, MSG). This is what is needed in every church today:
- Everyone praying
We saw in yesterday’s passage how everybody united in prayer and worship, ‘they all stood and worshipped’ (33:10). The Sabbath was not just a day of rest, it was a ‘holy day’ of ‘rest to the Lord’ (35:2). It was a day when people could devote more time to prayer and worship. The whole community prayed. - Everyone giving
They took up ‘an offering for the Lord’ (v.5a). Everyone was urged to give: ‘Everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering of gold, silver and bronze’ (v.5b).
The task was not achieved by one generous donor alone: ‘And everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work... All who were willing, men and women alike’ (vv.21–22). Like Hattie May Wiatt, each one brought their ‘57 cents’.
If your community is to achieve everything that God is calling you to do, you will need everyone giving – not under compulsion but willingly (2 Corinthians 8 and 9).
As everyone got involved in giving, they had ‘more than enough’ (Exodus 36:5). ‘The people were ordered to stop bringing offerings! There was plenty of material for all the work to be done. Enough and more than enough’ (vv.6–7, MSG). - Everyone serving
Everybody got involved in serving. The words ‘everyone’ and ‘all’ appear many times in this passage. It was entirely voluntary: ‘All who are skilled among you are to come and make everything the Lord has commanded’ (35:10). For example, ‘everyone who had acacia wood... brought it’ (v.24); ‘Every skilled woman spun wither hands’ (v.25).
All this was entirely voluntary. The people of God were ‘stirred up for God’ (35:21,26, AMP). The task was achieved by ‘everyone whose heart was roused, whose spirit was freely responsive’ (v.21, MSG). If we are to achieve what God is calling us to do as a community we need this multiplication of volunteers.
Enthusiasm is infectious. Don’t waste your time hanging around people who try to belittle your dreams. Associate with people who inspire and challenge you, lift you higher and make you better. Walk with the visionaries, the believers, the doers and the courageous. Great people make you feel that you too can become great.
Stir one another up to pray, serve and give. You will be astonished by how God is able to multiply your 57 cents and do more than you could ever ask or even imagine.
April 2018
|
Good Friday in my Heart by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge GOOD FRIDAY in my heart! Fear and affright! My thoughts are the Disciples when they fled, My words the words that priest and soldier said, My deed the spear to desecrate the dead. And day, Thy death therein, is changed to night. Then Easter in my heart sends up the sun. My thoughts are Mary, when she turned to see. My words are Peter, answering, ‘Lov’st thou Me?’ My deeds are all Thine own drawn close to Thee, And night and day, since Thou dost rise, are one. |
Easter Song by George Herbert I Got me flowers to straw Thy way, I got me boughs off many a tree; But Thou wast up by break of day, And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee. The sunne arising in the East, Though he give light, and th’ East perfume, If they should offer to contest With Thy arising, they presume. Can there be any day but this, Though many sunnes to shine endeavour? We count three hundred, but we misse: There is but one, and that one ever. |
March 2018
Should Lent be interesting?
‘Do you know of any churches doing anything interesting for Lent?’ It’s not an everyday question, but it’s one I was asked recently by a colleague who works in local radio. I think I know what she meant and was looking for; something different to the usual round of events to be found in church notices at this time of year, something which might contribute to an interesting radio programme.
My first thought was to rack my brain for churches which might indeed be doing something a little different, something beyond the usual round of lent lunches, midweek services and ecumenical bibles studies. And I confess that my initial investigation couldn’t come up with anything much beyond the normal pattern of events, however valuable and well- intentioned.
Nevertheless, the question set me thinking. What do I make of Lent and who is it for? Is it just for Christians inside the church or should it be something of interest, able to speak to the wider world? Is it primarily a time for refocusing on our spiritual discipline, either giving things up or taking new commitments on ‘for Lent’? Or does this give the wrong idea about Christian faith and church, that it’s all about saying ‘no’ to things rather than saying ‘yes’ to life?
These questions stayed with me as I set off to take my normal round of Sunday services. But as I drove in my car, I was struck by the number of other people out in the wind and rain on a fairly miserable Sunday morning in Marchruary. There were runners in fluorescent vests, cycling groups in lycra struggling up and whizzing down hills, and even some early morning rowers out on the river Taff, all puffing and panting away.
None of them were in Church; but all were undertaking some significant physical exercise, doing something which required a regular commitment week-in week-out, and which for many of them involved doing it in company, alongside others. This outdoor exercise seemed to be something they considered it valuable enough for their well-being to be out doing in all sorts of weathers. That kind of discipline, that level of commitment didn’t put them off – rather it was part of the appeal, part of what made the exercise, whether running, riding or rowing, so valuable and worthwhile.
It made me think about our understanding, indeed my own discipline and practice of Lent, beyond that commitment over the years to simple lunches and times of prayer and study; that it may not be a time which appears particularly interesting or entertaining to others, but is one which reminds us of the need to commit and be serious about our faith; and that the God who comes to share with us in Jesus Christ is a God who makes some pretty demanding calls upon us – and asks us to ‘shape up’.
It suggested to me that this may be something which folk in the wider world already know, indeed are willing to recognise and understand; namely that the things which matter most are the things which are worth committing to – and that if we were a little more serious about our commitment to the faith we profess, then others might be a little more willing to take it seriously. And maybe that’s the message of Lent; that it’s a time for being serious rather than interesting – but who knows – taking things seriously may just make us and our faith a matter of more than local interest.
By Rev Dr Stephen Wigley
‘Do you know of any churches doing anything interesting for Lent?’ It’s not an everyday question, but it’s one I was asked recently by a colleague who works in local radio. I think I know what she meant and was looking for; something different to the usual round of events to be found in church notices at this time of year, something which might contribute to an interesting radio programme.
My first thought was to rack my brain for churches which might indeed be doing something a little different, something beyond the usual round of lent lunches, midweek services and ecumenical bibles studies. And I confess that my initial investigation couldn’t come up with anything much beyond the normal pattern of events, however valuable and well- intentioned.
Nevertheless, the question set me thinking. What do I make of Lent and who is it for? Is it just for Christians inside the church or should it be something of interest, able to speak to the wider world? Is it primarily a time for refocusing on our spiritual discipline, either giving things up or taking new commitments on ‘for Lent’? Or does this give the wrong idea about Christian faith and church, that it’s all about saying ‘no’ to things rather than saying ‘yes’ to life?
These questions stayed with me as I set off to take my normal round of Sunday services. But as I drove in my car, I was struck by the number of other people out in the wind and rain on a fairly miserable Sunday morning in Marchruary. There were runners in fluorescent vests, cycling groups in lycra struggling up and whizzing down hills, and even some early morning rowers out on the river Taff, all puffing and panting away.
None of them were in Church; but all were undertaking some significant physical exercise, doing something which required a regular commitment week-in week-out, and which for many of them involved doing it in company, alongside others. This outdoor exercise seemed to be something they considered it valuable enough for their well-being to be out doing in all sorts of weathers. That kind of discipline, that level of commitment didn’t put them off – rather it was part of the appeal, part of what made the exercise, whether running, riding or rowing, so valuable and worthwhile.
It made me think about our understanding, indeed my own discipline and practice of Lent, beyond that commitment over the years to simple lunches and times of prayer and study; that it may not be a time which appears particularly interesting or entertaining to others, but is one which reminds us of the need to commit and be serious about our faith; and that the God who comes to share with us in Jesus Christ is a God who makes some pretty demanding calls upon us – and asks us to ‘shape up’.
It suggested to me that this may be something which folk in the wider world already know, indeed are willing to recognise and understand; namely that the things which matter most are the things which are worth committing to – and that if we were a little more serious about our commitment to the faith we profess, then others might be a little more willing to take it seriously. And maybe that’s the message of Lent; that it’s a time for being serious rather than interesting – but who knows – taking things seriously may just make us and our faith a matter of more than local interest.
By Rev Dr Stephen Wigley
February 2018
Getting back to basics!
“I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you, as and where you choose.” - Covenant Prayer, Methodist Worship Book
Although some Methodist congregations celebrate their Covenant service at the beginning of the Connexional year in September, for many, this month of January, provides the opportunity for a renewal of our commitment. Having served in churches where both options have been explored, it has always struck me that, whilst any opportunity to renew our commitment is wonderful, there is something timely about holding this service at the beginning of the calendar year. The commercial Christmas season with all its glitzy advertisements and tempting offers encourages us to focus on what we want and to spend more than we have in order to obtain it. So, it’s perhaps no bad thing, early in the New Year to have this opportunity to place things back in perspective and for us to be reminded of the sacrificial nature of our commitment as followers of Jesus. After all, it is the time of resolutions, so here’s the chance to include some spiritual resolution at the beginning of the New Year.
This Covenant Service is treasured and valued by many Methodists, coveted by many of our ecumenical colleagues. However, like me, you may have observed that many seem to consciously avoid this annual opportunity to renew commitment. Why? And what does this say to us about the nature, language, context and value of this service each year? It was back in 1755 that John Wesley originally created a service which has evolved into the Covenant Service as we know it today. He based the words of the Covenant prayer, which is at the heart of the service, on words from the Puritan tradition which had been so important in the lives of his parents Samuel and Susanna. He included in his original covenant prayer phrases that we would recognise from our marriage service, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for all times and conditions ....” suggesting that Wesley saw this covenant relationship between God and his people as being like a marriage, an image reflected in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Wesley seems to be suggesting that through this covenant relationship, we are, both individually and corporately, partners together with God in his mission in the world. The words of this prayer, in both its traditional and modern forms, offer us a clear description of what it might really mean for us to be disciples of Jesus. We could suggest that it offers a practical description of what Jesus was suggesting when he said, ““Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” So, sharing in this prayer helps us to remember what living as Jesus calls us to live really looks like!
There is no doubt that this is demanding stuff, so perhaps people avoid the Covenant service for fear of failure? However, as I reflect upon the words of the covenant prayer in preparation for a Covenant service that I will lead this week I am reminded of the context in which Wesley developed this service. When he and the other early Methodists prayed this prayer, there would have been an expectation that they were all part of a class meeting or band. In that way they were supporting one another and holding one another to account for this challenging way of living and loving – a way of life that is surely only possible in a community where you know you are loved, supported and being upheld in prayer.
Research also suggests that the Covenant service was not some stand- alone event that came around once a year. A whole series of gatherings were held in the run up to the Covenant service so that through study, prayer and sermons, everyone could understand more fully what the Covenant was all about. Then after a day of prayer and fasting, those who chose to, would participate in the Covenant Service, but that certainly wasn’t the end of the matter for another year! From then on, everyone was encouraged to think about what the implications of having prayed that prayer might be in their own situation, and through their class meetings were given all the help and encouragement that they needed to sustain this way of life.
How much of that kind of nurture and support is really being offered in our churches today I wonder? Is the lack of gathering together regularly for support and accountability one of the reasons why so many people find this prayer so difficult to say? What difference might it make to our individual and corporate sense of identity and vocation if we really helped each other to live out this prayer?
The Covenant prayer is an extremely important part of our Methodist tradition. It helps us to know who we are and to whom we belong. It reminds us that being a Christian is a way of life which demands much of us, but only in response to the self-giving love of God in Christ. As we share in this prayer again this year, perhaps we could reflect not only on what living out the prayer might demand of us individually, but what it might demand of us as a church, if we are to really help one another to truly share in this covenant.
Gill Newton
“I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you, as and where you choose.” - Covenant Prayer, Methodist Worship Book
Although some Methodist congregations celebrate their Covenant service at the beginning of the Connexional year in September, for many, this month of January, provides the opportunity for a renewal of our commitment. Having served in churches where both options have been explored, it has always struck me that, whilst any opportunity to renew our commitment is wonderful, there is something timely about holding this service at the beginning of the calendar year. The commercial Christmas season with all its glitzy advertisements and tempting offers encourages us to focus on what we want and to spend more than we have in order to obtain it. So, it’s perhaps no bad thing, early in the New Year to have this opportunity to place things back in perspective and for us to be reminded of the sacrificial nature of our commitment as followers of Jesus. After all, it is the time of resolutions, so here’s the chance to include some spiritual resolution at the beginning of the New Year.
This Covenant Service is treasured and valued by many Methodists, coveted by many of our ecumenical colleagues. However, like me, you may have observed that many seem to consciously avoid this annual opportunity to renew commitment. Why? And what does this say to us about the nature, language, context and value of this service each year? It was back in 1755 that John Wesley originally created a service which has evolved into the Covenant Service as we know it today. He based the words of the Covenant prayer, which is at the heart of the service, on words from the Puritan tradition which had been so important in the lives of his parents Samuel and Susanna. He included in his original covenant prayer phrases that we would recognise from our marriage service, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for all times and conditions ....” suggesting that Wesley saw this covenant relationship between God and his people as being like a marriage, an image reflected in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Wesley seems to be suggesting that through this covenant relationship, we are, both individually and corporately, partners together with God in his mission in the world. The words of this prayer, in both its traditional and modern forms, offer us a clear description of what it might really mean for us to be disciples of Jesus. We could suggest that it offers a practical description of what Jesus was suggesting when he said, ““Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” So, sharing in this prayer helps us to remember what living as Jesus calls us to live really looks like!
There is no doubt that this is demanding stuff, so perhaps people avoid the Covenant service for fear of failure? However, as I reflect upon the words of the covenant prayer in preparation for a Covenant service that I will lead this week I am reminded of the context in which Wesley developed this service. When he and the other early Methodists prayed this prayer, there would have been an expectation that they were all part of a class meeting or band. In that way they were supporting one another and holding one another to account for this challenging way of living and loving – a way of life that is surely only possible in a community where you know you are loved, supported and being upheld in prayer.
Research also suggests that the Covenant service was not some stand- alone event that came around once a year. A whole series of gatherings were held in the run up to the Covenant service so that through study, prayer and sermons, everyone could understand more fully what the Covenant was all about. Then after a day of prayer and fasting, those who chose to, would participate in the Covenant Service, but that certainly wasn’t the end of the matter for another year! From then on, everyone was encouraged to think about what the implications of having prayed that prayer might be in their own situation, and through their class meetings were given all the help and encouragement that they needed to sustain this way of life.
How much of that kind of nurture and support is really being offered in our churches today I wonder? Is the lack of gathering together regularly for support and accountability one of the reasons why so many people find this prayer so difficult to say? What difference might it make to our individual and corporate sense of identity and vocation if we really helped each other to live out this prayer?
The Covenant prayer is an extremely important part of our Methodist tradition. It helps us to know who we are and to whom we belong. It reminds us that being a Christian is a way of life which demands much of us, but only in response to the self-giving love of God in Christ. As we share in this prayer again this year, perhaps we could reflect not only on what living out the prayer might demand of us individually, but what it might demand of us as a church, if we are to really help one another to truly share in this covenant.
Gill Newton
January 2018
GIVE US A REST
Over the years I’ve increasingly fought shy of the bland condemnation of the way society celebrates Christmas – materialism etc. This may be because I’m only too aware that I am very much part of that society and I do enjoy many aspects of the Christmas celebrations which could not easily be labelled “spiritual”. It may also be because I have a suspicion that many people in our society aren’t as far away from some “spiritual” desires in their approach to the festive season as we might like lazily to think.
It hit me last December whilst shopping in a crowded city centre – everyone is running around trying to finish the shopping by the deadline, many are affording themselves a little patisserie treat during a brief pit- stop from the merry-go-round, bags and bags are being carried off over rain-bespattered streets to dimly-lit car parks and nerves are often at a stretch. But there’s something else going on, something which we all share whether we profess faith or not, something that is communicated through the not-so-cheery-as- the-adverts-would-wish-us-to-believe looks on people’s faces, something in the almost formulaic, metronomic doing of the shopping, the very joylessness of participants in the supposed season of good cheer........WE ALL JUST WANT A REST. And we’re looking to Christmas to provide us with the one big moment of permission to have it.
Of course, this won’t be possible for some in the emergency services, health service, hospitality industry etc. and there will only be a brief respite for those in the retail sector but that doesn’t take away from the fact that all crave it and will look forward to getting it at some time during the season.
The writer to the Hebrews reassures his readers that there still remains “a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4 v 9). They need not think that their faithless forebears had forfeited it for every succeeding generation but, on the other hand, they did need to listen to and obey the voice of the Lord “today” in order to enter in to it. The Sabbath rest is conceived of as a thing of the future. For Israel it may have been thought to be arrival in Canaan, dropping the baggage and dangling the feet in cooling streams. Massively welcome but only earthly and temporary. For the Jesus people of the new age, for whom the promise is blended with faith, it is more appropriately seen as the heavenly home-coming, eternal and final. The writer knows they crave this. He sees the Christian life of committed discipleship as a struggle of a pilgrimage which needs the promise of heaven as a spur to the continued making of the necessary sacrifices to which we are called. Life as a Christian is not easy and we all yearn for rest. But, for one reason or another, so do those with whom we share space in shopping malls at this time of year. The Sabbath rest is also, of course, a thing of the past, from when the foundations of life were laid. A thing which God did and gave us to do, not on a whim but as a matter of necessity. This is how life is and if Sabbath is not part of it, life will not be life as it can be. When paradise is lost, the humans are sent outside the garden to earn their living by the sweat of their brow and that state of affairs has continued until now. We may have swapped the tilling of the soil for the computer screen, the steering wheel, the incessant telephone or the building site but we still sweat and we want a rest.
That craving for a Sabbath is hard-wired in to every human being despite, or maybe because of, the fact that we over-play our hands in working too many hours and crossing the natural rhythms of life. That’s what we have in our shopping centres at this time of year – people just like us who are wanting just what we want. And whilst some may be steadfastly non-Christ-recognising, the majority do have a bit of room in the inn of their lives. There will be those around us for whom this Christmas will be a “today” and who might respond very well to the invitation to come and have a rest courtesy of the one who invented rest in the first place.
Stress and pressure are just as rife in the church as outside it. Community outreach and mission are very important and we should all be doing our bit to make the world a better place for others, but I think it is important to know our own limitations and when we risk crossing the line from Christian service to martyrdom.
Let’s not forget, Jesus’ first great commandment was to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength.’ Those who have to work on Sundays can have their day of rest on another day, but I think it is vitally important for people of faith to be kind to themselves and find their rest in God.
‘This is the day of rest,
To use as God intended:
Time to renew our faith
And let ourselves be mended;
Time to fulfil our song
And time to rediscover
Those to whom we belong
And God, who is our lover.’
(StF 150)
Rev Peter Hancock
Over the years I’ve increasingly fought shy of the bland condemnation of the way society celebrates Christmas – materialism etc. This may be because I’m only too aware that I am very much part of that society and I do enjoy many aspects of the Christmas celebrations which could not easily be labelled “spiritual”. It may also be because I have a suspicion that many people in our society aren’t as far away from some “spiritual” desires in their approach to the festive season as we might like lazily to think.
It hit me last December whilst shopping in a crowded city centre – everyone is running around trying to finish the shopping by the deadline, many are affording themselves a little patisserie treat during a brief pit- stop from the merry-go-round, bags and bags are being carried off over rain-bespattered streets to dimly-lit car parks and nerves are often at a stretch. But there’s something else going on, something which we all share whether we profess faith or not, something that is communicated through the not-so-cheery-as- the-adverts-would-wish-us-to-believe looks on people’s faces, something in the almost formulaic, metronomic doing of the shopping, the very joylessness of participants in the supposed season of good cheer........WE ALL JUST WANT A REST. And we’re looking to Christmas to provide us with the one big moment of permission to have it.
Of course, this won’t be possible for some in the emergency services, health service, hospitality industry etc. and there will only be a brief respite for those in the retail sector but that doesn’t take away from the fact that all crave it and will look forward to getting it at some time during the season.
The writer to the Hebrews reassures his readers that there still remains “a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4 v 9). They need not think that their faithless forebears had forfeited it for every succeeding generation but, on the other hand, they did need to listen to and obey the voice of the Lord “today” in order to enter in to it. The Sabbath rest is conceived of as a thing of the future. For Israel it may have been thought to be arrival in Canaan, dropping the baggage and dangling the feet in cooling streams. Massively welcome but only earthly and temporary. For the Jesus people of the new age, for whom the promise is blended with faith, it is more appropriately seen as the heavenly home-coming, eternal and final. The writer knows they crave this. He sees the Christian life of committed discipleship as a struggle of a pilgrimage which needs the promise of heaven as a spur to the continued making of the necessary sacrifices to which we are called. Life as a Christian is not easy and we all yearn for rest. But, for one reason or another, so do those with whom we share space in shopping malls at this time of year. The Sabbath rest is also, of course, a thing of the past, from when the foundations of life were laid. A thing which God did and gave us to do, not on a whim but as a matter of necessity. This is how life is and if Sabbath is not part of it, life will not be life as it can be. When paradise is lost, the humans are sent outside the garden to earn their living by the sweat of their brow and that state of affairs has continued until now. We may have swapped the tilling of the soil for the computer screen, the steering wheel, the incessant telephone or the building site but we still sweat and we want a rest.
That craving for a Sabbath is hard-wired in to every human being despite, or maybe because of, the fact that we over-play our hands in working too many hours and crossing the natural rhythms of life. That’s what we have in our shopping centres at this time of year – people just like us who are wanting just what we want. And whilst some may be steadfastly non-Christ-recognising, the majority do have a bit of room in the inn of their lives. There will be those around us for whom this Christmas will be a “today” and who might respond very well to the invitation to come and have a rest courtesy of the one who invented rest in the first place.
Stress and pressure are just as rife in the church as outside it. Community outreach and mission are very important and we should all be doing our bit to make the world a better place for others, but I think it is important to know our own limitations and when we risk crossing the line from Christian service to martyrdom.
Let’s not forget, Jesus’ first great commandment was to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength.’ Those who have to work on Sundays can have their day of rest on another day, but I think it is vitally important for people of faith to be kind to themselves and find their rest in God.
‘This is the day of rest,
To use as God intended:
Time to renew our faith
And let ourselves be mended;
Time to fulfil our song
And time to rediscover
Those to whom we belong
And God, who is our lover.’
(StF 150)
Rev Peter Hancock
November 2017
Remembrance Day
We come together today as citizens of earth and of heaven to remember:
To remember with pride and appreciation those who have given their lives in service of others
To remember with dismay the suffering, destruction and pain caused by human conflict
To remember with gratitude those whose lives, love and friendship, ours has been the privilege to share
To remember with sadness those whose death has caused us loneliness and pain
We come together not to glorify or celebrate war and conflict but to recognise its cost and commit
Whatever our view and whatever part we may have had to play in the theatre of war and conflict,
we express our common humanity by pausing to recognise the value and worth of every life lost,
and so express the mystery that to be human is to be both marred by our common failings yet fashioned
in the image of our Creator.
And in our remembrance we give God thanks for memory itself through which we are forever warned by the
mistakes of the past and enriched by experiences that can no longer be known in the present.
October 2017
Icons – pointing to what?
The death of a 36-year-old mother of two in a road traffic accident and the temporary silencing of the chimes of a clock, both having attached to them the language of iconic. One, twenty years after the event, continues to see the person described as an icon, with photographic images venerated. The second, an inanimate object but one that marks time, marks occasions and is considered a landmark. At various points in the life of the late Diana, Princess of Wales commentators use the language of icon more because of perception than because of human dignity and the langue is simply applied to Big Ben as the most photographed building in London.
Contemporary icons seem to have about them little by way of a common thread. They are defined by a plethora of commentators, and are a long way from icons in the Christian tradition and those that caused such controversy at the second Council of Nicaea. In the great sweep of the Christian Church icons are very much more than items of religious art, rather icons express central doctrines of the faith. They are more than visual aids, they are created (written) with great devotion and are only understood fully within the context of worship. Icons give a visual expression to the surrounding cloud of witnesses, and of course to Christ. They present the believer with a visual embrace in the economy of God. Moreover, they offer windows on the divine.
So, our use of the word now offers us a challenge. What are modern day icons a window onto? In a Christian tradition that has not paid very great attention to the visual, what sort of icons do we need so that we may see God; see the holiness of the created order and all in such a way as to transform?
When compared with the great icons of the Eastern Church Big Ben seems a small, modern image. Innocent enough. On the other hand, a 36 year old mother of two killed in a road accident has about it much more than worship at a shrine of flowers. There was a human soul at the heart of that accident and two grieving sons, still.
The language and definition of icons has developed and it is unlikely that the more overtly ‘religious’ use of the term will in any way be narrowly defined again. It may be then that we need to rediscover (reclaim?) the language, and our task is to work harder at offering a critique of icons that can all too easily point to a shallow understanding of human worth and dignity. There is nothing wrong with iconic buildings, but when the icon prevents an encounter with what holds human life and death, we have to reassess our priorities. The Eastern Icons were about encounter.
In some traditions icons are treated with great respect and care, reverence even. From time to time our cultural icons are similarity treated. The reasons for this may be ambiguous and from time to time a challenge of such an icon is necessary in order to break the myth and let what really matters take center stage. If we want an icon to point us to something different we have to work at understanding the breadth of the world. The icons of the present moment may in fact be nothing more than memorable events, noteworthy points in discourse, significant markers in a given discipline, or popular people. The language of icons however has a deeper definition. John of Damascus reminds us that the icon is a song of triumph, and a revelation, and an enduring monument to the victory of the saints and the disgrace of the demons.
The same could be the case for our definition and contribution to public discourse. The purpose of the image in iconography is to give a sense of direction. ‘In being offered a sense of direction we are, in turn, brought into a new place and a new perception.’ When applying the language of icon there is a theological task to offer some views on how we interpret the world and see that which is ultimately of value as part of God’s creation.
By Rev Gareth Powell
The death of a 36-year-old mother of two in a road traffic accident and the temporary silencing of the chimes of a clock, both having attached to them the language of iconic. One, twenty years after the event, continues to see the person described as an icon, with photographic images venerated. The second, an inanimate object but one that marks time, marks occasions and is considered a landmark. At various points in the life of the late Diana, Princess of Wales commentators use the language of icon more because of perception than because of human dignity and the langue is simply applied to Big Ben as the most photographed building in London.
Contemporary icons seem to have about them little by way of a common thread. They are defined by a plethora of commentators, and are a long way from icons in the Christian tradition and those that caused such controversy at the second Council of Nicaea. In the great sweep of the Christian Church icons are very much more than items of religious art, rather icons express central doctrines of the faith. They are more than visual aids, they are created (written) with great devotion and are only understood fully within the context of worship. Icons give a visual expression to the surrounding cloud of witnesses, and of course to Christ. They present the believer with a visual embrace in the economy of God. Moreover, they offer windows on the divine.
So, our use of the word now offers us a challenge. What are modern day icons a window onto? In a Christian tradition that has not paid very great attention to the visual, what sort of icons do we need so that we may see God; see the holiness of the created order and all in such a way as to transform?
When compared with the great icons of the Eastern Church Big Ben seems a small, modern image. Innocent enough. On the other hand, a 36 year old mother of two killed in a road accident has about it much more than worship at a shrine of flowers. There was a human soul at the heart of that accident and two grieving sons, still.
The language and definition of icons has developed and it is unlikely that the more overtly ‘religious’ use of the term will in any way be narrowly defined again. It may be then that we need to rediscover (reclaim?) the language, and our task is to work harder at offering a critique of icons that can all too easily point to a shallow understanding of human worth and dignity. There is nothing wrong with iconic buildings, but when the icon prevents an encounter with what holds human life and death, we have to reassess our priorities. The Eastern Icons were about encounter.
In some traditions icons are treated with great respect and care, reverence even. From time to time our cultural icons are similarity treated. The reasons for this may be ambiguous and from time to time a challenge of such an icon is necessary in order to break the myth and let what really matters take center stage. If we want an icon to point us to something different we have to work at understanding the breadth of the world. The icons of the present moment may in fact be nothing more than memorable events, noteworthy points in discourse, significant markers in a given discipline, or popular people. The language of icons however has a deeper definition. John of Damascus reminds us that the icon is a song of triumph, and a revelation, and an enduring monument to the victory of the saints and the disgrace of the demons.
The same could be the case for our definition and contribution to public discourse. The purpose of the image in iconography is to give a sense of direction. ‘In being offered a sense of direction we are, in turn, brought into a new place and a new perception.’ When applying the language of icon there is a theological task to offer some views on how we interpret the world and see that which is ultimately of value as part of God’s creation.
By Rev Gareth Powell
September 2017
Life and death
As I write, the tragic case recently hitting the news headlines, of baby Charlie Gard, has drawn to its deeply sad conclusion. Charlie was born with a genetic defect; he had a rare mitochondrial disease that causes the body’s cells and organs to shut down, so that he had brain damage, was deaf, blind, and unable to breathe or move by himself. Earlier this week Charlie’s parents, Connie and Chris, conceded to Charlie being allowed to die in a hospice, and now baby Charlie has died: the close of a long journey, even if a relatively short one chronologically. This journey has taken the parents from a battle with the courts, seeking to permit them to take their son to the US for experimental treatment; to an agreement to allow Charlie to die when Charlie’s condition deteriorated and the treatment, which was always extremely limited in its possibilities, no longer offered a possibility of meaningful life; through the fight to allow him to return home to die, but because of the difficulty in providing the necessary ventilation requirements at home, coming to the agreement that Charlie would die in a hospice. Yet, even this was complicated, Charlie’s parents wanted him to be kept alive in the hospice for a week or so, to spend some final peaceful time with him, but there were financial and practical constraints – the need of finding and possibly funding a team who would support him during that time. It wasn’t possible and shortly after being moved to a hospice, Charlie died.
This case has given rise to emotionally charged, emotively expressed feeling and language, even as far as death threats being issued against staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital by some ‘supporters’ of Charlie. There have been numerous opinions expressed about the state ‘playing God’; about court and medical control overriding the wishes of parents; about suffering and the inability to cure all illnesses; about the right to life and the right to be able to die in dignity, without the prolongation of pain; about parental needs and desires, and what is best for the child.
The issue has been rife with ethical dilemmas and the difficulty is, it is possible to empathise with the various positions. Of course the parents wanted their child to live, and be well, and flourish; of course the needs of the child are paramount: was he suffering? What sort of life would he have lived, even if the hoped for treatment had enabled him to do so? Of course doctors are committed to doing what is best for each child they treat; and how hard for the judge to make decisions which determine the future lives of all those intimately involved. Many became involved in the debate – Donald Trump, the Pope, journalists, contributors to Twitter and Facebook with opinions on all sides.
For the parents, Connie and Chris, their reality is that much has had to be relinquished, and the decisions they have had to make have been from a place of deep grieving and loss.
It is a characteristic of our generation that we find such relinquishing, such powerlessness difficult. We want it all. We want to be able to control, to make things happen; and the advances in science, medical treatments, and understanding about living a healthy lifestyle, offer so much more hope for that generally.
But the reality of human life is that we can’t have everything the way we want it. We can’t have life without death. Death is a reality of our existence. We have pushed the experience of death as far away as we can. The Christian gospel, however, is about death and resurrection. Jesus does not avoid death. Indeed, his death and resurrection is the central focus of our faith, the means through which salvation comes to us.
We need to be able to relinquish; yes of course to love and to care and to fight for the best, but also, when it is necessary, to relinquish, to embrace death, and to grieve, trusting to the resurrection life God offers. The work of relinquishing is, according to Richard Rohr in Falling Upwards, the work of the latter half of life. The first half of life being about accrual, gathering to oneself; the second half is about letting go, relinquishing, simplicity. There are no set ages when these stages take place. For Charlie’s parents relinquishing their son has come very early in life. But the spirituality of relinquishing is something we all need to embrace.
Nothing can prepare us for the sort of relinquishment that faced Connie and Chris Gard. Yet, ultimately, we are all called to relinquish all to God. This spirituality of letting go of power, of the desire to control, of simplicity, lies at the heart of who we are and what we believe; ‘I am no longer my own, but yours.’
Revd Julie Lunn . Chaplain, Lecturer in Practical and Social Theology
As I write, the tragic case recently hitting the news headlines, of baby Charlie Gard, has drawn to its deeply sad conclusion. Charlie was born with a genetic defect; he had a rare mitochondrial disease that causes the body’s cells and organs to shut down, so that he had brain damage, was deaf, blind, and unable to breathe or move by himself. Earlier this week Charlie’s parents, Connie and Chris, conceded to Charlie being allowed to die in a hospice, and now baby Charlie has died: the close of a long journey, even if a relatively short one chronologically. This journey has taken the parents from a battle with the courts, seeking to permit them to take their son to the US for experimental treatment; to an agreement to allow Charlie to die when Charlie’s condition deteriorated and the treatment, which was always extremely limited in its possibilities, no longer offered a possibility of meaningful life; through the fight to allow him to return home to die, but because of the difficulty in providing the necessary ventilation requirements at home, coming to the agreement that Charlie would die in a hospice. Yet, even this was complicated, Charlie’s parents wanted him to be kept alive in the hospice for a week or so, to spend some final peaceful time with him, but there were financial and practical constraints – the need of finding and possibly funding a team who would support him during that time. It wasn’t possible and shortly after being moved to a hospice, Charlie died.
This case has given rise to emotionally charged, emotively expressed feeling and language, even as far as death threats being issued against staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital by some ‘supporters’ of Charlie. There have been numerous opinions expressed about the state ‘playing God’; about court and medical control overriding the wishes of parents; about suffering and the inability to cure all illnesses; about the right to life and the right to be able to die in dignity, without the prolongation of pain; about parental needs and desires, and what is best for the child.
The issue has been rife with ethical dilemmas and the difficulty is, it is possible to empathise with the various positions. Of course the parents wanted their child to live, and be well, and flourish; of course the needs of the child are paramount: was he suffering? What sort of life would he have lived, even if the hoped for treatment had enabled him to do so? Of course doctors are committed to doing what is best for each child they treat; and how hard for the judge to make decisions which determine the future lives of all those intimately involved. Many became involved in the debate – Donald Trump, the Pope, journalists, contributors to Twitter and Facebook with opinions on all sides.
For the parents, Connie and Chris, their reality is that much has had to be relinquished, and the decisions they have had to make have been from a place of deep grieving and loss.
It is a characteristic of our generation that we find such relinquishing, such powerlessness difficult. We want it all. We want to be able to control, to make things happen; and the advances in science, medical treatments, and understanding about living a healthy lifestyle, offer so much more hope for that generally.
But the reality of human life is that we can’t have everything the way we want it. We can’t have life without death. Death is a reality of our existence. We have pushed the experience of death as far away as we can. The Christian gospel, however, is about death and resurrection. Jesus does not avoid death. Indeed, his death and resurrection is the central focus of our faith, the means through which salvation comes to us.
We need to be able to relinquish; yes of course to love and to care and to fight for the best, but also, when it is necessary, to relinquish, to embrace death, and to grieve, trusting to the resurrection life God offers. The work of relinquishing is, according to Richard Rohr in Falling Upwards, the work of the latter half of life. The first half of life being about accrual, gathering to oneself; the second half is about letting go, relinquishing, simplicity. There are no set ages when these stages take place. For Charlie’s parents relinquishing their son has come very early in life. But the spirituality of relinquishing is something we all need to embrace.
Nothing can prepare us for the sort of relinquishment that faced Connie and Chris Gard. Yet, ultimately, we are all called to relinquish all to God. This spirituality of letting go of power, of the desire to control, of simplicity, lies at the heart of who we are and what we believe; ‘I am no longer my own, but yours.’
Revd Julie Lunn . Chaplain, Lecturer in Practical and Social Theology
July / August 2017
Let all mortal flesh keep silence
Writing about silence is almost as ironic as speaking about silence. If the heart of silence is an absence of words, then a blank sheet of paper (or screen) might be the best way in... but a few observations, none the less.
Last week the 2017 Methodist Conference met in Birmingham; a gathering of around 300 people, with many reports to debate and decisions to take. Not a natural arena for silence, and quite a contrast to the setting where I drafted these thoughts; during a “Five-Day Community for Spiritual Formation”[1]in Northern Ireland just a few weeks earlier. As the name suggests, around thirty of us lived in community for five days, hoping to be spiritually a little more formed by the end of it – time will tell. Alongside teaching, worship, listening time and wonderful Irish hospitality, one of the tools for the formation was silence. After each presentation, morning and afternoon, we kept an hour’s silence, and following Night Prayer remained silent until Morning Prayer next day.
This could be a delight but could also be a challenge. Silence can be threatening; we often use noise and activity to distract ourselves from our deepest emotions and from an encounter with ourselves. Silence can break down defenses and make us vulnerable. Silence can also be abused; whilst it may be a tool it must not be a weapon. If a person has been silenced by others, they have been violated. Too often in the power struggle which has never been far from the history of Christianity, bible texts have been used to silence women and other groups.
Silence is not our natural state and has to be learned. We do not come into this world in silence; a silent baby would struggle to survive. Susanna Wesley may have been able to teach her children to cry softly[2], but that is not a widespread practice! Indeed, the idea of “suffering in silence” in adulthood has about it a stoic quality which, whilst it may be commendable at times, also suggests a martyred attitude, an unhealthy repression which will, in time, bear bad fruit. The psalmist seems to agree,; “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long”.[3]
So why might we consider silence a practice worth learning? There are around a hundred references to silence or keeping silent in Scripture, many of them occurring in the “wisdom literature”. Perhaps that affords a first reason; Proverbs reminds us; “Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.”[4] Silence can save us from speaking hastily, rashly, hurtfully, selfishly. Monks living permanently in community have been known to reflect that it is the silence which enables the community to survive.
Perhaps the most famous Bible reference to silence is Elijah’s encounter with God at Horeb5. Elijah is expecting God to “pass by”. Wind, earthquake and fire all fail to reveal God’s presence, but then comes the “still small voice”[5]. Almost the only thing I remember from three years of studying Hebrew at Durham is our professor’s own translation of this almost untranslatable phrase, “a rarefied, audible silence”. Elijah certainly recognises the presence of God in this silence, for he covers his face as he goes to the entrance to the cave. The voice follows, but the silence comes first.
So silence has two directions (at least); we learn to be silent before God – sometimes waiting for God to speak, but often rather learning to hear God in the silence. In human relationships silence is often used to express disapproval, anger or indifference. Sometimes it may simply mean that our interlocutor is no longer present to us. But at other times, silence in conversation may itself be a language. Barbara Brown Taylor’s little gem of a book, “When God is silent – divine language beyond words” explores this idea very helpfully. Silence may not mean absence, but may be a deep communication; the silence of lovers, the silence of those who are communicating without words.
The final biblical reference to silence comes in the book of Revelation[6]; after the seventh seal has been opened by the Lamb, “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour”. A fascinating thought!
1 www.5daycommunity.com
2 Susanna Wesley. Thoughts on Raising Children, July 24, 1732.
3 Psalm 32:3
4 Proverbs 17:28 5 I Kings 19:12
6 Revelation 8:1
Jill Baker, Vice President of the Methodist Conference 2017/18
Writing about silence is almost as ironic as speaking about silence. If the heart of silence is an absence of words, then a blank sheet of paper (or screen) might be the best way in... but a few observations, none the less.
Last week the 2017 Methodist Conference met in Birmingham; a gathering of around 300 people, with many reports to debate and decisions to take. Not a natural arena for silence, and quite a contrast to the setting where I drafted these thoughts; during a “Five-Day Community for Spiritual Formation”[1]in Northern Ireland just a few weeks earlier. As the name suggests, around thirty of us lived in community for five days, hoping to be spiritually a little more formed by the end of it – time will tell. Alongside teaching, worship, listening time and wonderful Irish hospitality, one of the tools for the formation was silence. After each presentation, morning and afternoon, we kept an hour’s silence, and following Night Prayer remained silent until Morning Prayer next day.
This could be a delight but could also be a challenge. Silence can be threatening; we often use noise and activity to distract ourselves from our deepest emotions and from an encounter with ourselves. Silence can break down defenses and make us vulnerable. Silence can also be abused; whilst it may be a tool it must not be a weapon. If a person has been silenced by others, they have been violated. Too often in the power struggle which has never been far from the history of Christianity, bible texts have been used to silence women and other groups.
Silence is not our natural state and has to be learned. We do not come into this world in silence; a silent baby would struggle to survive. Susanna Wesley may have been able to teach her children to cry softly[2], but that is not a widespread practice! Indeed, the idea of “suffering in silence” in adulthood has about it a stoic quality which, whilst it may be commendable at times, also suggests a martyred attitude, an unhealthy repression which will, in time, bear bad fruit. The psalmist seems to agree,; “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long”.[3]
So why might we consider silence a practice worth learning? There are around a hundred references to silence or keeping silent in Scripture, many of them occurring in the “wisdom literature”. Perhaps that affords a first reason; Proverbs reminds us; “Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.”[4] Silence can save us from speaking hastily, rashly, hurtfully, selfishly. Monks living permanently in community have been known to reflect that it is the silence which enables the community to survive.
Perhaps the most famous Bible reference to silence is Elijah’s encounter with God at Horeb5. Elijah is expecting God to “pass by”. Wind, earthquake and fire all fail to reveal God’s presence, but then comes the “still small voice”[5]. Almost the only thing I remember from three years of studying Hebrew at Durham is our professor’s own translation of this almost untranslatable phrase, “a rarefied, audible silence”. Elijah certainly recognises the presence of God in this silence, for he covers his face as he goes to the entrance to the cave. The voice follows, but the silence comes first.
So silence has two directions (at least); we learn to be silent before God – sometimes waiting for God to speak, but often rather learning to hear God in the silence. In human relationships silence is often used to express disapproval, anger or indifference. Sometimes it may simply mean that our interlocutor is no longer present to us. But at other times, silence in conversation may itself be a language. Barbara Brown Taylor’s little gem of a book, “When God is silent – divine language beyond words” explores this idea very helpfully. Silence may not mean absence, but may be a deep communication; the silence of lovers, the silence of those who are communicating without words.
The final biblical reference to silence comes in the book of Revelation[6]; after the seventh seal has been opened by the Lamb, “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour”. A fascinating thought!
1 www.5daycommunity.com
2 Susanna Wesley. Thoughts on Raising Children, July 24, 1732.
3 Psalm 32:3
4 Proverbs 17:28 5 I Kings 19:12
6 Revelation 8:1
Jill Baker, Vice President of the Methodist Conference 2017/18
June 2017
In the 1960s Marvin Gaye sang: “Wherever I lay my hat – that’s my home?” There is something rather impressive about people who sit that lightly to places. In Jeremiah 29 there is an account of Jeremiah’s remarkable letter to all the people who were in exile in Babylon. Jerusalem was, for them, the only place where you could truly worship God. Since all of life’s activities
were associated with religion, work, family life, existing in society. then it is hardly surprising that they were so frustrated in exile. All they could do, like refugees across the world today, was to long for it all to be over.
But Jeremiah told them that God was not only to be found in Jerusalem but was in fact with them even in exile. So he said: “get on and live out your lives, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat the produce, form relationships, marry, have families for generations”. It was clearly no short term solution. And Jeremiah went even further telling them to ‘seek the welfare of the city’ and pray to God on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’. They might have lost their homes, their holy places, their familiar places, but they had not been abandoned by God and they would not be abandoned by God.
There is a similar feeling right at the end of Luke’s gospel. The two disciples who had had their eyes dramatically opened at Emmaus had run all the way back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples that they had seen the risen Jesus. As they are all discussing this incredible news, Jesus himself appeared amongst them. He demonstrates how physical he is by showing them his hands and feet, using the words that would have been familiar to them ‘peace be with you’ and then eating a piece of fish in front of them. He then helped them to understand how his death and resurrection had been foretold and what it meant for them. Then he gives his final instruction. As they wait for the power of God to come upon them – they are to ‘stay there in the city’.
Surely Jerusalem was the last place on earth where they wanted to stay. This was the place where everything had fallen apart for them. This was a place of betrayal, of the ending of their hopes, a place of loss and brutality and fear. It would have been so much better if Jesus had told them to wait in the friendlier environment of Galilee where they could go back into normal life. In Matthew’s gospel, the risen Jesus did in fact appear to the disciples in Galilee. The point Luke is making is significant. Before the disciples are empowered by the Holy Spirit, they have to muster all their courage to stay there and to believe that God’s power was coming.
“Stay in the city” said Jesus according to Luke. “Seek the welfare of the city” said Jeremiah. What makes us feel that we are in exile? It could be a very real sense of isolation caused by illness, fear or addiction. It might be the speed of development of the virtual world and the possibilities of social media. It might be the political world or injustice. The natural human response is to look for security.
In churches though, there is a danger that we will locate our need for sanctuary and security in our church buildings, our hymn books, our familiar seat, or our favoured traditions. Then it becomes so difficult for us when any of those things change, and we can be a block in the development of a church. Surely it is much better to locate that need that we all have in God. God’s love for us will not change. He made us, he called us, and He planted potential within us. When we are at sea in this bewildering world, let us allow God to be our anchor. Then everything becomes possible. We can then seek the welfare of the people we do not understand, We can seek the welfare of corners of our world that others think are hopeless, we can seek the welfare of whole communities who will never think like us or share our priorities or opinions. And miracle of miracles – when we do that – we will also discover our own welfare – our own hope, strength, courage and calling. So rather than retreating into our settled traditions and hoping that the threats will go away, perhaps we can all take the courage given to us through God’s Spirit to fling wide the doors and offer vulnerable hospitality as part of our living communities.
May God help all people in their own context to stay in the city and to seek the welfare of the city – wherever we lay our hat. www.theologyeverywhere.org
were associated with religion, work, family life, existing in society. then it is hardly surprising that they were so frustrated in exile. All they could do, like refugees across the world today, was to long for it all to be over.
But Jeremiah told them that God was not only to be found in Jerusalem but was in fact with them even in exile. So he said: “get on and live out your lives, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat the produce, form relationships, marry, have families for generations”. It was clearly no short term solution. And Jeremiah went even further telling them to ‘seek the welfare of the city’ and pray to God on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’. They might have lost their homes, their holy places, their familiar places, but they had not been abandoned by God and they would not be abandoned by God.
There is a similar feeling right at the end of Luke’s gospel. The two disciples who had had their eyes dramatically opened at Emmaus had run all the way back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples that they had seen the risen Jesus. As they are all discussing this incredible news, Jesus himself appeared amongst them. He demonstrates how physical he is by showing them his hands and feet, using the words that would have been familiar to them ‘peace be with you’ and then eating a piece of fish in front of them. He then helped them to understand how his death and resurrection had been foretold and what it meant for them. Then he gives his final instruction. As they wait for the power of God to come upon them – they are to ‘stay there in the city’.
Surely Jerusalem was the last place on earth where they wanted to stay. This was the place where everything had fallen apart for them. This was a place of betrayal, of the ending of their hopes, a place of loss and brutality and fear. It would have been so much better if Jesus had told them to wait in the friendlier environment of Galilee where they could go back into normal life. In Matthew’s gospel, the risen Jesus did in fact appear to the disciples in Galilee. The point Luke is making is significant. Before the disciples are empowered by the Holy Spirit, they have to muster all their courage to stay there and to believe that God’s power was coming.
“Stay in the city” said Jesus according to Luke. “Seek the welfare of the city” said Jeremiah. What makes us feel that we are in exile? It could be a very real sense of isolation caused by illness, fear or addiction. It might be the speed of development of the virtual world and the possibilities of social media. It might be the political world or injustice. The natural human response is to look for security.
In churches though, there is a danger that we will locate our need for sanctuary and security in our church buildings, our hymn books, our familiar seat, or our favoured traditions. Then it becomes so difficult for us when any of those things change, and we can be a block in the development of a church. Surely it is much better to locate that need that we all have in God. God’s love for us will not change. He made us, he called us, and He planted potential within us. When we are at sea in this bewildering world, let us allow God to be our anchor. Then everything becomes possible. We can then seek the welfare of the people we do not understand, We can seek the welfare of corners of our world that others think are hopeless, we can seek the welfare of whole communities who will never think like us or share our priorities or opinions. And miracle of miracles – when we do that – we will also discover our own welfare – our own hope, strength, courage and calling. So rather than retreating into our settled traditions and hoping that the threats will go away, perhaps we can all take the courage given to us through God’s Spirit to fling wide the doors and offer vulnerable hospitality as part of our living communities.
May God help all people in their own context to stay in the city and to seek the welfare of the city – wherever we lay our hat. www.theologyeverywhere.org
May 2017
John Wesley was almost in despair. He did not have the faith to continue to preach. When death stared him in the face, he was fearful and found little comfort in his religion. To Peter Böhler, a Moravian friend, he confessed his growing misery and decision to give up the ministry. Böhler counselled otherwise. "Preach faith till you have it," he advised. "And then because you have it, you will preach faith." A wise Catholic once made a similar statement: "Act as if you have faith and it will be granted to you."
John acted on the advice. He led a prisoner to Christ by preaching faith in Christ alone for forgiveness of sins. The prisoner was immediately converted. John was astonished. He had been struggling for years. Here was a man transformed instantly. John made a study of the New Testament and found to his astonishment that the longest recorded delay in salvation was three days-- while the apostle Paul waited for his eyes to open.
The Moravians assured him their personal experiences had also been instantaneous. John found himself crying out, "Lord, help my unbelief!" However, he felt dull within and little motivated even to pray for his own salvation. On May 24th, 1738 he opened his Bible at about five in the morning and came across these words, "There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should partakers of the divine nature." He read similar words in other places.
That evening he reluctantly attended a meeting in Aldersgate. Someone read from Luther's Preface to the Epistle to Romans. About 8:45 p.m. "while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." It took him some time to learn how to live the life of faith, for he was not always possessed of joy and thought he had fallen from salvation. It took time for him to see that it is not Christ and good works, but Christ alone who saves, resulting in good works.
As time went on, John Wesley was mightily used of the Lord to reform England. His Methodists became a national force. John rode thousands of miles (as many as 20,000 a year) preaching as only a man filled with the Holy Spirit can preach, telling the gospel to all who would listen. He acted "as though he were out of breath in pursuit of souls." Wherever he preached, lives changed and manners and morals altered for the better.
John acted on the advice. He led a prisoner to Christ by preaching faith in Christ alone for forgiveness of sins. The prisoner was immediately converted. John was astonished. He had been struggling for years. Here was a man transformed instantly. John made a study of the New Testament and found to his astonishment that the longest recorded delay in salvation was three days-- while the apostle Paul waited for his eyes to open.
The Moravians assured him their personal experiences had also been instantaneous. John found himself crying out, "Lord, help my unbelief!" However, he felt dull within and little motivated even to pray for his own salvation. On May 24th, 1738 he opened his Bible at about five in the morning and came across these words, "There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should partakers of the divine nature." He read similar words in other places.
That evening he reluctantly attended a meeting in Aldersgate. Someone read from Luther's Preface to the Epistle to Romans. About 8:45 p.m. "while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." It took him some time to learn how to live the life of faith, for he was not always possessed of joy and thought he had fallen from salvation. It took time for him to see that it is not Christ and good works, but Christ alone who saves, resulting in good works.
As time went on, John Wesley was mightily used of the Lord to reform England. His Methodists became a national force. John rode thousands of miles (as many as 20,000 a year) preaching as only a man filled with the Holy Spirit can preach, telling the gospel to all who would listen. He acted "as though he were out of breath in pursuit of souls." Wherever he preached, lives changed and manners and morals altered for the better.
April 2017
Reginald Ernest Guy
It is with sadness that we record the death of Reg on Sunday 19th March 2017. Reg was faithful servant to this church from the late 1950’s until ill health forced him to cease regular worship some five years ago.
Originally Reg worshiped at Walton Methodist church but in the late 1950’s he was asked to help in the Sunday Schools at both Shepperton Methodist Church and Weybridge Methodist church which he did.
After his marriage to Irene and their move to live in Weybridge, the family commenced regular worship in this church where Reg remained to the end. During his life at Weybridge he taught in the Sunday school (he enticed Derek Mayland to Weybridge to play the piano for the Sunday school and he also stayed to the end) eventually becoming Sunday school Superintendent. He conducted the church choir for many years and organised several big concerts - the silver Jubilee concert in 1977 was particularly memorable! He ran an extended Youth Club (i.e. the whole family attended) for many years and you challenged him to a game of Table Tennis at your peril!!. Many of those who attended this church in their youth remember the Sunday school outings organised by Reg and Derek, by coach and occasionally by train.
After the fire of October 1977, Reg and Irene opened their home so that Sunday school could continue on a Sunday morning whilst the congregation had to worship in the Mayfield Hall.
In the 1980s Reg moved from the Sunday school to the vestry where he served as steward and senior steward for many years. It was Reg who spearheaded the centenary celebrations for this church in 2000.
For many years Reg was a church representative to Churches Together in Weybridge. He was always keen to promote inter church worship and activities.
After his retirement from work he worked tirelessly in the area of pastoral care and this led to him receiving Maundy money from the Queen at Guildford cathedral in 2006.
Reg was pleased to see his children married in this church and some of his grandchildren christened here also.
When he retired from church office, Reg continued to worship weekly until ill health forced him to stop regular attendance about five years ago.
He will be greatly missed by his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and many friends.
March 2017
Lent is a time to take time to let the power
of our faith story take hold of us,
a time to let the events get up
and walk around in us,
a time to intensify our living unto Christ,
a time to hover over the thoughts of our hearts,
a time to place our feet in the streets of
Jerusalem or to walk along the sea and
listen to his Word,
a time to touch his robe
and feel the healing surge through us,
a time to ponder and a time to wonder….
Lent is a time to allow
a fresh new taste of God!
Perhaps we’re afraid to have time to think,
for thoughts come unbidden.
Perhaps we’re afraid to face our future
knowing our past.
Give us courage, O God,
to hear your Word
and to read our living into it.
Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven
and give us the faith
to take up our lives and walk.
of our faith story take hold of us,
a time to let the events get up
and walk around in us,
a time to intensify our living unto Christ,
a time to hover over the thoughts of our hearts,
a time to place our feet in the streets of
Jerusalem or to walk along the sea and
listen to his Word,
a time to touch his robe
and feel the healing surge through us,
a time to ponder and a time to wonder….
Lent is a time to allow
a fresh new taste of God!
Perhaps we’re afraid to have time to think,
for thoughts come unbidden.
Perhaps we’re afraid to face our future
knowing our past.
Give us courage, O God,
to hear your Word
and to read our living into it.
Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven
and give us the faith
to take up our lives and walk.
February 2017
Irene Hensby
1 June 1923 – 16 January 2017
On Monday 16 January 2017 we said a sad farewell to Irene Hensby. Irene was a faithful member of our congregation for many, many years. Her three children attended our church and Sunday school. Julia was in the choir and later became a Sunday school teacher, serving for many years.
Irene’s funeral will take place on Wednesday 15th February 2017 at 12.00 noon following a private family committal. The family invites all those attending to join them in the church hall after the service for refreshments.
Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here
Come bow before Him now With reverence and fear
In Him no sin is found, we stand on holy ground,
Be still for the presence of the Lord The Holy One is here
Be still for the glory of the Lord Is shining all around
He burns with holy fire, with splendour
He is crowned How awesome is the sight,
our radiant King of Light,
Be still for the glory of the Lord Is shining all around
Be still for the power of the Lord Is moving in this place He comes to cleanse and heal
To minister His grace No work too hard for Him In faith receive from Him
Be still for the power of the Lord Is moving in this place
David J Evans
We give thanks for Irene’s cheerful commitment and we are thankful that Irene is now at peace (and pain free) in the presence of the Lord.
We also remember Jim Grave, a member at Walton who worshiped with us regularly in his later years. Jim passed away on 14 January 2017. The service to celebrate his life will be held at Walton Methodist Church on Wednesday 1 February at 11.30 am.
1 June 1923 – 16 January 2017
On Monday 16 January 2017 we said a sad farewell to Irene Hensby. Irene was a faithful member of our congregation for many, many years. Her three children attended our church and Sunday school. Julia was in the choir and later became a Sunday school teacher, serving for many years.
Irene’s funeral will take place on Wednesday 15th February 2017 at 12.00 noon following a private family committal. The family invites all those attending to join them in the church hall after the service for refreshments.
Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here
Come bow before Him now With reverence and fear
In Him no sin is found, we stand on holy ground,
Be still for the presence of the Lord The Holy One is here
Be still for the glory of the Lord Is shining all around
He burns with holy fire, with splendour
He is crowned How awesome is the sight,
our radiant King of Light,
Be still for the glory of the Lord Is shining all around
Be still for the power of the Lord Is moving in this place He comes to cleanse and heal
To minister His grace No work too hard for Him In faith receive from Him
Be still for the power of the Lord Is moving in this place
David J Evans
We give thanks for Irene’s cheerful commitment and we are thankful that Irene is now at peace (and pain free) in the presence of the Lord.
We also remember Jim Grave, a member at Walton who worshiped with us regularly in his later years. Jim passed away on 14 January 2017. The service to celebrate his life will be held at Walton Methodist Church on Wednesday 1 February at 11.30 am.
January 2017
The President and Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, the Revd Dr Roger Walton and Rachel Lampard MBE, speak about the Nativity, Syria and unpromising situations in this year's Christmas and New Year Message.
The shabby collection of rooms was perched on the edge of a steep hill above Amman in Jordan. We were visiting a family of Syrian refugees who had just had a baby, and were being helped by funding provided by the Methodist charity, All We Can.
A woman, who we assumed was the grandmother, answered the door and invited us in. We sat on the floor, along with a local health worker. The father appeared with the baby, Yosra, and three other small children. It turned out that the woman was not the grandmother, but rather the mother of the family. She was just in her 30s, prematurely aged by the privations and stresses of recent years. They had left Syria four years ago, and now lived in a couple of basic rooms. The three children were similar ages to my own, but were tiny. As a refugee the father was banned from working and the family was reliant on support from a charity in order to be able to survive.
What an unpromising situation they were in. The family were underfed, with very little prospect of being able to improve their
circumstances. They were desperate to go back to Syria, but recognised that this was unlikely any time soon. And their tiny baby, who slept in my arms, faced growing into adulthood in a foreign country, in poverty.
And yet. When we asked the father of the family what he wanted for the future, instead of talking about better housing, more food, or even a return to Syria, said "I want my children to be the best people that they can be". It was breath-taking. A family were facing immense poverty and dislocation, yet had the highest hopes for the character and contribution of their children.
A similarly unpromising set of circumstances surrounded another young family less than 50 miles away in Bethlehem two millennia ago. A young girl had given birth to a baby, far from her home and her family, in an outhouse, shared with animals. She had become pregnant outside marriage, and was only rescued from shame and rejection by her fiancé taking on a baby that wasn't his. Ahead lay real danger, as the ruler of the area would soon order his soldiers to slaughter all the baby boys. A dirty, shameful, dangerous situation. An unpromising set of circumstances. And yet. This is exactly the place the Messiah, the son of God, was born into.
But should we really be surprised? This is a God who said that the kingdom of heaven belonged, not to the rich or powerful or religious, but to little children. This is a God who chose women, tax collectors, fishermen to begin a worldwide movement for the salvation of all people. Unpromising is not a word which seems to put God off; on the contrary the Bible seems to suggest that God seeks out the unpromising, the weak, the outcast in order to build his kingdom. The apostle Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, said "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1 Corinthians 27-19)
We are living in times which might be described as unpromising, or even "interesting" according to the old Chinese proverb. We face great uncertainty in our politics, our economics, our relationships with one another. Around the planet there is apparently relentless violence, and the poorest, as ever, bear the consequences of our inability to restrain our use of resources. Our own Methodist Church is seeing a continuing decline in members and a shortage of ministers for the churches we have. The future is surely unpromising.
And yet. Our faith surely prompts us not to turn away purely because any situation looks unpromising. This doesn't mean facing it with blind and passive optimism. Instead we have a hope which is grounded in the foolishness of God, which is wiser and stronger than wisdom and strength of the world. And God is at work in our world, and invites us to join in. As the theologian Ken Leech said: "hope isn't a state of mind; it's a piece of work". In the unpromising situations in our world, where is God inviting us to join in? Where is God asking us to see the treasure that is hidden within the clay jars? Where is God asking us, not to be optimistic, but rather to be hopeful?
We would like to suggest that you do three things over this "unpromising" Christmas season.
Firstly, the Methodist Church, together with the United Reformed Church, the Baptist Union and the Church of Scotland, have produced a short film, "A Very British Nativity", which suggests how Mary and Joseph might have fared arriving in the UK as asylum seekers. Why not watch it, share it and perhaps show it as part of your Christmas celebrations at church - and reflect on what this unpromising small family might mean for others, asylum seekers and refugees in particular, and how we can make their future more hopeful.
Secondly, we invite you to reflect on something that initially appeared unpromising. This might be something in your own life, the life of your church, or in the wider society or world. How was the potential or transformation within each situation revealed? What was the treasure in the clay jars?
And thirdly ask yourself: what is unpromising in your life or church or community at the moment? What might God be doing there already - or what might God do if only you would join in?
In this season we pray that you will have a happy and peace-filled Christmas, and that you will know the love of God who acts through the most unpromising things and people to bring about his kingdom of holiness and justice.
The Revd Dr Roger Walton and Rachel Lampard MBE
December 2016
Dear Friends,
I have been asked to explain more to you about my sabbatical, and why the Methodist Church grants sabbaticals to its presbyters and deacons. It seemed to me that the easiest way to start out was to give you the official explanation, so what follows in italics is the ‘party line’:
A sabbatical is a gift from the Church to all presbyters and deacons and it is intended that during a sabbatical they will do something different which will inform and perhaps re-enthuse them in their ministry.
Sabbaticals are being introduced by many different types of organisations because they are recognised as a way to re-energise people by allowing them to explore a different aspect of their work or undertake some form of study; few organisations however can afford to make them compulsory as the Church has done for ordained ministers.
For Methodist presbyters and deacons, a sabbatical is a time of grace allowing them to spend time with God doing something different.
Being faced with taking a sabbatical for the first time may feel like taking a trip into the unknown. It is usually a place of growth and development but it may feel threatening to be faced with no work for three months. Nearly all ministers who have taken that step into the unknown have found it more fulfilling and re-invigorating than they expected. Sabbaticals were introduced to be part of the armoury to prevent burn out and reduce stress amongst presbyters and deacons. They are part of all ministers' continuing development; a time for refreshment and renewal, a time to be able to hear the still small voice of God.
The concept of sabbatical has biblical roots. In the Old Testament, crop land had to lie fallow once every seven years to rest and be more fruitful, rather than continually being sown and ploughed into an ultimately ragged state. I am sure you can see the parallels. Too often, ministers have become burned out: we need some ‘crop rotation’ to continue and thrive in our ministries. In that sense, my sabbatical will hopefully benefit you, too. I can assure you that after the last couple of years of circuit life I have become rather frazzled: I need some fallow time to be refreshed and effective.
The sabbatical idea for ministers is also tied to the idea that we are ‘stipendiary’ and not ‘salaried’. I am not an employee of the church, who is paid the going rate. I am instead given a stipend, which is a living allowance, so that I may have the time to pray and discern the ways in which God wants me to exercise my ministry. The sabbatical extends that space to wait on God for direction.
This will not be my first sabbatical, but my third. During my previous two, I did a mixture of activities, some theological, some creative. I took a creative writing course, went on a study week with the Bible Society, and learned how to write computer code for websites during my first sabbatical. Oh – and Rebekah was born in the middle of that one!
In my second sabbatical, I studied the relationship between ordained ministry and different psychological personality types. To this end, not only did I undertake some reading, I conducted a survey of ministers and church members about it, and attended a residential course. In addition to this, I took a week away on a creative photography course.
This time, I shall not go away much, because Debbie cannot take the time off work to be with the children. (In my previous sabbaticals, she was not in paid work.) So I shall be doing some theological study during the weekdays, particularly concentrating on some learned books by Professor NT Wright, which I have not had time to read properly before. However, on some weekends I shall be taking some tuition from a professional photographer. I not only find photography a fulfilling hobby, I enjoy the opportunity to communicate a message through it from time to time.
For the duration (from the beginning of December until the second weekend of March) Debbie, Rebekah, Mark, and I will, as a family, step outside the life of the circuit. We shall worship at the Anglican church in Knaphill, where we have several friends already. Debbie’s role as Junior Church Co-Ordinator at Knaphill will be covered by someone else.
But what about my work? You will be able to contact a supernumerary minister during my absence if there is a pastoral crisis. Rev Barrie Tabraham will look after you at Weybridge. All the communion services will be covered by other circuit ministers, as will the Church Council. My official email address will generate an automatic reply, telling people who to contact instead, and the answering machine on the manse phone will also have brief information to that effect.
Well, there you have it: a rather long and involved explanation which attempts to answer as many of your questions as I could anticipate.
May I take this opportunity to wish you all a blessed Christmas and give you my prayers for a propitious New Year.
Your friend and minister,
Dave Faulkner
I have been asked to explain more to you about my sabbatical, and why the Methodist Church grants sabbaticals to its presbyters and deacons. It seemed to me that the easiest way to start out was to give you the official explanation, so what follows in italics is the ‘party line’:
A sabbatical is a gift from the Church to all presbyters and deacons and it is intended that during a sabbatical they will do something different which will inform and perhaps re-enthuse them in their ministry.
Sabbaticals are being introduced by many different types of organisations because they are recognised as a way to re-energise people by allowing them to explore a different aspect of their work or undertake some form of study; few organisations however can afford to make them compulsory as the Church has done for ordained ministers.
For Methodist presbyters and deacons, a sabbatical is a time of grace allowing them to spend time with God doing something different.
Being faced with taking a sabbatical for the first time may feel like taking a trip into the unknown. It is usually a place of growth and development but it may feel threatening to be faced with no work for three months. Nearly all ministers who have taken that step into the unknown have found it more fulfilling and re-invigorating than they expected. Sabbaticals were introduced to be part of the armoury to prevent burn out and reduce stress amongst presbyters and deacons. They are part of all ministers' continuing development; a time for refreshment and renewal, a time to be able to hear the still small voice of God.
The concept of sabbatical has biblical roots. In the Old Testament, crop land had to lie fallow once every seven years to rest and be more fruitful, rather than continually being sown and ploughed into an ultimately ragged state. I am sure you can see the parallels. Too often, ministers have become burned out: we need some ‘crop rotation’ to continue and thrive in our ministries. In that sense, my sabbatical will hopefully benefit you, too. I can assure you that after the last couple of years of circuit life I have become rather frazzled: I need some fallow time to be refreshed and effective.
The sabbatical idea for ministers is also tied to the idea that we are ‘stipendiary’ and not ‘salaried’. I am not an employee of the church, who is paid the going rate. I am instead given a stipend, which is a living allowance, so that I may have the time to pray and discern the ways in which God wants me to exercise my ministry. The sabbatical extends that space to wait on God for direction.
This will not be my first sabbatical, but my third. During my previous two, I did a mixture of activities, some theological, some creative. I took a creative writing course, went on a study week with the Bible Society, and learned how to write computer code for websites during my first sabbatical. Oh – and Rebekah was born in the middle of that one!
In my second sabbatical, I studied the relationship between ordained ministry and different psychological personality types. To this end, not only did I undertake some reading, I conducted a survey of ministers and church members about it, and attended a residential course. In addition to this, I took a week away on a creative photography course.
This time, I shall not go away much, because Debbie cannot take the time off work to be with the children. (In my previous sabbaticals, she was not in paid work.) So I shall be doing some theological study during the weekdays, particularly concentrating on some learned books by Professor NT Wright, which I have not had time to read properly before. However, on some weekends I shall be taking some tuition from a professional photographer. I not only find photography a fulfilling hobby, I enjoy the opportunity to communicate a message through it from time to time.
For the duration (from the beginning of December until the second weekend of March) Debbie, Rebekah, Mark, and I will, as a family, step outside the life of the circuit. We shall worship at the Anglican church in Knaphill, where we have several friends already. Debbie’s role as Junior Church Co-Ordinator at Knaphill will be covered by someone else.
But what about my work? You will be able to contact a supernumerary minister during my absence if there is a pastoral crisis. Rev Barrie Tabraham will look after you at Weybridge. All the communion services will be covered by other circuit ministers, as will the Church Council. My official email address will generate an automatic reply, telling people who to contact instead, and the answering machine on the manse phone will also have brief information to that effect.
Well, there you have it: a rather long and involved explanation which attempts to answer as many of your questions as I could anticipate.
May I take this opportunity to wish you all a blessed Christmas and give you my prayers for a propitious New Year.
Your friend and minister,
Dave Faulkner
November 2016
Dear Friends,
November is the month for remembering. We ‘remember, remember the Fifth of November’ (although our Catholic friends still find that deeply uncomfortable). We have Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day (the latter becoming more popular in a non-churchgoing society).
It’s worth thinking about remembering. When it degenerates into nostalgia, the wish- ful longing for the so-called ‘good old days’, it is a devalued currency. But at its best, remembering is powerful and important.
Losing our ability to remember is tragic. I see that every week with my elderly father, who has Alzheimer’s Disease. The inability to remember (or what we call Dad’s highly improved ‘forgettory’) is a human disorder.
Christians regularly remember. We call it Holy Communion. It follows on from the great Jewish tradition of remembering called Passover.
What are we doing when we obey Jesus’ command to ‘Do this in remembrance of me’? We are connecting our present with the most powerful event in the history of the world. It is like we are transported back to the Cross, and equally, the impact of that event two thousand years ago connects with us now with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
So in a month when we get caught up with civic and national remembering, let us be all the more open to the powerful remembering of Christ who died for us.
Your friend and minister,
Dave Faulkner
November is the month for remembering. We ‘remember, remember the Fifth of November’ (although our Catholic friends still find that deeply uncomfortable). We have Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day (the latter becoming more popular in a non-churchgoing society).
It’s worth thinking about remembering. When it degenerates into nostalgia, the wish- ful longing for the so-called ‘good old days’, it is a devalued currency. But at its best, remembering is powerful and important.
Losing our ability to remember is tragic. I see that every week with my elderly father, who has Alzheimer’s Disease. The inability to remember (or what we call Dad’s highly improved ‘forgettory’) is a human disorder.
Christians regularly remember. We call it Holy Communion. It follows on from the great Jewish tradition of remembering called Passover.
What are we doing when we obey Jesus’ command to ‘Do this in remembrance of me’? We are connecting our present with the most powerful event in the history of the world. It is like we are transported back to the Cross, and equally, the impact of that event two thousand years ago connects with us now with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
So in a month when we get caught up with civic and national remembering, let us be all the more open to the powerful remembering of Christ who died for us.
Your friend and minister,
Dave Faulkner
October 2016
Dear Friends,
I saw a t-shirt slogan the other day: ‘Be unpredictable – just like summer’. It tells you all you need to know about the British weather, doesn’t it? I once had a Chinese friend who didn’t believe me at first when I told him you could experience four different kinds of weather in the same day in the UK. He soon learned.
But the summer is going, going, gone, and autumn is coming. It’s now dark when we go out to evening church meetings, and at the end of October the clocks will go back. Before too long we’ll be drawing the curtains in late afternoon.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it. I don’t suffer from ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’, but closing the curtains and putting on the lights early gives me a claustrophobic feeling. We’re shutting out the world, and retreating to every Englishman’s castle, his house.
The danger I want to highlight is that we all too easily do the spiritual equivalent with our faith. It’s dark outside in a world that has little use for God, and decreasing belief in him. What can true believers do, but huddle together behind closed doors where we can find some of God’s warmth together? How sad is that? I’ve found Christians who won’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you’ to people outside the church. ‘I just want to stay talking with my friends,’ they say.
Friends, we cannot let the darkness cause us to rush back over the drawbridge and pull it up behind us.
As a family, we have in recent months been watching together the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films. One of the impressive elements in Tolkien’s stories for me is the way that a small band of pilgrims takes the fight to the evil forces of Sauron and Saruman, even when the odds were stacked against them. Tolkien, writing as a devout Catholic at a time when the evil of Nazism was shrouding the world, was telling us something important about the Christian faith.
Come December, we shall be reading John chapter 1, with its great description of Jesus: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never come to terms with it.’ Just as Jesus was supremely the Light of the World, so he also tells us that we are the light of the world.
Where are we determined to shine the light of Christ in the darkness today?
Your friend and minister,
Dave Faulkner
I saw a t-shirt slogan the other day: ‘Be unpredictable – just like summer’. It tells you all you need to know about the British weather, doesn’t it? I once had a Chinese friend who didn’t believe me at first when I told him you could experience four different kinds of weather in the same day in the UK. He soon learned.
But the summer is going, going, gone, and autumn is coming. It’s now dark when we go out to evening church meetings, and at the end of October the clocks will go back. Before too long we’ll be drawing the curtains in late afternoon.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it. I don’t suffer from ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’, but closing the curtains and putting on the lights early gives me a claustrophobic feeling. We’re shutting out the world, and retreating to every Englishman’s castle, his house.
The danger I want to highlight is that we all too easily do the spiritual equivalent with our faith. It’s dark outside in a world that has little use for God, and decreasing belief in him. What can true believers do, but huddle together behind closed doors where we can find some of God’s warmth together? How sad is that? I’ve found Christians who won’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you’ to people outside the church. ‘I just want to stay talking with my friends,’ they say.
Friends, we cannot let the darkness cause us to rush back over the drawbridge and pull it up behind us.
As a family, we have in recent months been watching together the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films. One of the impressive elements in Tolkien’s stories for me is the way that a small band of pilgrims takes the fight to the evil forces of Sauron and Saruman, even when the odds were stacked against them. Tolkien, writing as a devout Catholic at a time when the evil of Nazism was shrouding the world, was telling us something important about the Christian faith.
Come December, we shall be reading John chapter 1, with its great description of Jesus: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never come to terms with it.’ Just as Jesus was supremely the Light of the World, so he also tells us that we are the light of the world.
Where are we determined to shine the light of Christ in the darkness today?
Your friend and minister,
Dave Faulkner
September 2016
Dear Friends,
Well – how do I introduce myself to you, given that I have been in the circuit for six years already? I am sure there are things you will discover about me that you didn’t know, just as I have a lot to find out about you, however often we may have chatted in the past.
So I’ve abandoned the idea of an ‘Introducing Me’ article: let’s just get to know each other better over time.
What I do want to say at the beginning of our time together, however long that proves to be, is that with your help, I shall need to identify the priorities for my ministry in Weybridge. Even with the new circuit, we still do not have the level of staffing we had in the recent past.
I remember a friend of mine who trained for the ministry under the late great Donald English. Dr English used to say to his students, “The ministry is about calculated neglect. You cannot simply identify priorities: you need to choose between priorities, and be prepared to go to sleep with a guilty conscience.”
If I surveyed all of you, there would be competing accounts of what my priorities should be, and I will not be able to meet them all. I have heard of churches in other places who have asked their congregations to write down what they think their ministers should do, and how much time they should allocate to each task. That exercise always leads to a conclusion where a minister would truly have to do the impossible, because the sum of the workload exceeds 168 hours a week!
Let me be frank with you from the outset, then: I will disappoint you! Sometimes, that will be my fault, and at other times it will be unavoidable. My primary calling is not to please everyone, but to please God. (Which also means I will disappoint him.)
And if we’re honest, doesn’t God disappoint us all at times? We dream big dreams, and that isn’t a bad thing to do, but they don’t always materialise in the way we envisioned them – if indeed they come into being at all. Once you get beyond teenage enthusiasm, you soon learn that disappointment is one of the key characteristics of life and faith. God listens to us, but he doesn’t take orders from us. We often think we know better than God – but if it had been left to us, which of us would have devised a route for salvation that went through the Cross?
Having made you miserable, then – what a great way to start! – let’s calibrate our lives by the Cross and the Resurrection. I’m always struck by the words of Cleopas and his companion on the Emmaus Road: “We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel.” They thought the Cross had dashed their hopes, not realising it had transformed them, and that they were talking with their Risen Lord.
Whatever successes and failures we have together, let us measure them by the crucified and risen Lord, and not by any other standards.
Your friend
Dave Faulkner
Well – how do I introduce myself to you, given that I have been in the circuit for six years already? I am sure there are things you will discover about me that you didn’t know, just as I have a lot to find out about you, however often we may have chatted in the past.
So I’ve abandoned the idea of an ‘Introducing Me’ article: let’s just get to know each other better over time.
What I do want to say at the beginning of our time together, however long that proves to be, is that with your help, I shall need to identify the priorities for my ministry in Weybridge. Even with the new circuit, we still do not have the level of staffing we had in the recent past.
I remember a friend of mine who trained for the ministry under the late great Donald English. Dr English used to say to his students, “The ministry is about calculated neglect. You cannot simply identify priorities: you need to choose between priorities, and be prepared to go to sleep with a guilty conscience.”
If I surveyed all of you, there would be competing accounts of what my priorities should be, and I will not be able to meet them all. I have heard of churches in other places who have asked their congregations to write down what they think their ministers should do, and how much time they should allocate to each task. That exercise always leads to a conclusion where a minister would truly have to do the impossible, because the sum of the workload exceeds 168 hours a week!
Let me be frank with you from the outset, then: I will disappoint you! Sometimes, that will be my fault, and at other times it will be unavoidable. My primary calling is not to please everyone, but to please God. (Which also means I will disappoint him.)
And if we’re honest, doesn’t God disappoint us all at times? We dream big dreams, and that isn’t a bad thing to do, but they don’t always materialise in the way we envisioned them – if indeed they come into being at all. Once you get beyond teenage enthusiasm, you soon learn that disappointment is one of the key characteristics of life and faith. God listens to us, but he doesn’t take orders from us. We often think we know better than God – but if it had been left to us, which of us would have devised a route for salvation that went through the Cross?
Having made you miserable, then – what a great way to start! – let’s calibrate our lives by the Cross and the Resurrection. I’m always struck by the words of Cleopas and his companion on the Emmaus Road: “We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel.” They thought the Cross had dashed their hopes, not realising it had transformed them, and that they were talking with their Risen Lord.
Whatever successes and failures we have together, let us measure them by the crucified and risen Lord, and not by any other standards.
Your friend
Dave Faulkner
August 2016
Dear Friends,
‘There is a season and a time for everything’, says the writer of Ecclesiastes.
In the world of nature, autumn time is one of letting go. It is time to shed the old leaves. It’s time to shed some weight and burden and go into a period of quiet, rest, peace and recuperation. Then in spring time, as we all know, to awake with a renewed beauty, freshness and colour. Without a period of hibernation this would not be possible.
We in the church also need a time of slowing down, re-focussing and then re-emerging fresh. The month of August, provides us with a good opportunity every year to take stock of our lives especially the spiritual aspect. It is a short but very timely gap to examine our spiritual health and well being before venturing into a very busy new Church / Connexional Year. It is a time to rest, reflect, re-charge and enjoy the summer sun.
A few years ago a church minister formulated four tests for determining the presence of a healthy faith. Taken together these tests, mentioned below, can guide us to a healthier walk with God.
• Does my faith liberate my spirit? Does it call me to examine my life and my relationship with God in such a way that I feel released from guilt and pain once I have experienced God’s grace and love?
• Does my faith breed compassion, love and forgiveness for others? Does it make me more open, trusting and caring? Sick religion and faith build barriers of distrust, cynicism, paranoia and judgement. Healthy faith is healing and unifying.
• Does my faith help me to understand why people act, feel or believe as they do? Unhealthy faith condemns what it does not understand. Healthy faith says, ‘Why do they act as they do and how can my faith speak to and meet their needs?
• Does my faith compel me to share my life, my gifts and talents and my love for Christ? Is my faith so joyous and life-giving that I wish for others to experience it?
Here is a challenge for all of us to take this test before the arrival of new Connexional Year and the birth of the Wey Valley Circuit.
August also brings the end of my time as the presbyter with pastoral charge cover at Weybridge Methodist Church. I would, therefore, like to thank you for your love and support during my time with you. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you and this short period has enriched my life immensely.
May God continue to bless you as you travel on at Weybridge. Keep close to the Lord; seek his ways, his wisdom and guidance.
With every blessing in Christ,
Asif Das
‘There is a season and a time for everything’, says the writer of Ecclesiastes.
In the world of nature, autumn time is one of letting go. It is time to shed the old leaves. It’s time to shed some weight and burden and go into a period of quiet, rest, peace and recuperation. Then in spring time, as we all know, to awake with a renewed beauty, freshness and colour. Without a period of hibernation this would not be possible.
We in the church also need a time of slowing down, re-focussing and then re-emerging fresh. The month of August, provides us with a good opportunity every year to take stock of our lives especially the spiritual aspect. It is a short but very timely gap to examine our spiritual health and well being before venturing into a very busy new Church / Connexional Year. It is a time to rest, reflect, re-charge and enjoy the summer sun.
A few years ago a church minister formulated four tests for determining the presence of a healthy faith. Taken together these tests, mentioned below, can guide us to a healthier walk with God.
• Does my faith liberate my spirit? Does it call me to examine my life and my relationship with God in such a way that I feel released from guilt and pain once I have experienced God’s grace and love?
• Does my faith breed compassion, love and forgiveness for others? Does it make me more open, trusting and caring? Sick religion and faith build barriers of distrust, cynicism, paranoia and judgement. Healthy faith is healing and unifying.
• Does my faith help me to understand why people act, feel or believe as they do? Unhealthy faith condemns what it does not understand. Healthy faith says, ‘Why do they act as they do and how can my faith speak to and meet their needs?
• Does my faith compel me to share my life, my gifts and talents and my love for Christ? Is my faith so joyous and life-giving that I wish for others to experience it?
Here is a challenge for all of us to take this test before the arrival of new Connexional Year and the birth of the Wey Valley Circuit.
August also brings the end of my time as the presbyter with pastoral charge cover at Weybridge Methodist Church. I would, therefore, like to thank you for your love and support during my time with you. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you and this short period has enriched my life immensely.
May God continue to bless you as you travel on at Weybridge. Keep close to the Lord; seek his ways, his wisdom and guidance.
With every blessing in Christ,
Asif Das
July 2016
Dear Friends
As I write during the second half of June, in the manse garden there are still some vibrant coloured blue, white, yellow and pink wild flowers which first appeared in April time. My wife Martha loves flowers of all kinds, so she let them grow and blossom instead of removing them.
As I think of and look at these beautiful wild flowers in our garden, I am reminded of Matthew 6:28 & 29 “And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow; they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.” This Bible passage really reminds us of our own arrogance and self-reliance. Stop worrying about money, food and clothes; clearly if God can clothe the wild plants and weeds then God will provide for us when we focus on his Kingdom.
It seems to me that either there is a bigger variety of wild flowers growing around this year or it could simply be that I am now much more aware of the beauty of the wild flowers and as such more likely to notice them. Whichever way it is, both reasons demonstrate something important. Firstly that if we forget that we need God’s grace and believe that we have all the answers, we will miss out on God’s gifts for us as we enter into a negative mode of destruction, just as by cutting down the natural habitats of wild animals, we are losing them. Secondly just as I seem to see lot more wild flowers, if we truly appreciate and value these seemingly insignificant things which glorify God, the more we will see God’s face revealed around us.
What goes on around us that we fail to notice God doing? Who and what in our churches and communities are silent yet vibrant witnesses to the power and love and grace and beauty and image of God, just as the wild flowers in the garden? This summer let’s seek out God’s glory in the ordinary, in creatures young and small, let go a worry or fear and be sure that God will provide, if we only set our sights on his Kingdom.
Every Blessing in Christ
Asif Das
As I write during the second half of June, in the manse garden there are still some vibrant coloured blue, white, yellow and pink wild flowers which first appeared in April time. My wife Martha loves flowers of all kinds, so she let them grow and blossom instead of removing them.
As I think of and look at these beautiful wild flowers in our garden, I am reminded of Matthew 6:28 & 29 “And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow; they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.” This Bible passage really reminds us of our own arrogance and self-reliance. Stop worrying about money, food and clothes; clearly if God can clothe the wild plants and weeds then God will provide for us when we focus on his Kingdom.
It seems to me that either there is a bigger variety of wild flowers growing around this year or it could simply be that I am now much more aware of the beauty of the wild flowers and as such more likely to notice them. Whichever way it is, both reasons demonstrate something important. Firstly that if we forget that we need God’s grace and believe that we have all the answers, we will miss out on God’s gifts for us as we enter into a negative mode of destruction, just as by cutting down the natural habitats of wild animals, we are losing them. Secondly just as I seem to see lot more wild flowers, if we truly appreciate and value these seemingly insignificant things which glorify God, the more we will see God’s face revealed around us.
What goes on around us that we fail to notice God doing? Who and what in our churches and communities are silent yet vibrant witnesses to the power and love and grace and beauty and image of God, just as the wild flowers in the garden? This summer let’s seek out God’s glory in the ordinary, in creatures young and small, let go a worry or fear and be sure that God will provide, if we only set our sights on his Kingdom.
Every Blessing in Christ
Asif Das
June 2016
Dear friends,
Most people think of prayer as a means of getting God to do what we want. In moments of desperate need, or when all human means of help have faded, we turn, as a last resort to prayer. In his kindness, God often answers it, but prayer of that kind is not intended to be the norm, any more than emergency number is the sum total of what a telephone is for.
When the disciples of Jesus asked his advice on prayer, he gave them what we now call the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ as a model. This prayer begins with God (‘hallowed be your name’) and his purposes (‘your Kingdom come’). It then includes our practical daily needs (‘our daily bread’) and our constant spiritual needs (‘forgive us our sins .... Do not bring us to the time of trial’). In a few words, it sets prayer within three perspectives: God’s power and glory, his purposes for the world, and our own needs. It would be safe to say that all true prayer falls somewhere within those boundaries.
We are given a number of moving glimpses into the prayer life of Jesus in the Gospels e.g. Matthew 11: 25-26; Mark 14: 35-36; John 17. What stand out are his gratitude to God, his deep concern for the disciples, and his utter commitment to the will of his heavenly Father. There is very little in the prayers of Jesus which could be construed as meeting his own needs, and nothing at all that could be seen as trying to get God to do what he wanted. At its heart is that most difficult of all prayers, ‘Not my will, but yours be done’.
In the letters of Paul we have a number of examples of the apostle’s own approach to prayer. Again, his prayers show a deep concern for the people in the churches he has planted. He longs that they should know God’s strength and be given grace to endure.
There is one prayer, however, which June be considered primary and crucial. We hear it from the lips of a tax collector, one of those despised minions of the Roman occupying power – ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’ (Luke 18:13). Jesus praised him for his honesty: ‘this man went home justified before God’. Of all the necessary elements in prayer, absolute honesty with God must come first. He can deal with our failure and our sin, but not with our refusal to face the truth about ourselves.
Prayer is the means by which we communicate with God. No special words are needed, no ritual is laid down. The only requirement is an honest heart, and the faith to believe that God knows what is good for us better than we do.
God bless
Asif Das
Most people think of prayer as a means of getting God to do what we want. In moments of desperate need, or when all human means of help have faded, we turn, as a last resort to prayer. In his kindness, God often answers it, but prayer of that kind is not intended to be the norm, any more than emergency number is the sum total of what a telephone is for.
When the disciples of Jesus asked his advice on prayer, he gave them what we now call the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ as a model. This prayer begins with God (‘hallowed be your name’) and his purposes (‘your Kingdom come’). It then includes our practical daily needs (‘our daily bread’) and our constant spiritual needs (‘forgive us our sins .... Do not bring us to the time of trial’). In a few words, it sets prayer within three perspectives: God’s power and glory, his purposes for the world, and our own needs. It would be safe to say that all true prayer falls somewhere within those boundaries.
We are given a number of moving glimpses into the prayer life of Jesus in the Gospels e.g. Matthew 11: 25-26; Mark 14: 35-36; John 17. What stand out are his gratitude to God, his deep concern for the disciples, and his utter commitment to the will of his heavenly Father. There is very little in the prayers of Jesus which could be construed as meeting his own needs, and nothing at all that could be seen as trying to get God to do what he wanted. At its heart is that most difficult of all prayers, ‘Not my will, but yours be done’.
In the letters of Paul we have a number of examples of the apostle’s own approach to prayer. Again, his prayers show a deep concern for the people in the churches he has planted. He longs that they should know God’s strength and be given grace to endure.
There is one prayer, however, which June be considered primary and crucial. We hear it from the lips of a tax collector, one of those despised minions of the Roman occupying power – ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’ (Luke 18:13). Jesus praised him for his honesty: ‘this man went home justified before God’. Of all the necessary elements in prayer, absolute honesty with God must come first. He can deal with our failure and our sin, but not with our refusal to face the truth about ourselves.
Prayer is the means by which we communicate with God. No special words are needed, no ritual is laid down. The only requirement is an honest heart, and the faith to believe that God knows what is good for us better than we do.
God bless
Asif Das
May 2016
Dear friends,
In the Bible, in the stories that we read of Jesus, we see him time after time, meeting new and often challenging people with kindness and compassion that shocked many. Most found in Jesus a man who would meet them with compassion and interest and they came to understand that they had indeed discovered in him the presence and purpose of God.
In the days after Easter, we remember that the disciples of Jesus continued to experience him as alive and with them as they shared his story with new people. They met one another’s needs and set about discovering and encouraging a more compassionate way of living.
This year in the month of May we have two occasions at least, to remind us to be Christ like. Firstly, the festival of Pentecost, also known as the birthday of the Church, which in fact is that moment when in a rich, diverse, inclusive and generous release of energy the Church was born. It is the day that reminds us when a few frightened disciples of Jesus became a community of believers with something profound and stirring to share and live out. Even today, this festival encourages and invites us to consider that our efforts and energies be directed towards making this world safer and more tolerant.
Secondly, May brings us the opportunity to be more Christ like by actively hoping for a more just and peaceful world by standing alongside the poor through supporting Christian Aid week. Some of us will collect door to door. We shall learn from the stories of campaigns for change and development and pray for the changes that bring justice and new life.
I wish you God's strength as we endeavour to embrace and live the life that these two occasions represent.
Asif Das
In the Bible, in the stories that we read of Jesus, we see him time after time, meeting new and often challenging people with kindness and compassion that shocked many. Most found in Jesus a man who would meet them with compassion and interest and they came to understand that they had indeed discovered in him the presence and purpose of God.
In the days after Easter, we remember that the disciples of Jesus continued to experience him as alive and with them as they shared his story with new people. They met one another’s needs and set about discovering and encouraging a more compassionate way of living.
This year in the month of May we have two occasions at least, to remind us to be Christ like. Firstly, the festival of Pentecost, also known as the birthday of the Church, which in fact is that moment when in a rich, diverse, inclusive and generous release of energy the Church was born. It is the day that reminds us when a few frightened disciples of Jesus became a community of believers with something profound and stirring to share and live out. Even today, this festival encourages and invites us to consider that our efforts and energies be directed towards making this world safer and more tolerant.
Secondly, May brings us the opportunity to be more Christ like by actively hoping for a more just and peaceful world by standing alongside the poor through supporting Christian Aid week. Some of us will collect door to door. We shall learn from the stories of campaigns for change and development and pray for the changes that bring justice and new life.
I wish you God's strength as we endeavour to embrace and live the life that these two occasions represent.
Asif Das
April 2016
Dear Friends,
‘On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.’ (Luke 24: 1) NIV
Are we able to imagine what it was like for those women, that morning, as they came to the tomb? They had come prepared for what must be the saddest of all tasks: the preparation of a loved one’s body for final burial. Jesus’s body had been put in the tomb late Friday afternoon, but because his death had not been expected, at least, not by his disciples, and because the Sabbath law prevented the buying of goods, the women had to wait twenty four hours before preparing the things needed for a proper burial; and then they had waited until first light before going to the tomb. Yet when they arrived at the tomb, it was empty. There was no body. There was no Jesus. Instead, there were men in dazzling clothes who asked them a question: ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’
Jesus has arisen. He is alive! From being the saddest and most stressful moment of their lives, hearing this news turns out to be the most joyful experience of their lives! Indeed, life would never be the same again.
May joy and peace be yours this Easter, and may the Good News of the Resurrection fill you with hope as you look no longer to the closed grave, but to the empty tomb and beyond to life eternal, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Asif Das
‘On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.’ (Luke 24: 1) NIV
Are we able to imagine what it was like for those women, that morning, as they came to the tomb? They had come prepared for what must be the saddest of all tasks: the preparation of a loved one’s body for final burial. Jesus’s body had been put in the tomb late Friday afternoon, but because his death had not been expected, at least, not by his disciples, and because the Sabbath law prevented the buying of goods, the women had to wait twenty four hours before preparing the things needed for a proper burial; and then they had waited until first light before going to the tomb. Yet when they arrived at the tomb, it was empty. There was no body. There was no Jesus. Instead, there were men in dazzling clothes who asked them a question: ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’
Jesus has arisen. He is alive! From being the saddest and most stressful moment of their lives, hearing this news turns out to be the most joyful experience of their lives! Indeed, life would never be the same again.
May joy and peace be yours this Easter, and may the Good News of the Resurrection fill you with hope as you look no longer to the closed grave, but to the empty tomb and beyond to life eternal, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Asif Das
March 2016
Dear Friends,
As you read this message, we are getting to the midpoint of Lent, anticipating an early Easter this year. While some of us in part delight at the prospect of a calm, introspective Lent season, in which we set aside time to assess our shortcomings, consider our need of God, and quietly rejoice that God, indeed, is here for us, the reality of day to day life often intrudes into this ideal prospect! Yet, when we, our families, our friends, and congregation members are ill or carrying some other burden; when we lose loved ones; when we consider the dreadful political and economic situation of our world; and when we think about how we selfishly and, often, blindly hurt not only one another, but the natural world that God created for our enjoyment and for our care, it is easy to abandon our Lenten discipline. It is easy to let our fear and anger shut God out (in part if not completely).
If this is part of our Lenten experience, take heart and consider this: it is into a life such as this, a life very much like our, that Jesus was born. Although during Lent we traditionally consider how he suffered on account of the failure of his disciples/friends to keep faith with him and on account of his arrest, trial, torture and death, let us consider, as well, the everyday suffering that Jesus endured.
The apostle Paul has written that though being in the very nature of God, Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, Jesus lived as a human being, as a person like you and me. Jesus got distracted, too. Jesus had to jump in and fix things for other people. Remember the time he sent his disciples out to heal some people, and they were unable to heal them all. From the Scriptures we know that sometimes he got tired; sometimes he yearned to be alone; sometimes he wept. As we move through Lent, and through life, we must remember that Jesus knows our troubles, for he has experienced them himself. So we ought to talk to him. Give him our burdens. He is here to help.
I would also like to say that as you go through this month's Magazine, please note the dates and times of our Church Services, as well as of our upcoming social events. Hope you are able to join in and experience God’s love and grace, and blessings this Lent season in a renewed way.
If you want to know more about Weybridge Methodist Church, you can call me personally or contact the Church.
With every blessing in Christ Jesus,
Asif Das
As you read this message, we are getting to the midpoint of Lent, anticipating an early Easter this year. While some of us in part delight at the prospect of a calm, introspective Lent season, in which we set aside time to assess our shortcomings, consider our need of God, and quietly rejoice that God, indeed, is here for us, the reality of day to day life often intrudes into this ideal prospect! Yet, when we, our families, our friends, and congregation members are ill or carrying some other burden; when we lose loved ones; when we consider the dreadful political and economic situation of our world; and when we think about how we selfishly and, often, blindly hurt not only one another, but the natural world that God created for our enjoyment and for our care, it is easy to abandon our Lenten discipline. It is easy to let our fear and anger shut God out (in part if not completely).
If this is part of our Lenten experience, take heart and consider this: it is into a life such as this, a life very much like our, that Jesus was born. Although during Lent we traditionally consider how he suffered on account of the failure of his disciples/friends to keep faith with him and on account of his arrest, trial, torture and death, let us consider, as well, the everyday suffering that Jesus endured.
The apostle Paul has written that though being in the very nature of God, Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, Jesus lived as a human being, as a person like you and me. Jesus got distracted, too. Jesus had to jump in and fix things for other people. Remember the time he sent his disciples out to heal some people, and they were unable to heal them all. From the Scriptures we know that sometimes he got tired; sometimes he yearned to be alone; sometimes he wept. As we move through Lent, and through life, we must remember that Jesus knows our troubles, for he has experienced them himself. So we ought to talk to him. Give him our burdens. He is here to help.
I would also like to say that as you go through this month's Magazine, please note the dates and times of our Church Services, as well as of our upcoming social events. Hope you are able to join in and experience God’s love and grace, and blessings this Lent season in a renewed way.
If you want to know more about Weybridge Methodist Church, you can call me personally or contact the Church.
With every blessing in Christ Jesus,
Asif Das
February 2016
Dear friends,
A very happy New Year to all (belated though). It seems ages since I saw you last. I missed you all very much in the last four months and I’m happy to be back. Though I was away the Weybridge Church family had been close to my heart and in my prayers and thoughts throughout this time. Hope to catch up soon with what you folk have been up to.
My sabbatical started with a hiccup, I wasn’t too well, and an outpouring of love and support from friends both inside and outside of the church gave me tremendous encouragement and lifted and cheered me up. Please accept my sincere thanks for the loving support and holding me in prayer at Weybridge. Double thanks to those who offered to take on extra responsibilities so that my sabbatical ran smoothly. By God’s grace and your prayers I’m fit and well now and look forward to be back in harness, officially from 24th January.
Sabbatical is a gift from the Church to ministers and for this I would like to thank the Methodist Connexion, District and the Circuit. This wonderful gift comes every seven years, therefore, needs to be used wisely. It’s an opportunity to stand back from regular responsibilities and take some much needed rest, study to gain new perspectives, reflect and pray listening to God and to what’s going on inside our own souls. I set aside ample time for rest and recreation and feel truly refreshed.
My planned study was based around Jewish faith and people, their understanding of the Bible with the intention to explore the possibility of developing a relationship between the two faiths within the scope and context of my ministry. Though carefully planned it was on a small scale. It was done by reading, attending synagogue services, participating in Bible study sessions, meetings of the Council of Christians and Jews and through conversations with individuals. I find myself blessed and my faith enriched by this experience. Though my engagement has been limited, it has been tremendously encouraging to find among the synagogue family quite an openness to develop friendly relationship with the church communities. In a world where hate and mistrust is rife, these words from a Jewish believer are worth mentioning, “We affirm a vision of Judaism that sees all people as created in the divine image and seeks not to diminish or demean anyone, but to honour and enhance our shared humanity”. As I have an interest in developing a relationship between synagogue and church, I pray that God provides the opportunity for doing it.
For me, sabbatical has proved to be health-giving and spirit-enhancing. It certainly has added to my wellness and wholeness and deepening and broadening my faith.
Hope to see you soon and may the Lord bless you abundantly.
Asif Das
A very happy New Year to all (belated though). It seems ages since I saw you last. I missed you all very much in the last four months and I’m happy to be back. Though I was away the Weybridge Church family had been close to my heart and in my prayers and thoughts throughout this time. Hope to catch up soon with what you folk have been up to.
My sabbatical started with a hiccup, I wasn’t too well, and an outpouring of love and support from friends both inside and outside of the church gave me tremendous encouragement and lifted and cheered me up. Please accept my sincere thanks for the loving support and holding me in prayer at Weybridge. Double thanks to those who offered to take on extra responsibilities so that my sabbatical ran smoothly. By God’s grace and your prayers I’m fit and well now and look forward to be back in harness, officially from 24th January.
Sabbatical is a gift from the Church to ministers and for this I would like to thank the Methodist Connexion, District and the Circuit. This wonderful gift comes every seven years, therefore, needs to be used wisely. It’s an opportunity to stand back from regular responsibilities and take some much needed rest, study to gain new perspectives, reflect and pray listening to God and to what’s going on inside our own souls. I set aside ample time for rest and recreation and feel truly refreshed.
My planned study was based around Jewish faith and people, their understanding of the Bible with the intention to explore the possibility of developing a relationship between the two faiths within the scope and context of my ministry. Though carefully planned it was on a small scale. It was done by reading, attending synagogue services, participating in Bible study sessions, meetings of the Council of Christians and Jews and through conversations with individuals. I find myself blessed and my faith enriched by this experience. Though my engagement has been limited, it has been tremendously encouraging to find among the synagogue family quite an openness to develop friendly relationship with the church communities. In a world where hate and mistrust is rife, these words from a Jewish believer are worth mentioning, “We affirm a vision of Judaism that sees all people as created in the divine image and seeks not to diminish or demean anyone, but to honour and enhance our shared humanity”. As I have an interest in developing a relationship between synagogue and church, I pray that God provides the opportunity for doing it.
For me, sabbatical has proved to be health-giving and spirit-enhancing. It certainly has added to my wellness and wholeness and deepening and broadening my faith.
Hope to see you soon and may the Lord bless you abundantly.
Asif Das
January 2016
We start the new year as we ended the old year, without a permanent minister or any prospect of one in the near future. Rev Asif Das will be back from his sabbatical later this month and will resume his duties providing some cover for ourselves and Addlestone and there is still a (remote) chance that we might get a minister for September 2016 in the third round of Stationing which takes place this month, This is out of our control.
Something which is in our control is the formation of a proposed new Circuit. The vote on this proposal will take place at all the church council meetings across both circuits during January and February and the final vote will be at the Circuit meetings which both take place on March10th 2016. Two members of the Circuit Team will be at Weybridge to talk to us all about this proposal over coffee after the service on January 10th. This is your opportunity to ask questions and raise any concerns with regards to this proposal. It will also give the church council and Circuit meeting representatives an indication of the churches view prior to them having to cast a vote.
On a lighter note, those who worshipped with us on Christmas morning will remember that we were all wished a ‘Merry Christmas by members of the congregation ‘in about eight different languages; this reflected the multi cultural make up of our regular congregation and some regular visitors. Christmas has passed and we all look forward to 2016, so in the same spirit as Christmas:
Gelukkige Nuwe Jaar (Afrikaans)
Gelukkig NieuwJaar (Dutch)
Joyeuse Nouvelle Année (French)
Frohes Neues Jahr (German)
Felice Anno Nuovo (Italian)
Feliz Año Nuevo (Spanish)
A ku odun titun (Yoruba)
භ නව වසර - Sinhala (Sri Lanka)
A Very Happy New Year
Church Project for 2016
Following the successful completion of the major project undertaken in 2015 to revamp the back garden and redecorate the ancillary premises we now look to 2016. It has been agreed that the next project should be to revamp the kitchen. Whilst this will not involve us in any physical work on the actual kitchen it will involve us in in raising the funds. Based on a couple of estimates gained early last year we are looking at a cost of around £10,000. We do not have this money. The gift day which we held in May 2015 raised £1,042 so just the £8,958 to go. Whilst we hope to secure some grants towards this work we cannot rely on being fortunate (after all we were extremely lucky when we did the major building project during the last decade) so we must roll up our sleeves and get fund raising.
We have decided that the collection taken every week after service at Coffee will be ring fenced towards the kitchen fund. We hope that someone will take on the role of selling items on e-bay (donations of suitable items to sell will be gratefully received).
Whilst thinking and praying about a regular, not to strenuous activity to raise funds ,God has sent an answer!: Addlestone Methodist church is well positioned on the main street in Addlestone and they open every Saturday for coffee and cake However these sessions are run by different organisations as the Addlestone membership is senior and can only manage one week per month. We have been offered the opportunity to host this event (and keep the proceeds raised) on the second Saturday of every month. It requires a minimum of two people to serve and wash up between 10—12 (30 minutes set up beforehand and clear up after). We need to provide the homemade cakes so there is another opportunity to help even if you cannot help on the day. Takings seem to vary between £35—£150 (mainly due to the publicity level) and at least we will be in the warm! The first session is 9 January which Linda will cover but an additional person would be helpful and cakes are definitely needed.
We will shortly be putting a fund raising thermometer up on our notice boards to monitor and publicise progress . Meanwhile and ideas and offers of fund raising events will be welcome; please let one of the church council members know before the February meeting.
Should you wish to make a donation contact the Treasurer—Robert Lewis or one of the steward's.
Please include this initiative in your prayers.
Following the successful completion of the major project undertaken in 2015 to revamp the back garden and redecorate the ancillary premises we now look to 2016. It has been agreed that the next project should be to revamp the kitchen. Whilst this will not involve us in any physical work on the actual kitchen it will involve us in in raising the funds. Based on a couple of estimates gained early last year we are looking at a cost of around £10,000. We do not have this money. The gift day which we held in May 2015 raised £1,042 so just the £8,958 to go. Whilst we hope to secure some grants towards this work we cannot rely on being fortunate (after all we were extremely lucky when we did the major building project during the last decade) so we must roll up our sleeves and get fund raising.
We have decided that the collection taken every week after service at Coffee will be ring fenced towards the kitchen fund. We hope that someone will take on the role of selling items on e-bay (donations of suitable items to sell will be gratefully received).
Whilst thinking and praying about a regular, not to strenuous activity to raise funds ,God has sent an answer!: Addlestone Methodist church is well positioned on the main street in Addlestone and they open every Saturday for coffee and cake However these sessions are run by different organisations as the Addlestone membership is senior and can only manage one week per month. We have been offered the opportunity to host this event (and keep the proceeds raised) on the second Saturday of every month. It requires a minimum of two people to serve and wash up between 10—12 (30 minutes set up beforehand and clear up after). We need to provide the homemade cakes so there is another opportunity to help even if you cannot help on the day. Takings seem to vary between £35—£150 (mainly due to the publicity level) and at least we will be in the warm! The first session is 9 January which Linda will cover but an additional person would be helpful and cakes are definitely needed.
We will shortly be putting a fund raising thermometer up on our notice boards to monitor and publicise progress . Meanwhile and ideas and offers of fund raising events will be welcome; please let one of the church council members know before the February meeting.
Should you wish to make a donation contact the Treasurer—Robert Lewis or one of the steward's.
Please include this initiative in your prayers.
December 2015
"Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace towards men, with whom He is pleased." Luke 2:14
Based on the current situation of terrorism and warfare across the globe, and some of it rather too close to home for comfort, one could question whether God is pleased with men anymore. Yet when these wonderful words were spoken at the time of Jesus’ birth the world, or at least parts of it, were at also at war. Certainly Palestine was under the Roman occupation and still the angels sang these immortal words of joy and hope.
None of us know what it is like to live in an occupied country and most of us have not, thankfully, experienced war at first hand. We may have wept at scenes of turmoil shown on the television news or printed in the newspapers and there will not be anyone who hasn’t been touched by photos of the innocent victims, usually children, or shocked at the pictures of child soldiers. Things have not changed much down the 2000 years since the birth of Christ, tragically man’s inhumanity to man is far too common, and not just in cases of war. The Victorian hymn writer Edmund Hamilton Sears write in his carol ‘It came upon a midnight clear’
‘and man at war with man hears not, the love song which they (the angels) bring’
This seems to be just as true over a century later. But even in the darkest of times we hold on to the belief that things will change for the better. We welcome the Christ child with hope in our hearts, filled with the promise that God is pleased with us and will grant us peace. As the carol concludes:
For lo! The days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
It’s ancient splendours fling
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Wishing you all a blessed and peaceful Christmas.
November 2015
Do you have a favourite Bible verse? Most people have a favourite passage and many have shared these over the years at different events. Most of you will have heard me wax lyrical about Philippians 4 verses 4 – 9. This passage was favoured by my headmistress when I was at senior school. At the time we felt that she used it every week but in reality she was more circumspect than that. We used to groan every time she quoted it or we ‘mouthed’ it at the same time. In the usual way of teenagers we thought that she didn’t know we were doing it, however in (adult) conversation with her some years ago it became clear that she was very well aware of us but she didn’t mind because it showed that we knew the passage. She hoped that, in time, some of her pupils would come to gain a greater love and understanding of the power in these words.
In the summer of 1996 a Football World Cup took place. Mr Mike Widdup led the Sunday School Anniversary service that year and as part of his address he displayed a football resting in the Font. On that football he had written ‘John 3:16’. He asked the children if they knew what the verse is; of course they did not. Several of the bright sparks dived for a bible but Mike had already asked the congregation and quick as a flash the late Bessie Downs gave the answer;
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
At a recent party I asked three of those children (now 20 somethings) who were at that service, but are no longer regular worshippers, if they could tell me the answer to John 3:16 and they all could! They then talked about that service and started to reminisce about ‘the good old days’ in Sunday School.
During October, Mrs Gill Taggart led our worship taking Mark 10:45 as her text. She explained that she had hoped to time it such that the verse was actually read at 10.45. Unfortunately the target was missed by a few minutes but she has now succeeded in providing another unforgettable link to remembering a key verse (are there any which are not key?). I have found myself catching a glimpse of the clock quite regularly since that service at around 10.45 and thinking of the verse:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
The Bible is full of wonderful verses and most of us will never remember them all, or indeed necessarily recognise whereabouts in the bible they can be found, but so long as we have some that we can refer to and which give us strength, hope or comfort the Lord will always be with us.
“‘“The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”’ Numbers 6: 24 - 26
Linda Weedon
Senior Church Steward
October 2015
Dear Friends,
It is a pleasure to share this message during this season of celebrating God’s gift of Harvest for our daily healthy nourishment and sustenance.
The past few weeks for most of us have been very busy and at times chaotic as we tried to settle into a new situation within the Circuit(s). But our God is the One who cares for his flock and as a Good Shepherd walks ahead of us. His love, warmth and friendship are ever present manifesting through his people and Weybridge Methodists have these in volumes.
Through this message I would like to convey my thanks to each one of you for making me feel accepted, comfortable and at home in this new responsibility. God always dwells among his people and I am full of hope and confidence that we shall continue to be inspired by a loving God as we plan, work and worship together even though this partnership may be limited in terms of length of time. As the church congregations celebrate Harvest by arranging lovely meals and conducting thanksgiving services, with every passing year, it is increasingly dawning upon us that its meaning is much deeper and wider.
Whilst it is God’s desire that all his children have a fair share in his gifts, we know that many are deprived of these gifts.
If life and all its riches are gifts of God, then they are ours in trust, to be shared and used for the good and welfare of all.
I believe the Harvest takes us right into the heart of the Good News of Christ Jesus, that we are loved and cared for by God and we are to reflect that love in our words and good deeds for others.
My sincere prayer is that this year’s Harvest inspires us to become better instruments for the relief of suffering, which is enormous when we look around the world, and creation of a just and peaceful society.
In conclusion Harvest is a time for recognising God’s care for the whole world. So let us look at the world through God’s eyes, and see how different it may look.
With every blessing,
Asif Das
It is a pleasure to share this message during this season of celebrating God’s gift of Harvest for our daily healthy nourishment and sustenance.
The past few weeks for most of us have been very busy and at times chaotic as we tried to settle into a new situation within the Circuit(s). But our God is the One who cares for his flock and as a Good Shepherd walks ahead of us. His love, warmth and friendship are ever present manifesting through his people and Weybridge Methodists have these in volumes.
Through this message I would like to convey my thanks to each one of you for making me feel accepted, comfortable and at home in this new responsibility. God always dwells among his people and I am full of hope and confidence that we shall continue to be inspired by a loving God as we plan, work and worship together even though this partnership may be limited in terms of length of time. As the church congregations celebrate Harvest by arranging lovely meals and conducting thanksgiving services, with every passing year, it is increasingly dawning upon us that its meaning is much deeper and wider.
Whilst it is God’s desire that all his children have a fair share in his gifts, we know that many are deprived of these gifts.
If life and all its riches are gifts of God, then they are ours in trust, to be shared and used for the good and welfare of all.
I believe the Harvest takes us right into the heart of the Good News of Christ Jesus, that we are loved and cared for by God and we are to reflect that love in our words and good deeds for others.
My sincere prayer is that this year’s Harvest inspires us to become better instruments for the relief of suffering, which is enormous when we look around the world, and creation of a just and peaceful society.
In conclusion Harvest is a time for recognising God’s care for the whole world. So let us look at the world through God’s eyes, and see how different it may look.
With every blessing,
Asif Das
September 2015
Dear Friends,
This is my first time writing to you; therefore I would like to use this maiden opportunity to introduce myself to you.
This September marks the beginning of my 17th year in ministry (I’m a late comer). Having been accepted by the Methodist Conference in 1996, I did my ministerial training in Sheffield. I have served in Sheffield North East, Warrington, Leigh & Hindley, Guildford Circuits and now also with you in Woking and Walton-on-Thames Circuit.
My time in ministry has been punctuated with challenges and fruitfulness, the impact of which I believe has helped me to grow into a better believer and a better human being.
I enjoy conducting worship; my other priorities in ministry are pastoral care and prayer. I also love developing relationships and working in partnership with churches of all denominations and community groups wherever possible.
Time permitting watching sport on TV is one of my favorite pastimes. I am big fan of Andy Murray and follow cricket passionately.
As I write this letter in mid-August, England has already regained the Ashes and made the whole nation proud. Competitive sport reminds me, that we as followers of Christ are also competing though in a very different way. The believers compete with distractions that hinder our mission. But by the grace of God we can run a good race and bring glory to the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’m thankful to God for allowing me to work with you, to serve Him, one another and together the community we live in. I anticipate the joy of making new friends and as we get to know each other we’ll be able to journey together and raise the name of Jesus high.
With every blessing in Christ our Lord
Asif Das
This is my first time writing to you; therefore I would like to use this maiden opportunity to introduce myself to you.
This September marks the beginning of my 17th year in ministry (I’m a late comer). Having been accepted by the Methodist Conference in 1996, I did my ministerial training in Sheffield. I have served in Sheffield North East, Warrington, Leigh & Hindley, Guildford Circuits and now also with you in Woking and Walton-on-Thames Circuit.
My time in ministry has been punctuated with challenges and fruitfulness, the impact of which I believe has helped me to grow into a better believer and a better human being.
I enjoy conducting worship; my other priorities in ministry are pastoral care and prayer. I also love developing relationships and working in partnership with churches of all denominations and community groups wherever possible.
Time permitting watching sport on TV is one of my favorite pastimes. I am big fan of Andy Murray and follow cricket passionately.
As I write this letter in mid-August, England has already regained the Ashes and made the whole nation proud. Competitive sport reminds me, that we as followers of Christ are also competing though in a very different way. The believers compete with distractions that hinder our mission. But by the grace of God we can run a good race and bring glory to the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’m thankful to God for allowing me to work with you, to serve Him, one another and together the community we live in. I anticipate the joy of making new friends and as we get to know each other we’ll be able to journey together and raise the name of Jesus high.
With every blessing in Christ our Lord
Asif Das
August 2015
Dear Friends
What a wonderful final weekend! How great to be able to welcome Joseph into the family of Jesus at the last morning service I conducted at Weybridge during my time in the Circuit. The day continued with a splendid celebration of 40 years of ministry at an afternoon service in a crowded Byfleet Church. I hope that by now many of you will have seen some of the photographs on the various websites.
May I take this opportunity to thank you all;
To thank you for your welcome and support over the last three years. This has been an inspiring time for me. I believe that Weybridge Methodist Church has a real chance to serve the members of the community and hope that it will grow in confidence in its mission. I am delighted with the work that has been done to the premises over the time I have been with you and am sorry not to have been able to celebrate the completion of the works with you.
Thank you for your support to Jane over the time we have been with you. It has not always been easy. She has especially valued the fellowship of the Barnabas Group.
Thank you for the generous gifts with which we go on our way. I am delighted with the book of memories. We shall be putting the tokens to a holiday sometime during the autumn.
As yet we do not know where we shall be come September as building work will not begin on our house until then. When finally settled we will pass on our contact details.
With every blessing for the future,
Peter Howson.
What a wonderful final weekend! How great to be able to welcome Joseph into the family of Jesus at the last morning service I conducted at Weybridge during my time in the Circuit. The day continued with a splendid celebration of 40 years of ministry at an afternoon service in a crowded Byfleet Church. I hope that by now many of you will have seen some of the photographs on the various websites.
May I take this opportunity to thank you all;
To thank you for your welcome and support over the last three years. This has been an inspiring time for me. I believe that Weybridge Methodist Church has a real chance to serve the members of the community and hope that it will grow in confidence in its mission. I am delighted with the work that has been done to the premises over the time I have been with you and am sorry not to have been able to celebrate the completion of the works with you.
Thank you for your support to Jane over the time we have been with you. It has not always been easy. She has especially valued the fellowship of the Barnabas Group.
Thank you for the generous gifts with which we go on our way. I am delighted with the book of memories. We shall be putting the tokens to a holiday sometime during the autumn.
As yet we do not know where we shall be come September as building work will not begin on our house until then. When finally settled we will pass on our contact details.
With every blessing for the future,
Peter Howson.
July 2015
We have a new sign. I wrote those words two years ago in July 2013. Has it made any difference? Can you remember the old one? A year ago in July 2014 I asked the same question. I also referred to the attempt that the church was making to develop a new vision for its future. So where are we now?
Inevitably we are in the middle of a period of change. For some it will be ‘One more step along the road (we) go,’ whereas others might be feeling that it is ‘Change and decay in all around I see.’ It is at times like this that we need to put our trust in the Lord. More importantly we also need to listen to him to see what he is saying to the churches, and to Weybridge Methodist Church in particular. It would be a good exercise to read the ‘Letters to the Seven Churches,’ that form part of Revelation Chapters 2 and 3. With which of those groups of Christians would we identify. What specifically might John be called to write to our church?
With the departure of Mike Deacon and the curtailment of Paul Beard’s ministry the Circuit is now being led by Claire Potter, the Superintendent of the Guildford Circuit. She has asked the Reverend Asif Das to take pastoral charge of Weybridge Methodist Church. He has now chaired his first meeting of the Church Council and will be sharing his vision over the coming months. He needs your prayers and support in what is a challenging period. The Circuit will be seeking a Presbyter to come and be responsible for Addlestone, Walton and Weybridge from September 2016. In the interim a proposal is being tabled to restart discussions with the Guildford Circuit to form a new larger North East Surrey Circuit.
As a result of decisions at the Annual Church Meeting, Asif will have the opportunity to work with new members of the team. I would like to thank Kobus for his seven years as Treasurer. His sterling work means the financial position has improved immeasurably. His work with the SSPT over the last year has resulted in the reclamation of the back yard, truly an example of ‘the waste places shall rejoice.’ We also thank Jane for her work over the last year as one of the team of Communion Stewards.
I hope that the discussion about what it means to be the people of God in our small corner of Weybridge will continue and grow.
Peter Howson.
Inevitably we are in the middle of a period of change. For some it will be ‘One more step along the road (we) go,’ whereas others might be feeling that it is ‘Change and decay in all around I see.’ It is at times like this that we need to put our trust in the Lord. More importantly we also need to listen to him to see what he is saying to the churches, and to Weybridge Methodist Church in particular. It would be a good exercise to read the ‘Letters to the Seven Churches,’ that form part of Revelation Chapters 2 and 3. With which of those groups of Christians would we identify. What specifically might John be called to write to our church?
With the departure of Mike Deacon and the curtailment of Paul Beard’s ministry the Circuit is now being led by Claire Potter, the Superintendent of the Guildford Circuit. She has asked the Reverend Asif Das to take pastoral charge of Weybridge Methodist Church. He has now chaired his first meeting of the Church Council and will be sharing his vision over the coming months. He needs your prayers and support in what is a challenging period. The Circuit will be seeking a Presbyter to come and be responsible for Addlestone, Walton and Weybridge from September 2016. In the interim a proposal is being tabled to restart discussions with the Guildford Circuit to form a new larger North East Surrey Circuit.
As a result of decisions at the Annual Church Meeting, Asif will have the opportunity to work with new members of the team. I would like to thank Kobus for his seven years as Treasurer. His sterling work means the financial position has improved immeasurably. His work with the SSPT over the last year has resulted in the reclamation of the back yard, truly an example of ‘the waste places shall rejoice.’ We also thank Jane for her work over the last year as one of the team of Communion Stewards.
I hope that the discussion about what it means to be the people of God in our small corner of Weybridge will continue and grow.
Peter Howson.
June 2015
Dear Friends
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians he was communicating with a group of local Christians who found themselves in a difficult place. Their reaction to the problems they faced was to fall out amongst themselves. They began to split into groups with each one thinking themselves better than the others. As we can see from 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 verses 10 to 17 it obviously became quite personal. Rows over Communion (see 1 Corinthians Chapters 10 and 11) taking incorrect action where disputes had broken out (see 1 Corinthians Chapter 5) threatened to destroy the church community. The tragedy if that were to happen would be, as Paul saw clearly, that the Good News would no longer be available in Corinth.
We do not know how many letters Paul wrote to those Corinthian Christians. The Scripture saw them collected into the two that form part of our New Testament. We lack any copies of the letters that people in Corinth sent to Paul. They would make fascinating reading as they would show what was causing them to become so worked up.
It could all have been a dreadful mess. No doubt at the time there was a degree of pain and hurt within the Church. God was able to use this situation in a way that neither Paul nor the Corinthian Christians could ever have expected. Out of it came writings that have come down the centuries to us. Without this dispute we would have missed out on Paul writing about the nature of Holy Communion (see above.) Without this dispute we would have missed out on Paul writing about the special nature of Christian love, this ‘agape’ that occurs eight times in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. Without this dispute we would have missed out on Paul writing about the nature of the Resurrection as he did, so eloquently, in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15. Without this dispute we would have missed out on, what is for me, one of the most moving descriptions of what it means to serve Christ. These are the words in 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 verses 3 to 10. (It also worth reading the following verses for a different reason.) One of the controlling verses for my ministry is in 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 verse 9(a). One translation put it like this, ‘We are unknown men whom all men know.’ Updated the passage has been translated as, ‘Known, yet regarded as unknown.’ We are indeed to be the yeast in the dough, the salt in the cooking.
There has been a great deal of upheaval in the Circuit in recent months. There will be much more in the months to come. During that we need to remember that Weybridge Methodist Church should have a vision of its role to spread the Good News of God’s Love in our community. We believe this not because of any special significance in the way we are organised, not even in the superiority of our forms of worship, or of the people involved. We believe it because God has entrusted us, as he entrusted the Corinthian Christians, with a message of life and death for our community. Might I suggest that in the coming weeks everyone takes the time to read the Corinthian letters in the New Testament? Having read them take time to pray how God will use the disparate experiences and the confusions to bring the word to the people who need it most.
Plans are in hand for a service at 4.30 pm on Sunday 19th July which will mark the 40th year of my active ministry. I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to come and share that time of celebration as we both look back and look forward.
Peter Howson
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians he was communicating with a group of local Christians who found themselves in a difficult place. Their reaction to the problems they faced was to fall out amongst themselves. They began to split into groups with each one thinking themselves better than the others. As we can see from 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 verses 10 to 17 it obviously became quite personal. Rows over Communion (see 1 Corinthians Chapters 10 and 11) taking incorrect action where disputes had broken out (see 1 Corinthians Chapter 5) threatened to destroy the church community. The tragedy if that were to happen would be, as Paul saw clearly, that the Good News would no longer be available in Corinth.
We do not know how many letters Paul wrote to those Corinthian Christians. The Scripture saw them collected into the two that form part of our New Testament. We lack any copies of the letters that people in Corinth sent to Paul. They would make fascinating reading as they would show what was causing them to become so worked up.
It could all have been a dreadful mess. No doubt at the time there was a degree of pain and hurt within the Church. God was able to use this situation in a way that neither Paul nor the Corinthian Christians could ever have expected. Out of it came writings that have come down the centuries to us. Without this dispute we would have missed out on Paul writing about the nature of Holy Communion (see above.) Without this dispute we would have missed out on Paul writing about the special nature of Christian love, this ‘agape’ that occurs eight times in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. Without this dispute we would have missed out on Paul writing about the nature of the Resurrection as he did, so eloquently, in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15. Without this dispute we would have missed out on, what is for me, one of the most moving descriptions of what it means to serve Christ. These are the words in 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 verses 3 to 10. (It also worth reading the following verses for a different reason.) One of the controlling verses for my ministry is in 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 verse 9(a). One translation put it like this, ‘We are unknown men whom all men know.’ Updated the passage has been translated as, ‘Known, yet regarded as unknown.’ We are indeed to be the yeast in the dough, the salt in the cooking.
There has been a great deal of upheaval in the Circuit in recent months. There will be much more in the months to come. During that we need to remember that Weybridge Methodist Church should have a vision of its role to spread the Good News of God’s Love in our community. We believe this not because of any special significance in the way we are organised, not even in the superiority of our forms of worship, or of the people involved. We believe it because God has entrusted us, as he entrusted the Corinthian Christians, with a message of life and death for our community. Might I suggest that in the coming weeks everyone takes the time to read the Corinthian letters in the New Testament? Having read them take time to pray how God will use the disparate experiences and the confusions to bring the word to the people who need it most.
Plans are in hand for a service at 4.30 pm on Sunday 19th July which will mark the 40th year of my active ministry. I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to come and share that time of celebration as we both look back and look forward.
Peter Howson
May 2015
In the March Newsletter we reported that the Church Council meeting of February 2015 had agreed that we should hold a ‘Gift Day’ this year to try and raise funds to replace the Church kitchen. The idea of a Gift Day or Special Appeal is not new; many churches hold these events regularly when there is a need for funds to enable unforeseen repairs or for projects which require unplanned expenditure or expenditure earlier than financial projections allow. Such is the case for us.
Why are we holding this Gift Day?
We would like to raise sufficient funds to enable us to commence work to revamp and revitalise the kitchen area of our church within this financial year.
What will the money be used for?
The money will be used to replace our kitchen; the current one has been pretty much unchanged since it was replaced after the fire in 1977! We would like to fit it out so that a) we have the flexibility to prepare meals, hot and cold, to enable greater opportunities for fellowship within the church family, b) so that the new kitchen will meet legal requirements for kitchen hygiene, c) provide realistic and lockable storage for all regular users and d) enable us to charge this resource to future Lets.
What difference will it make?
A new kitchen will enable enhanced fellowship within our church family and community and provide the potential for us to extend God’s mission and ministry to the wider community in different and more innovative ways.
How much do we need?
We have received two high level quotes from different firms (one who has a proven track record across the circuit). Both of these quotes are in the region of £5,000 which includes white goods but excludes the fitting. Fitting is a further £4,000 (approx.) but it is possible that a team from SSPT may be able to do this. It should be noted that these are estimates as we have yet to finalise a cohesive list of requirements.
How much should I give and how do I donate?
All gifts will be welcome; there is no lower or upper limit (remember the Widows Mite, Luke 21 v 1 – 4). Pre marked envelopes will be available at church in the preceding weeks. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Weybridge Methodist Church’ or simply put cash in an envelope. Your gift can be anonymous if you so desire but it would be helpful, not to say beneficial, to indicate whether Gift Aid can be reclaimed.
Please hand your gift to Rev Dr Peter Howson on Sunday 10 May or send it to him at the manse.
Peter Howson is on holiday at the time of publication of the May Newsletter.
Why are we holding this Gift Day?
We would like to raise sufficient funds to enable us to commence work to revamp and revitalise the kitchen area of our church within this financial year.
What will the money be used for?
The money will be used to replace our kitchen; the current one has been pretty much unchanged since it was replaced after the fire in 1977! We would like to fit it out so that a) we have the flexibility to prepare meals, hot and cold, to enable greater opportunities for fellowship within the church family, b) so that the new kitchen will meet legal requirements for kitchen hygiene, c) provide realistic and lockable storage for all regular users and d) enable us to charge this resource to future Lets.
What difference will it make?
A new kitchen will enable enhanced fellowship within our church family and community and provide the potential for us to extend God’s mission and ministry to the wider community in different and more innovative ways.
How much do we need?
We have received two high level quotes from different firms (one who has a proven track record across the circuit). Both of these quotes are in the region of £5,000 which includes white goods but excludes the fitting. Fitting is a further £4,000 (approx.) but it is possible that a team from SSPT may be able to do this. It should be noted that these are estimates as we have yet to finalise a cohesive list of requirements.
How much should I give and how do I donate?
All gifts will be welcome; there is no lower or upper limit (remember the Widows Mite, Luke 21 v 1 – 4). Pre marked envelopes will be available at church in the preceding weeks. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Weybridge Methodist Church’ or simply put cash in an envelope. Your gift can be anonymous if you so desire but it would be helpful, not to say beneficial, to indicate whether Gift Aid can be reclaimed.
Please hand your gift to Rev Dr Peter Howson on Sunday 10 May or send it to him at the manse.
Peter Howson is on holiday at the time of publication of the May Newsletter.
April 2015
Christ has died.
Christ is Risen!
Christ will come again.
At our services of Holy Communion we are asked to declare our faith in the simple terms of these three statements. They are shorthand for so much more. But they are also easy to remember and thus serve to remind us each day of our faith and give us a simple way of telling others what we believe.
During April we shall be concentrating on the middle of the declarations. It deserves an exclamation mark because it is the most outrageous of the three statements. Everyone who accepts that Jesus was an historical figure and not just the hero of a good story thus has no difficulty with accepting that he died. We shall all die in due course. The importance of the statement is that he did DIE. He did not fall asleep. He was not transported to heaven by angels. He was not drugged so that the disciples could spirit him away while still alive. But that he is ‘Risen from the Dead’? If that is true then his coming again makes sense. But is it true that Jesus has overcome death? We do not have the same experience as the disciples but, as Jesus, said to Thomas, ‘How fortunate are those who have not seen and yet still believe.’ (John 20.29)
As Paul writing put it writing to the Corinthian Christians, ‘If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are the most to be pitied.’ (1 Corinthians 15.19) For him we are not to be pitied because Jesus was alive who was put to death on a cross. A good preparation for Easter is to read the whole of Paul’s passionate comments about what faith in the risen Jesus means in the whole of 1 Corinthians 15. It can also be found in ‘The Song of Resurrection,’ at number 830 in Hymns & Psalms.
It is our belief that Jesus conquered death that is at the heart of our Christian message. May we find the opportunity this Easter Season to tell at least one other person why this is so special to us.
May I thank all those who helped make such a great success of the Women’s World Day of Prayer Service for Weybridge held in our church on Friday 6th March.
I hope that you will have a blessed Easter.
Peter Howson
Christ is Risen!
Christ will come again.
At our services of Holy Communion we are asked to declare our faith in the simple terms of these three statements. They are shorthand for so much more. But they are also easy to remember and thus serve to remind us each day of our faith and give us a simple way of telling others what we believe.
During April we shall be concentrating on the middle of the declarations. It deserves an exclamation mark because it is the most outrageous of the three statements. Everyone who accepts that Jesus was an historical figure and not just the hero of a good story thus has no difficulty with accepting that he died. We shall all die in due course. The importance of the statement is that he did DIE. He did not fall asleep. He was not transported to heaven by angels. He was not drugged so that the disciples could spirit him away while still alive. But that he is ‘Risen from the Dead’? If that is true then his coming again makes sense. But is it true that Jesus has overcome death? We do not have the same experience as the disciples but, as Jesus, said to Thomas, ‘How fortunate are those who have not seen and yet still believe.’ (John 20.29)
As Paul writing put it writing to the Corinthian Christians, ‘If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are the most to be pitied.’ (1 Corinthians 15.19) For him we are not to be pitied because Jesus was alive who was put to death on a cross. A good preparation for Easter is to read the whole of Paul’s passionate comments about what faith in the risen Jesus means in the whole of 1 Corinthians 15. It can also be found in ‘The Song of Resurrection,’ at number 830 in Hymns & Psalms.
It is our belief that Jesus conquered death that is at the heart of our Christian message. May we find the opportunity this Easter Season to tell at least one other person why this is so special to us.
May I thank all those who helped make such a great success of the Women’s World Day of Prayer Service for Weybridge held in our church on Friday 6th March.
I hope that you will have a blessed Easter.
Peter Howson
March 2015
Dear Friends
The recent Church Council took a number of decisions about the vision that it had of our church community in the future. For some months we have been aware of an increasing number of children in the life of the church. It has been represented on some Sunday mornings when the number of pre-school and school age children and young people have reached double figures. Equally there have been other Sundays when there have been no younger members of the congregation.
The Church Council recognised that to encourage families to worship with us there needs to be some certainty about what is on offer in worship. The ideal would be for teaching and worship for various ages groups every Sunday. With more numbers, and crucially more people willing to share in the teaching, this will be possible. In the interim period it was agreed that there would be a move to a new monthly pattern of services. That pattern will include one Sunday each month where the worship would be devised in such a way that it would offer something to as wide a range of those attending as possible. It would also include another Sunday on which a separate programme would be offered for the younger people. The intention would be for that programme to begin at 10.30 am and for everyone to come together to share their experiences for the final 15 minutes of the service. The exact format and dates will be worked out so that a trail can begin with the next Plan. That will start at the beginning of June. Any ideas, suggestions, or offers of help will be most welcome. I would also wish to record the gratitude of the church to Carol and Claire for all their hard work with the children over recent years.
The decision was also taken to have a Gift Day. The Church Council would like to include a refurbished kitchen in the next stage of the renovation of the property. Funds do not allow this to happen at present. The Gift Day is part of a specific appeal to raise the money to make it possible. I commend this day, arranged for Sunday 10 May, the day of the Annual Church Meeting, as an opportunity to review your support for the church and consider whether you might be able to offer more. I hope that this review will also consider how you can offer more prayer support for the work that is being done. That Sunday may also see an opportunity to give thanks for all the work that has taken place in recent weeks to improve the buildings and their surroundings. Anyone who has not looked since last summer at the ‘wilderness’ behind the church will find a dramatic change.
A review of tasks and appointments will take place before the Annual Church Meeting. Please think if there is a role that you could undertake in the life of our church.
Every blessing
Peter Howson.
The recent Church Council took a number of decisions about the vision that it had of our church community in the future. For some months we have been aware of an increasing number of children in the life of the church. It has been represented on some Sunday mornings when the number of pre-school and school age children and young people have reached double figures. Equally there have been other Sundays when there have been no younger members of the congregation.
The Church Council recognised that to encourage families to worship with us there needs to be some certainty about what is on offer in worship. The ideal would be for teaching and worship for various ages groups every Sunday. With more numbers, and crucially more people willing to share in the teaching, this will be possible. In the interim period it was agreed that there would be a move to a new monthly pattern of services. That pattern will include one Sunday each month where the worship would be devised in such a way that it would offer something to as wide a range of those attending as possible. It would also include another Sunday on which a separate programme would be offered for the younger people. The intention would be for that programme to begin at 10.30 am and for everyone to come together to share their experiences for the final 15 minutes of the service. The exact format and dates will be worked out so that a trail can begin with the next Plan. That will start at the beginning of June. Any ideas, suggestions, or offers of help will be most welcome. I would also wish to record the gratitude of the church to Carol and Claire for all their hard work with the children over recent years.
The decision was also taken to have a Gift Day. The Church Council would like to include a refurbished kitchen in the next stage of the renovation of the property. Funds do not allow this to happen at present. The Gift Day is part of a specific appeal to raise the money to make it possible. I commend this day, arranged for Sunday 10 May, the day of the Annual Church Meeting, as an opportunity to review your support for the church and consider whether you might be able to offer more. I hope that this review will also consider how you can offer more prayer support for the work that is being done. That Sunday may also see an opportunity to give thanks for all the work that has taken place in recent weeks to improve the buildings and their surroundings. Anyone who has not looked since last summer at the ‘wilderness’ behind the church will find a dramatic change.
A review of tasks and appointments will take place before the Annual Church Meeting. Please think if there is a role that you could undertake in the life of our church.
Every blessing
Peter Howson.
February 2015
Dear Friends
This year Lent begins on Wednesday 18th February. It is a time for reviewing one’s life and the priorities that are foremost in it. As a result some habit that has taken hold might well be examined to see what effects it has been having. Would a period without doing something, using something, imbibing something, eating something, be of value? Is everything that we do to the glory of God? I promise, once again, this year, to give up playing games on my computer during Lent. What is more I promise that I will donate £1 to the church each time I give in to that particular temptation.
Despite considerable amounts of illness and general unwellness over recent months we were able to record good congregations at most of the services during the Christmas period. Numbers at café church have remained around 30. At times the number of younger people has reached double figures on some Sundays. We need to think urgently about what we provide for them. My suggestion would be that we look at providing a crèche rota so that on as many weeks as possible care can be provided for the very young. It probably needs someone to take responsibility for co-ordinating a programme since the parents will wish to look after the children. For those who are older we need to consider restarting a programme of engagement. My suggestion would be to look at a month schedule with one Sunday as ‘All Age Worship’ and another with a guaranteed session for the younger element. At Byfleet the teaching is done at the same time as the adults are in worship. The two groups come back together at 11.15 am and there is then a sharing of material. Such an arrangement has the advantage of welcoming people at a point at which all can contribute rather than lecturing some and then sending them away. It does depend upon those leading worship agreeing to stick to the timings! This is not a problem for me but might be for some others. I would ask you to think about this idea and let me and/or the stewards know. We would also be looking for people who could help make it a possibility.
Anyone working with young people needs a DBS check. They also need to attend a specifically Methodist briefing about our safeguarding arrangements. These are neither officious nor onerous but do allow parents to be reassured about our standards.
We look forward to the completion of the various projects around the church and the opportunity to say a ‘thank you’ to those who have worked on them over the winter.
Every blessing
Peter Howson
This year Lent begins on Wednesday 18th February. It is a time for reviewing one’s life and the priorities that are foremost in it. As a result some habit that has taken hold might well be examined to see what effects it has been having. Would a period without doing something, using something, imbibing something, eating something, be of value? Is everything that we do to the glory of God? I promise, once again, this year, to give up playing games on my computer during Lent. What is more I promise that I will donate £1 to the church each time I give in to that particular temptation.
Despite considerable amounts of illness and general unwellness over recent months we were able to record good congregations at most of the services during the Christmas period. Numbers at café church have remained around 30. At times the number of younger people has reached double figures on some Sundays. We need to think urgently about what we provide for them. My suggestion would be that we look at providing a crèche rota so that on as many weeks as possible care can be provided for the very young. It probably needs someone to take responsibility for co-ordinating a programme since the parents will wish to look after the children. For those who are older we need to consider restarting a programme of engagement. My suggestion would be to look at a month schedule with one Sunday as ‘All Age Worship’ and another with a guaranteed session for the younger element. At Byfleet the teaching is done at the same time as the adults are in worship. The two groups come back together at 11.15 am and there is then a sharing of material. Such an arrangement has the advantage of welcoming people at a point at which all can contribute rather than lecturing some and then sending them away. It does depend upon those leading worship agreeing to stick to the timings! This is not a problem for me but might be for some others. I would ask you to think about this idea and let me and/or the stewards know. We would also be looking for people who could help make it a possibility.
Anyone working with young people needs a DBS check. They also need to attend a specifically Methodist briefing about our safeguarding arrangements. These are neither officious nor onerous but do allow parents to be reassured about our standards.
We look forward to the completion of the various projects around the church and the opportunity to say a ‘thank you’ to those who have worked on them over the winter.
Every blessing
Peter Howson
January 2015
Dear Friends
May I begin with a word of thanks to all those who sent us cards over the Christmas period. We are grateful for the host of cards that decorate the hall at the manse. They make a wonderful display. A more general thanks to all who took part in the services and activities associated with the celebration of Christmas. Some of the services in which I participated were particularly awe-inspiring, a great thing to be at this season. Thank you for the ones that expressed their good wishes to Jane as she struggled to overcome a nasty infection. As I write that has been conquered but the resulting exhaustion will still take some weeks to disappear.
There is a special sensitivity about the Christmas Services and also the annual Covenant Service. In 2015, for the first time in years, Weybridge will have the Covenant Service on the first Sunday at the year. Thus our service on 4 January at 10.30 will include the renewal of the covenant and Holy Communion. For anyone unfamiliar with the service please, either ask to borrow a copy of the order of service in advance, or look at the words, which can be viewed through:
http://www.methodist.org.uk/who-we-are/what-is-distinctive-about-methodism/a-covenant-with-god/the-covenant-service
to discover the meaning and significance behind the service.
As I said, there will be a special sensitivity for me as I lead this service this year. When we come to the words:
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
I will thinking of the next seven months here in Weybridge before I come to the end of this phase of my ministry. We have made our plans as a family, it remains to see what God wants of us, as we commit our lives to him afresh in this renewal of the covenant between him and us.
As you will have seen work continues to improve the appearance of the buildings. I hope that we can plan a way of giving thanks for those who willingly, or unwillingly, came into contact with the church over recent months. I also do want to challenge everyone to continue to think how we can ensure that the sanctuary is also fit for purpose. Please continue to talk and let the Church Council hear your comments.
May you all have a peaceful and blessed new year.
Peter Howson
May I begin with a word of thanks to all those who sent us cards over the Christmas period. We are grateful for the host of cards that decorate the hall at the manse. They make a wonderful display. A more general thanks to all who took part in the services and activities associated with the celebration of Christmas. Some of the services in which I participated were particularly awe-inspiring, a great thing to be at this season. Thank you for the ones that expressed their good wishes to Jane as she struggled to overcome a nasty infection. As I write that has been conquered but the resulting exhaustion will still take some weeks to disappear.
There is a special sensitivity about the Christmas Services and also the annual Covenant Service. In 2015, for the first time in years, Weybridge will have the Covenant Service on the first Sunday at the year. Thus our service on 4 January at 10.30 will include the renewal of the covenant and Holy Communion. For anyone unfamiliar with the service please, either ask to borrow a copy of the order of service in advance, or look at the words, which can be viewed through:
http://www.methodist.org.uk/who-we-are/what-is-distinctive-about-methodism/a-covenant-with-god/the-covenant-service
to discover the meaning and significance behind the service.
As I said, there will be a special sensitivity for me as I lead this service this year. When we come to the words:
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
I will thinking of the next seven months here in Weybridge before I come to the end of this phase of my ministry. We have made our plans as a family, it remains to see what God wants of us, as we commit our lives to him afresh in this renewal of the covenant between him and us.
As you will have seen work continues to improve the appearance of the buildings. I hope that we can plan a way of giving thanks for those who willingly, or unwillingly, came into contact with the church over recent months. I also do want to challenge everyone to continue to think how we can ensure that the sanctuary is also fit for purpose. Please continue to talk and let the Church Council hear your comments.
May you all have a peaceful and blessed new year.
Peter Howson
December 2014
Dear Friends
Christians often make a fuss about ‘Christmas’ starting too early. There is a sense in which they are right to do so if their complaint is that the ‘celebration’ of Christmas comes to an end when it should properly just be beginning. Doing that ignores the opportunity to use Advent as a time of preparation for Christmas. It also means that as soon as Christmas is over, everyone is encouraged to move onto the next secular time of celebration; In our culture that is either Burns Night or Valentine’s Day – take your pick.
I have no difficulty with people preparing for Christmas. Like most people I get bored with the adverts but, in as much as they are encouraging us to ‘get ready’, they have a proper theological stance. Of course since they are not telling us to get ready to celebrate once again the birth of a Saviour they lack any Christian content.
So firstly, how are we getting ready for Christmas? Weybridge Methodist Church is planning all the things that have become part of our tradition, even if it has only been in place for a few years. We will have our gift service, a shared lunch, a service of readings and carols, a service telling the story of the nativity on Christmas Eve afternoon, and then a family celebration of the arrival of a new baby on Christmas morning. How are you preparing for these services? Can you offer to help with any of them? We are looking for the energy to make these truly celebrations, and memorable for those who attend. Last year the Christmas Morning service was one of the best attended of the year. Will that be the same again this year? Will that be because you and I have invited people to come and join our celebration?
And, secondly, what happens after 25th December? Will this be the start of something new for someone? Once again we have the opportunity to remind ourselves and others that in Bethlehem there is a new start for the world. God comes to us by showing that his Word has become our Flesh. He is alongside us in a special way. We are reminded, year by year, of the new start that we can make. It is appropriate for us that our Covenant Service comes almost immediately after Christmas. This year it will be on Sunday 4th January 2015. Here is our chance to respond to the gift given to each of us personally, that we celebrate at Christmas.
See you at the celebrations.
Peter Howson.
Christians often make a fuss about ‘Christmas’ starting too early. There is a sense in which they are right to do so if their complaint is that the ‘celebration’ of Christmas comes to an end when it should properly just be beginning. Doing that ignores the opportunity to use Advent as a time of preparation for Christmas. It also means that as soon as Christmas is over, everyone is encouraged to move onto the next secular time of celebration; In our culture that is either Burns Night or Valentine’s Day – take your pick.
I have no difficulty with people preparing for Christmas. Like most people I get bored with the adverts but, in as much as they are encouraging us to ‘get ready’, they have a proper theological stance. Of course since they are not telling us to get ready to celebrate once again the birth of a Saviour they lack any Christian content.
So firstly, how are we getting ready for Christmas? Weybridge Methodist Church is planning all the things that have become part of our tradition, even if it has only been in place for a few years. We will have our gift service, a shared lunch, a service of readings and carols, a service telling the story of the nativity on Christmas Eve afternoon, and then a family celebration of the arrival of a new baby on Christmas morning. How are you preparing for these services? Can you offer to help with any of them? We are looking for the energy to make these truly celebrations, and memorable for those who attend. Last year the Christmas Morning service was one of the best attended of the year. Will that be the same again this year? Will that be because you and I have invited people to come and join our celebration?
And, secondly, what happens after 25th December? Will this be the start of something new for someone? Once again we have the opportunity to remind ourselves and others that in Bethlehem there is a new start for the world. God comes to us by showing that his Word has become our Flesh. He is alongside us in a special way. We are reminded, year by year, of the new start that we can make. It is appropriate for us that our Covenant Service comes almost immediately after Christmas. This year it will be on Sunday 4th January 2015. Here is our chance to respond to the gift given to each of us personally, that we celebrate at Christmas.
See you at the celebrations.
Peter Howson.
November 2014
Dear Friends
November 1st is All Saints Day, or to give it the old English title ‘All Hallows.’ It was that name that gave rise to ‘All Hallows Eve,’ which was subsequently shortened to ‘Halloween.’ That day starts a period of remembering those who gone before which is a feature of this time of year. Our Remembrance Sunday on 9th November and Armistice Day on 11th will have a special poignancy in this the hundredth anniversary year of the start of World War One. At this time of year we have an opportunity to remind others that, as Paul wrote to Christians in Corinth, ‘we are not as those without hope,’ because we believe in the resurrection of the dead. Our faith in a quality of life which is eternal is founded in the experience of an empty tomb, and the meetings with a risen Jesus. That leads us to have hope for our life beyond this life, even if we are not able to talk about the nature of that life. What we do know is that when Jesus talked of loving our neighbour he did so because he was also taking about a Creator God who loved the individuals who are part of that creation. We look to a future rooted in that love.
The start of November is also the moment at which the shops can turn their attention to preparations for Christmas. We wait a little longer, until late November when the season of Advent begins on 29th November. Byfleet are again having a weekend of celebrations and we are invited to the various activities to join them. We shall also begin a year in which the stories of Jesus come mostly from Mark’s Gospel. It has no account of the birth of Jesus beginning instead with the start of his adult ministry. We tell the story of his nativity because it I able to give everyone a way into then thinking about whom he became and what he represented.
Our Church Council in October asked itself some searching questions about the nature of our fellowship. How can we become the things that we want and believed ourselves to be called to be in Weybridge? The debate is not closed, perhaps it has only just opened. Please take part.
Peter Howson.
November 1st is All Saints Day, or to give it the old English title ‘All Hallows.’ It was that name that gave rise to ‘All Hallows Eve,’ which was subsequently shortened to ‘Halloween.’ That day starts a period of remembering those who gone before which is a feature of this time of year. Our Remembrance Sunday on 9th November and Armistice Day on 11th will have a special poignancy in this the hundredth anniversary year of the start of World War One. At this time of year we have an opportunity to remind others that, as Paul wrote to Christians in Corinth, ‘we are not as those without hope,’ because we believe in the resurrection of the dead. Our faith in a quality of life which is eternal is founded in the experience of an empty tomb, and the meetings with a risen Jesus. That leads us to have hope for our life beyond this life, even if we are not able to talk about the nature of that life. What we do know is that when Jesus talked of loving our neighbour he did so because he was also taking about a Creator God who loved the individuals who are part of that creation. We look to a future rooted in that love.
The start of November is also the moment at which the shops can turn their attention to preparations for Christmas. We wait a little longer, until late November when the season of Advent begins on 29th November. Byfleet are again having a weekend of celebrations and we are invited to the various activities to join them. We shall also begin a year in which the stories of Jesus come mostly from Mark’s Gospel. It has no account of the birth of Jesus beginning instead with the start of his adult ministry. We tell the story of his nativity because it I able to give everyone a way into then thinking about whom he became and what he represented.
Our Church Council in October asked itself some searching questions about the nature of our fellowship. How can we become the things that we want and believed ourselves to be called to be in Weybridge? The debate is not closed, perhaps it has only just opened. Please take part.
Peter Howson.
October 2014
Dear Friends
During September I have been a little less visible in Weybridge than I had hoped. This was because before I accepted a third year in the Circuit I had already arranged to take part in two conferences, one in Paris and the other in Oxford. The former, the international meeting of the Council for Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament was hosted by the French Catholic Bishops. We were accommodated at the convent of the sisters of Sacré Coeur, adjacent to the church of the same name that overlooks the city. Although discussing the contemporary world with issues of the Ukraine, Syria and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to the fore, we were also conscious that we assembled in Paris a hundred years to the day from the battle of the Marne. That was for many the decisive battle of World War One. Now former enemies were talking together.
The Oxford conference again brought together participants from a number of countries to discuss how culture and theology were involved in the opening months of world war one.
The events of a hundred years ago are in the minds of many. For everyone there is the recognition that they had an impact on lives that is still being felt. Christianity is an historical faith. It centres on events that we believe took place in human history. Jesus walked this earth. Jesus died on the cross. Jesus rose again. There are no living witnesses to the events of 1914 but we take certain things on trust. We also discussed their meaning at great length! It is no surprise then that the same applies to the life of Jesus. Preaching from St Matthew’s Gospel this summer I have been reminded of the way that Jesus used the familiar things of his hearer’s life to illustrate the divine nature of God’s life. He wanted them to understand the nature of God’s kingdom and what his rule was for their lives. We still endeavour to make the same connections and to celebrate them where we discover them.
As we do these things we become part of the history! We proclaim what we have discovered. We share it will others because our faith in Jesus is at the centre of our lives.
Many Blessings
Peter Howson
During September I have been a little less visible in Weybridge than I had hoped. This was because before I accepted a third year in the Circuit I had already arranged to take part in two conferences, one in Paris and the other in Oxford. The former, the international meeting of the Council for Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament was hosted by the French Catholic Bishops. We were accommodated at the convent of the sisters of Sacré Coeur, adjacent to the church of the same name that overlooks the city. Although discussing the contemporary world with issues of the Ukraine, Syria and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to the fore, we were also conscious that we assembled in Paris a hundred years to the day from the battle of the Marne. That was for many the decisive battle of World War One. Now former enemies were talking together.
The Oxford conference again brought together participants from a number of countries to discuss how culture and theology were involved in the opening months of world war one.
The events of a hundred years ago are in the minds of many. For everyone there is the recognition that they had an impact on lives that is still being felt. Christianity is an historical faith. It centres on events that we believe took place in human history. Jesus walked this earth. Jesus died on the cross. Jesus rose again. There are no living witnesses to the events of 1914 but we take certain things on trust. We also discussed their meaning at great length! It is no surprise then that the same applies to the life of Jesus. Preaching from St Matthew’s Gospel this summer I have been reminded of the way that Jesus used the familiar things of his hearer’s life to illustrate the divine nature of God’s life. He wanted them to understand the nature of God’s kingdom and what his rule was for their lives. We still endeavour to make the same connections and to celebrate them where we discover them.
As we do these things we become part of the history! We proclaim what we have discovered. We share it will others because our faith in Jesus is at the centre of our lives.
Many Blessings
Peter Howson
September 2014
Dear Friends
Once again 1st September marks the start of a new Methodist year. It also sees the start of my third year as your minister, a bonus over the two that had originally been planned. The Circuit Leadership Team has made it clear that the Circuit will reduce to three Presbyters from the end of the Connexional year in August 2015, so this will be my final year at Weybridge. There will be new minister in pastoral charge from next September.
I have started to distribute the annual tickets of membership. These remain for many a precious symbol of their Christian declaration of faith, and a sign that they worship within the context of a Methodist congregation. It was my privilege last Sunday to preach on St Matthew Chapter 16 verses 13 to 20, and to be reminded of Peter’s response to the question by Jesus, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ with the words, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.’ I remember answering that same question for myself and being received into membership as a result of so doing. It remains a sadness for me that over the past twelve months we have not received anyone into membership of the Church by profession of faith.
At the same time we have welcomed a number of different people who have come to worship. The service on 24th August also saw additions to our ‘Wall of Welcome’ in the corridor. We now have it in Korean. I am delighted that the fact that it was missing had been spotted and the request had been made to add it to the others. We welcome the new hand print. We also welcome those who have updated their previous (very) young handprints. Are there other welcomes that we should add?
The Reverend Martyn Atkins, the General Secretary of the Methodist Church was interviewed last Sunday about the steep decline in Methodist numbers across the country. He rightly saw it as a challenge. But has the decline gone too far to be arrested? In a way the same questions are posed for us as the Methodist Church in Weybridge. What can we do? What should we be doing? How can you be involved? I would be interested to learn what you think.
Many Blessings
Peter Howson
Once again 1st September marks the start of a new Methodist year. It also sees the start of my third year as your minister, a bonus over the two that had originally been planned. The Circuit Leadership Team has made it clear that the Circuit will reduce to three Presbyters from the end of the Connexional year in August 2015, so this will be my final year at Weybridge. There will be new minister in pastoral charge from next September.
I have started to distribute the annual tickets of membership. These remain for many a precious symbol of their Christian declaration of faith, and a sign that they worship within the context of a Methodist congregation. It was my privilege last Sunday to preach on St Matthew Chapter 16 verses 13 to 20, and to be reminded of Peter’s response to the question by Jesus, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ with the words, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.’ I remember answering that same question for myself and being received into membership as a result of so doing. It remains a sadness for me that over the past twelve months we have not received anyone into membership of the Church by profession of faith.
At the same time we have welcomed a number of different people who have come to worship. The service on 24th August also saw additions to our ‘Wall of Welcome’ in the corridor. We now have it in Korean. I am delighted that the fact that it was missing had been spotted and the request had been made to add it to the others. We welcome the new hand print. We also welcome those who have updated their previous (very) young handprints. Are there other welcomes that we should add?
The Reverend Martyn Atkins, the General Secretary of the Methodist Church was interviewed last Sunday about the steep decline in Methodist numbers across the country. He rightly saw it as a challenge. But has the decline gone too far to be arrested? In a way the same questions are posed for us as the Methodist Church in Weybridge. What can we do? What should we be doing? How can you be involved? I would be interested to learn what you think.
Many Blessings
Peter Howson
August 2014
Dear Friends
Weybridge Methodist Church would appear to come under the heading of the ‘Thankful Churches.’ These are that very small group of congregations that existed prior to the First World War and who do not have a war memorial remembering those associated with them who had died during the conflict. It is possible that there was such a memorial and that it has disappeared at some point, there are names of men from Weybridge who did die during that war. Each year the service of remembrance takes place at the memorial in the middle of the road junction by the cricket pitch.
This lack of names may mean that we can take a different approach from churches which have names to focus their ‘remembering.’ A German Professor at a British university was recently asked how Germans would handle the centenary of 1914. He could not provide a detailed answer but was moved to say that he believed that the British attitude to the ‘War to end all Wars,’ could be summed up in one word, ‘Futility.’
The spotlight has been turned by many on the churches and what they did in 1914. Many are now ‘functionally pacifist’ in British churches, believing that no war could ever be worth the lives that will be lost in the fighting. It is to the credit that some members of British Christian groups maintained that stance throughout World War One. This included becoming Conscientious Objectors when conscription was introduced in 1916. There might have been such men among the Methodists in Weybridge. Such a stance precludes fighting, even when it is believed to be on the side of putting right a perceived wrong. For many in Britain in August 1914 the invasion of Belgium in pursuit of German military plans to defeat France was a challenge to the world order that could not be ignored.
We still face challenges to world peace. Amongst our prayers this month may there be ones for the people who try to bring peace into our sometimes troubled world. May there also be prayers for those who try to create peace when fighting has broken out.
Many Blessings
Peter Howson
Weybridge Methodist Church would appear to come under the heading of the ‘Thankful Churches.’ These are that very small group of congregations that existed prior to the First World War and who do not have a war memorial remembering those associated with them who had died during the conflict. It is possible that there was such a memorial and that it has disappeared at some point, there are names of men from Weybridge who did die during that war. Each year the service of remembrance takes place at the memorial in the middle of the road junction by the cricket pitch.
This lack of names may mean that we can take a different approach from churches which have names to focus their ‘remembering.’ A German Professor at a British university was recently asked how Germans would handle the centenary of 1914. He could not provide a detailed answer but was moved to say that he believed that the British attitude to the ‘War to end all Wars,’ could be summed up in one word, ‘Futility.’
The spotlight has been turned by many on the churches and what they did in 1914. Many are now ‘functionally pacifist’ in British churches, believing that no war could ever be worth the lives that will be lost in the fighting. It is to the credit that some members of British Christian groups maintained that stance throughout World War One. This included becoming Conscientious Objectors when conscription was introduced in 1916. There might have been such men among the Methodists in Weybridge. Such a stance precludes fighting, even when it is believed to be on the side of putting right a perceived wrong. For many in Britain in August 1914 the invasion of Belgium in pursuit of German military plans to defeat France was a challenge to the world order that could not be ignored.
We still face challenges to world peace. Amongst our prayers this month may there be ones for the people who try to bring peace into our sometimes troubled world. May there also be prayers for those who try to create peace when fighting has broken out.
Many Blessings
Peter Howson
July 2014
Dear Friends
We have a new sign. I wrote that a year ago in July 2013. Has it made any difference? Have you even seen it? Much else has happened in this last twelve months. Among them was the decision to look at the vision for our church.
When Peter stood up with the other Apostles at the first Pentecost (Acts Chapter 2) he quoted from the Prophet Joel. One part stands out:
‘Your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men will dream dreams.’
(Acts 2 verse 17(b) quoting Joel 2 verse 28)
I am wondering whether I have moved into the ‘old men’ category yet. They were the ones who dreamt of what Israel had been like. But they did it not to simply remember how things were and complain that they were no longer the same. They dreamt so that their experience could be used alongside the visions of the younger ones.
At Weybridge we need both dreams and visions. I have already shared with you some of my vision for the future. We are in the fortunate situation to be able to do some simple things that will help create a vision of a welcoming Christian community. The Church Council, which is in effect the whole membership together with anyone else who wants to come to meetings, are looking at how a vision can be made a reality. One of the areas that needs refreshment is the sanctuary. What do we want from it, and how might we achieve it. What will it cost? These are all important considerations. A dream or a vision suggests that we cannot stay as we are. We need to do something.
Can we open the worship area during the day and encourage those who use our building to see it as a house of prayer? Or is it so special that it is reserved for the use of the faithful only on Sunday morning and occasionally at other times? How can we tell the story of the Methodists in Weybridge so that everyone gets to read it and understand what we have done, are doing, and want to do?
I hope that the discussion about what it means to be the people of God in our small corner of Weybridge will continue and grow.
Peter Howson
We have a new sign. I wrote that a year ago in July 2013. Has it made any difference? Have you even seen it? Much else has happened in this last twelve months. Among them was the decision to look at the vision for our church.
When Peter stood up with the other Apostles at the first Pentecost (Acts Chapter 2) he quoted from the Prophet Joel. One part stands out:
‘Your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men will dream dreams.’
(Acts 2 verse 17(b) quoting Joel 2 verse 28)
I am wondering whether I have moved into the ‘old men’ category yet. They were the ones who dreamt of what Israel had been like. But they did it not to simply remember how things were and complain that they were no longer the same. They dreamt so that their experience could be used alongside the visions of the younger ones.
At Weybridge we need both dreams and visions. I have already shared with you some of my vision for the future. We are in the fortunate situation to be able to do some simple things that will help create a vision of a welcoming Christian community. The Church Council, which is in effect the whole membership together with anyone else who wants to come to meetings, are looking at how a vision can be made a reality. One of the areas that needs refreshment is the sanctuary. What do we want from it, and how might we achieve it. What will it cost? These are all important considerations. A dream or a vision suggests that we cannot stay as we are. We need to do something.
Can we open the worship area during the day and encourage those who use our building to see it as a house of prayer? Or is it so special that it is reserved for the use of the faithful only on Sunday morning and occasionally at other times? How can we tell the story of the Methodists in Weybridge so that everyone gets to read it and understand what we have done, are doing, and want to do?
I hope that the discussion about what it means to be the people of God in our small corner of Weybridge will continue and grow.
Peter Howson
June 2014
Dear Friends
When I wrote my contribution to the May newsletter I had not anticipated that I would revisit the story of Peter and Jesus after the Resurrection again this month. I am doing so because a couple of weeks ago I was standing on the site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee that has been traditionally associated with the event.
Many of you will know that we have been away on holiday. Some of you will have been aware that this included a ten day cruise around the eastern Mediterranean. The ship was docked in Haifa for three days. Jane and I joined a small party that spent a day visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem and then a second day in the Nazareth – Galilee area. We were blessed with a sensitive Israeli guide who made things come alive for the fifteen of us who were on that tour.
Amongst the places visited was the Church of the Primacy of Peter, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, just south of the site of Capernaum. The modern, Roman Catholic, Church is built over a rock formation known as the ‘mensa Christi,’ or ‘Christ’s table.’ This was the supposed site where Jesus was preparing breakfast whilst the disciples were fishing and catching nothing. The guide pointed out that from the water with the morning sun behind the fishermen it would have been difficult to make out clearly someone on the shore. This is a moment of resurrection faith for Peter. It was made even greater by the circumstances of his last meeting with Jesus when Peter had denied knowing his teacher. As I commented last month the meeting centred around the nature of love and how that was to be worked out in discipleship.
This remains true today. There is an urgent need in our church for people to take on the responsibility of being a steward. We need a team of people available each Sunday to ensure that the worship is organised. We need a couple of people who will take responsibility for the various services of Holy Communion during the year. There are other roles to be filled but those are the most urgent. Please examine whether you are able to help in this way.
In the coming months I hope to share more of the insights from this special visit to the Holy Land.
Peter Howson
When I wrote my contribution to the May newsletter I had not anticipated that I would revisit the story of Peter and Jesus after the Resurrection again this month. I am doing so because a couple of weeks ago I was standing on the site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee that has been traditionally associated with the event.
Many of you will know that we have been away on holiday. Some of you will have been aware that this included a ten day cruise around the eastern Mediterranean. The ship was docked in Haifa for three days. Jane and I joined a small party that spent a day visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem and then a second day in the Nazareth – Galilee area. We were blessed with a sensitive Israeli guide who made things come alive for the fifteen of us who were on that tour.
Amongst the places visited was the Church of the Primacy of Peter, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, just south of the site of Capernaum. The modern, Roman Catholic, Church is built over a rock formation known as the ‘mensa Christi,’ or ‘Christ’s table.’ This was the supposed site where Jesus was preparing breakfast whilst the disciples were fishing and catching nothing. The guide pointed out that from the water with the morning sun behind the fishermen it would have been difficult to make out clearly someone on the shore. This is a moment of resurrection faith for Peter. It was made even greater by the circumstances of his last meeting with Jesus when Peter had denied knowing his teacher. As I commented last month the meeting centred around the nature of love and how that was to be worked out in discipleship.
This remains true today. There is an urgent need in our church for people to take on the responsibility of being a steward. We need a team of people available each Sunday to ensure that the worship is organised. We need a couple of people who will take responsibility for the various services of Holy Communion during the year. There are other roles to be filled but those are the most urgent. Please examine whether you are able to help in this way.
In the coming months I hope to share more of the insights from this special visit to the Holy Land.
Peter Howson
May 2014
Dear Friends
Easter changes lives. It would be good to learn of the ways in which it has changed your life.
John’s Gospel records one person who was changed by meeting the risen Jesus. Peter had been a close friend of Jesus. When, after the arrest of Jesus, he was challenged over that friendship, he denied three times that it existed. The turmoil that he felt was summed up the way in which the narrator of the account ended it by stating that Peter cried.
One can imagine the unease with which Peter encountered the risen Jesus on the lakeshore back in Galilee. It was close to the site of their first meeting. Jesus asks Peter whether he ‘loves’ him. The translations that we use indicate that Peter replied that he did ‘love’ Jesus. The difficulty is that ‘love’ in this conversation translates two different words. Jesus was depicted as using ‘agape’ a word that has a unique Christian connotation. Peter by contrast is recorded as using ‘philo’ a word resonant with ideas of ‘brotherly love.’ Special but not that special. The third time Jesus asks Peter the question he too uses ‘philo.’
Each exchange is followed by Jesus giving a task to Peter. To feed lambs, is a simple enough task because the ewes do the real work. To feed the sheep;again relatively simple because if there is pasture the sheep know what to do. But then he is asked to tend the flock; this will require his full attention. Peter’s forgiveness of himself will lie in the way in which he is able to accept the task that Jesus has given to him.
We meet the risen Jesus through the Spirit that he promised and which was essentially a relationship with not only him but also God whom he called, ‘Father.’ Whatever we have thought about Jesus before, there comes a time when he meets us anew, when we acknowledge him as risen. And then he has a something to say to us, perhaps a question, maybe an instruction, or possibly both. He certainly did for me.
Peter Howson
Easter changes lives. It would be good to learn of the ways in which it has changed your life.
John’s Gospel records one person who was changed by meeting the risen Jesus. Peter had been a close friend of Jesus. When, after the arrest of Jesus, he was challenged over that friendship, he denied three times that it existed. The turmoil that he felt was summed up the way in which the narrator of the account ended it by stating that Peter cried.
One can imagine the unease with which Peter encountered the risen Jesus on the lakeshore back in Galilee. It was close to the site of their first meeting. Jesus asks Peter whether he ‘loves’ him. The translations that we use indicate that Peter replied that he did ‘love’ Jesus. The difficulty is that ‘love’ in this conversation translates two different words. Jesus was depicted as using ‘agape’ a word that has a unique Christian connotation. Peter by contrast is recorded as using ‘philo’ a word resonant with ideas of ‘brotherly love.’ Special but not that special. The third time Jesus asks Peter the question he too uses ‘philo.’
Each exchange is followed by Jesus giving a task to Peter. To feed lambs, is a simple enough task because the ewes do the real work. To feed the sheep;again relatively simple because if there is pasture the sheep know what to do. But then he is asked to tend the flock; this will require his full attention. Peter’s forgiveness of himself will lie in the way in which he is able to accept the task that Jesus has given to him.
We meet the risen Jesus through the Spirit that he promised and which was essentially a relationship with not only him but also God whom he called, ‘Father.’ Whatever we have thought about Jesus before, there comes a time when he meets us anew, when we acknowledge him as risen. And then he has a something to say to us, perhaps a question, maybe an instruction, or possibly both. He certainly did for me.
Peter Howson
April 2014
Some of you will have seen the photo of the ‘clean-up’ day at Church that has been posted on the church website and was in the last newsletter. Nothing much appears to be happening. A group of people are standing around looking at the camera. In front of them though is a very full skip. What the picture does not convey is the considerable amount of hard work that had taken place that Saturday morning, and in the days preceding it. Might I say a big ‘Thank You,’ to everyone who helped. The halls and vestry look a lot clearer. My role was to look through the collections of books and papers and decide what to do with them. Many of the old records, some going back to the beginning of the church, have now been deposited with the Surrey History Centre for safe keeping. They will remain available to us for consultation. Some books were made available to others and most of the remainder were recycled. We are left with some Bibles. My intention is that these be interred in a quiet part of the garden as we give thanks for the way in which they have been of use to countless people in Weybridge over the years.
The picture is also a parable for this period of the year. Lent is a time of clearing up, an opportunity to reflect on what clutters our lives and keeps us from hearing God’s Word. That decluttering is, for many, best done, as part of a group. I am glad that so many have been able to take part again in the Lent Groups organised by Churches Together in Weybridge. I think if we took another photograph on Easter Sunday morning it might not show any outward difference but on the inside things would not be the same as they were. Hopefully there would be a radiance on the faces that had declared to the world that, ‘The Lord is Risen!’
The new tradition of ‘café church’ on occasional Sunday evenings allows a service that reflects on the Passion of the Lord in a way that the Sunday morning services do not. This year we are having a dramatic reading of the Passion as told by St Matthew on the evening of Palm Sunday (13th April at 6.30 pm.) We have invited friends from Byfleet Methodist Church to join with us. An invitation has also been extended to others in Weybridge. Please make the opportunity to hear the account of the passion of our Lord that the news of his resurrection might have an extra resonance this year,
Whatever happens I hope that you will have a blessed Easter
Peter Howson
The picture is also a parable for this period of the year. Lent is a time of clearing up, an opportunity to reflect on what clutters our lives and keeps us from hearing God’s Word. That decluttering is, for many, best done, as part of a group. I am glad that so many have been able to take part again in the Lent Groups organised by Churches Together in Weybridge. I think if we took another photograph on Easter Sunday morning it might not show any outward difference but on the inside things would not be the same as they were. Hopefully there would be a radiance on the faces that had declared to the world that, ‘The Lord is Risen!’
The new tradition of ‘café church’ on occasional Sunday evenings allows a service that reflects on the Passion of the Lord in a way that the Sunday morning services do not. This year we are having a dramatic reading of the Passion as told by St Matthew on the evening of Palm Sunday (13th April at 6.30 pm.) We have invited friends from Byfleet Methodist Church to join with us. An invitation has also been extended to others in Weybridge. Please make the opportunity to hear the account of the passion of our Lord that the news of his resurrection might have an extra resonance this year,
Whatever happens I hope that you will have a blessed Easter
Peter Howson
March 2014
Dear Friends
This year Lent begins on Wednesday 5th March. Last year I suggested that an appropriate discipline for this period before Easter was not ‘giving up’ something but ‘taking on’ something new. It is a time for reviewing one’s life and the priorities that are foremost in it. As a result some habit that has taken hold might well be examined to see what effects it has been having. Would a period without doing something, using something, imbibing something, eating something, be of value? Is everything that we do to the glory of God? I promise to give up playing games on my computer this Lent. What is more I promise that I will donate £1 to the church each time I give in to that particular temptation.
But what about taking something on? I was impressed last year by the number of people who took part in the ecumenical Lent groups organised through Churches Together in Weybridge. If you are looking for something to take on this might be an option. There is also our own Barnabas group that you could join, and which takes place throughout the year. Maybe there will be enough for us to form a second group, possibly a ‘Silas Group’?
May I say thank you to all those who have been enfolding us and our family in prayer. As I write, the news about Annabel remains grave. It is likely that she will have to remain in hospital, and in Intensive Care, for many weeks and possibly months.
I am also grateful to all those who have taken to heart our idea of rejuvenation within the life of our Church. We shall face a number of challenges in the coming months as we say farewell to those who have contributed significantly to the life of our Church. There are tasks that need to be done. Could part of your Lenten discipline this year be thinking about how you might help us to continue to develop and rejuvenate our ministry?
Peter Howson.
This year Lent begins on Wednesday 5th March. Last year I suggested that an appropriate discipline for this period before Easter was not ‘giving up’ something but ‘taking on’ something new. It is a time for reviewing one’s life and the priorities that are foremost in it. As a result some habit that has taken hold might well be examined to see what effects it has been having. Would a period without doing something, using something, imbibing something, eating something, be of value? Is everything that we do to the glory of God? I promise to give up playing games on my computer this Lent. What is more I promise that I will donate £1 to the church each time I give in to that particular temptation.
But what about taking something on? I was impressed last year by the number of people who took part in the ecumenical Lent groups organised through Churches Together in Weybridge. If you are looking for something to take on this might be an option. There is also our own Barnabas group that you could join, and which takes place throughout the year. Maybe there will be enough for us to form a second group, possibly a ‘Silas Group’?
May I say thank you to all those who have been enfolding us and our family in prayer. As I write, the news about Annabel remains grave. It is likely that she will have to remain in hospital, and in Intensive Care, for many weeks and possibly months.
I am also grateful to all those who have taken to heart our idea of rejuvenation within the life of our Church. We shall face a number of challenges in the coming months as we say farewell to those who have contributed significantly to the life of our Church. There are tasks that need to be done. Could part of your Lenten discipline this year be thinking about how you might help us to continue to develop and rejuvenate our ministry?
Peter Howson.
February 2014
At the end of January, Weybridge Methodist Church was the church in the Woking and Walton-on-Thames Circuit that was asked to do a presentation about itself at the Circuit Meeting. I thought that after almost eighteen months at the Church it was a good moment for me to provide a snapshot of where I saw us at that moment. It seems a good opportunity to share that with you.
The word that came out of the meeting we held at the end of November was ‘Rejuvenation.’ This applied to a number of areas of the life of the Church. I believe that there is a sense of new life within our community. The attendance on Christmas Morning was then a sign that people are aware of our existence. It would be wonderful to transform that single experience into the norm for our Sunday services. It can happen if we believe that the worship that we offer and the welcome that we give are such that we can invite others to come and be part of it. It would be wonderful to welcome back old friends and to welcome new ones.
A number of specific ideas came out of the meeting. I would like to believe that there are more, so please keep telling me what your vision is for the Church. Let us know too, what you can do to bring the wider vision to come to reality.
I rejoice in the fellowship of the Barnabas Group and the way that it maintains its witness of prayer and study. I would like to explore other groups, perhaps meeting during the day. What about a ‘Silas Group?’ There will be Lent study groups among the Churches Together in Weybridge congregations and this might be a good way to start.
Our finances are in a reasonable state, thanks to the hard work of all those associated with the various property and finance aspects of our common life. Further work on the boiler system is planned for mid-February. Hopefully that will mean a reliable system for the future. It also means that we can turn our attention to the rejuvenation of other areas of the building such as the sanctuary and the kitchen. We have a lovely church building but can we make it even lovelier?
We told the Circuit about our vision at a time when it is also undertaking a process of thinking about the future. I believe that this is a special moment when we can move forward as God’s people in Weybridge sharing our task with other Christians in the town and with our fellow Methodists in the Circuit.
Peter Howson
The word that came out of the meeting we held at the end of November was ‘Rejuvenation.’ This applied to a number of areas of the life of the Church. I believe that there is a sense of new life within our community. The attendance on Christmas Morning was then a sign that people are aware of our existence. It would be wonderful to transform that single experience into the norm for our Sunday services. It can happen if we believe that the worship that we offer and the welcome that we give are such that we can invite others to come and be part of it. It would be wonderful to welcome back old friends and to welcome new ones.
A number of specific ideas came out of the meeting. I would like to believe that there are more, so please keep telling me what your vision is for the Church. Let us know too, what you can do to bring the wider vision to come to reality.
I rejoice in the fellowship of the Barnabas Group and the way that it maintains its witness of prayer and study. I would like to explore other groups, perhaps meeting during the day. What about a ‘Silas Group?’ There will be Lent study groups among the Churches Together in Weybridge congregations and this might be a good way to start.
Our finances are in a reasonable state, thanks to the hard work of all those associated with the various property and finance aspects of our common life. Further work on the boiler system is planned for mid-February. Hopefully that will mean a reliable system for the future. It also means that we can turn our attention to the rejuvenation of other areas of the building such as the sanctuary and the kitchen. We have a lovely church building but can we make it even lovelier?
We told the Circuit about our vision at a time when it is also undertaking a process of thinking about the future. I believe that this is a special moment when we can move forward as God’s people in Weybridge sharing our task with other Christians in the town and with our fellow Methodists in the Circuit.
Peter Howson
January 2014
The New Year in the Methodist Church traditionally begins with the annual Covenant Service. Set within a Service of Holy Communion it offers the opportunity to hear again, at the start of a new year, what God promises us in Jesus and for us to either respond to that or to remind ourselves of the response that we have made. It offers those who have lost touch with their faith a chance to hear anew the offer of God’s love and to accept it. The specialness of the service lies not in the promise, for that is offered at all times and hopefully in every service at Weybridge Methodist church, but in the form in which it is set – a Covenant. This is a solemn contract. As such it is similar to the contract made in marriage, or since in our society that seems to have become less important than previously, to the contract made when a property is bought. As such it requires thought before entering into it, incurs a commitment to meeting the cost of it, and incurs a penalty if the conditions are not met, but most of all brings a benefit. We covenant with God because he has covenanted with us through the offer made in the gift of Jesus his Son.
The Covenant Service at Weybridge will be held on Sunday 12th June during the 10.30 am morning service. If you are unfamiliar with the words, unsure of them, or just wish to refresh your memory, ask to borrow a copy of the service to read through before you come. The first part of the service includes self-examination so everyone attending is asked to think about what they bring to the service.
As a church community we are bringing a sense of renewal and rejuvenation. These were themes that came from the vision meeting held at the end of November. Two ideas came to the front. One was to set up a regular crèche on Sunday mornings so that we can offer those with young families a meaningful welcome. Associated with that was the thought that we should explore how to do this so it remains a part of the worshipping congregation. This resulted in the meeting having a wider discussion of how we use the worship area of the building. It needs refreshment. There are also various property matters that need attention. We could usefully refurbish the kitchen. All these things take money and the Church Council will need to think whether it is willing to covenant with others to make this possible. We can do great things if we believe in the worth of what God covenants to do for us.
May you all have a peaceful and blessed new year.
Peter Howson
The Covenant Service at Weybridge will be held on Sunday 12th June during the 10.30 am morning service. If you are unfamiliar with the words, unsure of them, or just wish to refresh your memory, ask to borrow a copy of the service to read through before you come. The first part of the service includes self-examination so everyone attending is asked to think about what they bring to the service.
As a church community we are bringing a sense of renewal and rejuvenation. These were themes that came from the vision meeting held at the end of November. Two ideas came to the front. One was to set up a regular crèche on Sunday mornings so that we can offer those with young families a meaningful welcome. Associated with that was the thought that we should explore how to do this so it remains a part of the worshipping congregation. This resulted in the meeting having a wider discussion of how we use the worship area of the building. It needs refreshment. There are also various property matters that need attention. We could usefully refurbish the kitchen. All these things take money and the Church Council will need to think whether it is willing to covenant with others to make this possible. We can do great things if we believe in the worth of what God covenants to do for us.
May you all have a peaceful and blessed new year.
Peter Howson
December 2013
Dear Friends
You may receive a card this Christmas that says your present is a chicken (or a goat, or a well) given to an economically developing community in another part of the world through an aid charity. Responses to such cards differ greatly. For some it is a wonderful thought. It is exactly what they want, the opportunity for others to have new life. Some though do not see it as a gift to them and interpret the card in another way. They find it difficult to understand how they can see a gift to them in something bought for someone else. They do not deny the efficacy of the donation, or of the right of the donor to make it, but since they were not involved in the transaction they wonder whether the giver has any interest in them at all.
I have to admit to falling into the second category. At Christmas we celebrate the giving of the greatest of all gifts, the grace of God in Jesus his Son, born in Bethlehem. I am very glad that he did not send a prophet to earth to declare that he had thought about giving human beings a gift but had decided that they would understand that the need was greater elsewhere and so they should make do with his good wishes.
But maybe that is how many people view the Christmas story. Their understanding of the carols and Bible readings is that they are merely the notes of a gift to someone else. Our opportunity this Christmas is to share the good news that we are celebrating the love of the creator personified in Jesus. We are celebrating because we know that this is a gift to each one of us. We are celebrating because we cannot conceive of a world without this gift of love. We are celebrating because this gift of love gives us the energy to love others as ourselves and also to love God.
Please invite your family and friends to come and celebrate the birth of Jesus and to experience the love that came into the world at that point in history.
May you all have a blessed and joyful Christmas.
Peter Howson
You may receive a card this Christmas that says your present is a chicken (or a goat, or a well) given to an economically developing community in another part of the world through an aid charity. Responses to such cards differ greatly. For some it is a wonderful thought. It is exactly what they want, the opportunity for others to have new life. Some though do not see it as a gift to them and interpret the card in another way. They find it difficult to understand how they can see a gift to them in something bought for someone else. They do not deny the efficacy of the donation, or of the right of the donor to make it, but since they were not involved in the transaction they wonder whether the giver has any interest in them at all.
I have to admit to falling into the second category. At Christmas we celebrate the giving of the greatest of all gifts, the grace of God in Jesus his Son, born in Bethlehem. I am very glad that he did not send a prophet to earth to declare that he had thought about giving human beings a gift but had decided that they would understand that the need was greater elsewhere and so they should make do with his good wishes.
But maybe that is how many people view the Christmas story. Their understanding of the carols and Bible readings is that they are merely the notes of a gift to someone else. Our opportunity this Christmas is to share the good news that we are celebrating the love of the creator personified in Jesus. We are celebrating because we know that this is a gift to each one of us. We are celebrating because we cannot conceive of a world without this gift of love. We are celebrating because this gift of love gives us the energy to love others as ourselves and also to love God.
Please invite your family and friends to come and celebrate the birth of Jesus and to experience the love that came into the world at that point in history.
May you all have a blessed and joyful Christmas.
Peter Howson
November 2013
A Time for Remembering.
The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Day
The Eleventh Month
At this time of the year we remember those who have died in the many wars and conflicts of the 20th & 21st centuries. Below is an account of the first two-minute silence commemorating the end of the First World War in 1918.
The First Two Minute silence in London (11th November 1919) as reported in the Manchester Guardian, 12th November 1919.
“The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into silence, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do so of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of ‘attention’. An elderly woman not far away wiped her eyes and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still. The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain and the spirit of memory brooded over it all”
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon
Rev Dr Peter Howson is away
The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Day
The Eleventh Month
At this time of the year we remember those who have died in the many wars and conflicts of the 20th & 21st centuries. Below is an account of the first two-minute silence commemorating the end of the First World War in 1918.
The First Two Minute silence in London (11th November 1919) as reported in the Manchester Guardian, 12th November 1919.
“The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into silence, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do so of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of ‘attention’. An elderly woman not far away wiped her eyes and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still. The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain and the spirit of memory brooded over it all”
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon
Rev Dr Peter Howson is away
October 2013
Dear Friends
The Harvest lunch was a great success. I want to thank all those who contributed to preparing and serving it. Tables were set for 22 and exactly that number arrived. Good planning! With Samuel having just celebrated his first birthday we covered all the generations. It was heartening that four of those at the meal had not been attending the church at the time of our last Harvest meal. The feast was notable for me in another way in that for the first time in many years the manse was able to make a direct contribution both to the gifts going to the Thames Homeless Project and to the meal. The apple tree in our garden, along with many others, has produced a bumper crop this year. If you missed Jane’s apple crumble then you missed a treat. None of it was left over and we have now used up nearly all the apples. Jane has also acquired a wonderful new gadget for peeling and coring apples.
The joy of having a new gadget illustrates how easy it is to talk with friends about how time-saving some discoveries can be. By extension it also illustrates how difficult we find speaking to our family and friends about something that is life-saving. The stories in Luke Chapter 15 all have about them an air of celebration, a man who has lost a sheep, a woman who has lost a precious coin, a father who has been rejected by his son In a most public fashion, all are reunited with the things that are important to them and celebrate the fact. And they do so with friends and neighbours. It was an appropriate reading for Harvest Sunday in that it reminded us of the wonderful gift we have been given in Jesus.
The Circuit is beginning a process of seeking a strategy for the future. If it cannot do everything that it does at present what should it be doing? That poses the question as to what we believe is the role of Weybridge Methodist Church. For what has God raised us up in this time and generation? There is a picture in the vestry of the original vision of the building. Thank God it was never built. But what are we about is this generation? And what help do we need to achieve that vision. The Circuit will be seeking answers and we need to be able to contribute to that debate.
With every blessing
Peter Howson.
The Harvest lunch was a great success. I want to thank all those who contributed to preparing and serving it. Tables were set for 22 and exactly that number arrived. Good planning! With Samuel having just celebrated his first birthday we covered all the generations. It was heartening that four of those at the meal had not been attending the church at the time of our last Harvest meal. The feast was notable for me in another way in that for the first time in many years the manse was able to make a direct contribution both to the gifts going to the Thames Homeless Project and to the meal. The apple tree in our garden, along with many others, has produced a bumper crop this year. If you missed Jane’s apple crumble then you missed a treat. None of it was left over and we have now used up nearly all the apples. Jane has also acquired a wonderful new gadget for peeling and coring apples.
The joy of having a new gadget illustrates how easy it is to talk with friends about how time-saving some discoveries can be. By extension it also illustrates how difficult we find speaking to our family and friends about something that is life-saving. The stories in Luke Chapter 15 all have about them an air of celebration, a man who has lost a sheep, a woman who has lost a precious coin, a father who has been rejected by his son In a most public fashion, all are reunited with the things that are important to them and celebrate the fact. And they do so with friends and neighbours. It was an appropriate reading for Harvest Sunday in that it reminded us of the wonderful gift we have been given in Jesus.
The Circuit is beginning a process of seeking a strategy for the future. If it cannot do everything that it does at present what should it be doing? That poses the question as to what we believe is the role of Weybridge Methodist Church. For what has God raised us up in this time and generation? There is a picture in the vestry of the original vision of the building. Thank God it was never built. But what are we about is this generation? And what help do we need to achieve that vision. The Circuit will be seeking answers and we need to be able to contribute to that debate.
With every blessing
Peter Howson.
September 2013
Dear Friends
The Methodist year begins on 1st September. At that point I will have been your Minister for a year. It is halfway through the original contract, an amazing thought. The Circuit is considering whether to ask me to continue for a further year. After discussing this with Jane we are in agreement that if a formal invitation is forthcoming then we would be happy to accept it. This has been a challenging year for us.
Over that time it has been my privilege to be the Minister at Weybridge Methodist Church and to provide leadership. One of the things about the church which has impressed me has been the number of different people who have come to the church over the last twelve months. At almost all the services which I have conducted there has been at least one new face. Some have been visitors and some have been searching for a church and tried us as part of that journey. Some have become integral to the life of our community. I hope that this will continue.
During the autumn the Circuit Leadership Team will be considering what the Circuit Policy should be for the future. The previous policy called, ‘20/20 Vision’ was published in February 2006. It drew on consultations that had looked at the various churches as they were then. The entry for Weybridge makes interesting reading. It described a church with about 16 members, down from 35 in 1990. It also commented that, ‘Many South Africans and Americans pass through the doors.’ Amongst the issues to consider were, ‘Possibly renewing the link with Walton,’ and, ‘how to tap into potential demographics and need of women ministry and young/’yuppie’ local residents.’ Interestingly there was no comment about relationships with other local churches. What would we say now? Please let me hear your views of both where you think the church could be in ten years, and equally importantly, how it might achieve such a goal. What might we expect from the Circuit over that period? The 2006 document also spoke of renewing the pastoral link with Walton as making more sense than a linkage with Byfleet. What do you think about that?
The annual membership tickets will be distributed during September. If you are not in membership do please speak to me about this sign of belonging.
Peter Howson.
The Methodist year begins on 1st September. At that point I will have been your Minister for a year. It is halfway through the original contract, an amazing thought. The Circuit is considering whether to ask me to continue for a further year. After discussing this with Jane we are in agreement that if a formal invitation is forthcoming then we would be happy to accept it. This has been a challenging year for us.
Over that time it has been my privilege to be the Minister at Weybridge Methodist Church and to provide leadership. One of the things about the church which has impressed me has been the number of different people who have come to the church over the last twelve months. At almost all the services which I have conducted there has been at least one new face. Some have been visitors and some have been searching for a church and tried us as part of that journey. Some have become integral to the life of our community. I hope that this will continue.
During the autumn the Circuit Leadership Team will be considering what the Circuit Policy should be for the future. The previous policy called, ‘20/20 Vision’ was published in February 2006. It drew on consultations that had looked at the various churches as they were then. The entry for Weybridge makes interesting reading. It described a church with about 16 members, down from 35 in 1990. It also commented that, ‘Many South Africans and Americans pass through the doors.’ Amongst the issues to consider were, ‘Possibly renewing the link with Walton,’ and, ‘how to tap into potential demographics and need of women ministry and young/’yuppie’ local residents.’ Interestingly there was no comment about relationships with other local churches. What would we say now? Please let me hear your views of both where you think the church could be in ten years, and equally importantly, how it might achieve such a goal. What might we expect from the Circuit over that period? The 2006 document also spoke of renewing the pastoral link with Walton as making more sense than a linkage with Byfleet. What do you think about that?
The annual membership tickets will be distributed during September. If you are not in membership do please speak to me about this sign of belonging.
Peter Howson.
August 2013
Dear Friends
We have a new sign. To be strictly accurate we have two new signs. They replace the ones that have been trying to tell passers-by something about Methodists in Weybridge for many years. The old ones had done a good job but styles change and more people now drive past them than walk along Heath Road. The Church council agreed that they needed to be replaced and that the new signs should communicate swiftly and simply the information that was needed. So they tell people that we are the Methodist church in Weybridge. For those that know about such things the signs incorporate the national Methodist logo – white cross on a red orb. The sign also tells people that we meet at 10.30 am on Sundays. Lastly it informs those who want more information, who want to hire our halls, or to contact the minister, that the best way to do any of these things is through the church website. This means that there should be no need to update the signs when ministers change.
I hope that people will talk about the new signs. Maybe we can ask people if they have spotted them and thus get some feedback about the changes. Hopefully they might remind people who pass that way that we are indeed an open church. They are in place in time for the cyclists who will ride through Weybridge on 4th August so we can guarantee that some 20,000 will have the opportunity to see them. We might have to lower the hedge in front of the signs to get the full impact across.
The impact will be lost if we are unable to follow up on the new signs. We need to be welcoming to anyone who arrives as a result of seeing the information on them. We need to use them as part of our strategy for mission. They are the first thing that people will see. You may well be the first person that someone meets when they arrive at church. We all need to be as inviting as the new signs and to welcome people. We all need to be signposts so that those who come to our church may be shown the way to Jesus.
For many this month will see a time away. Jane and I had a week away in the Norwegian fjords and had a wonderful time. I trust that you too will have an excellent holiday and returned refreshed and recreated.
Peter Howson.
We have a new sign. To be strictly accurate we have two new signs. They replace the ones that have been trying to tell passers-by something about Methodists in Weybridge for many years. The old ones had done a good job but styles change and more people now drive past them than walk along Heath Road. The Church council agreed that they needed to be replaced and that the new signs should communicate swiftly and simply the information that was needed. So they tell people that we are the Methodist church in Weybridge. For those that know about such things the signs incorporate the national Methodist logo – white cross on a red orb. The sign also tells people that we meet at 10.30 am on Sundays. Lastly it informs those who want more information, who want to hire our halls, or to contact the minister, that the best way to do any of these things is through the church website. This means that there should be no need to update the signs when ministers change.
I hope that people will talk about the new signs. Maybe we can ask people if they have spotted them and thus get some feedback about the changes. Hopefully they might remind people who pass that way that we are indeed an open church. They are in place in time for the cyclists who will ride through Weybridge on 4th August so we can guarantee that some 20,000 will have the opportunity to see them. We might have to lower the hedge in front of the signs to get the full impact across.
The impact will be lost if we are unable to follow up on the new signs. We need to be welcoming to anyone who arrives as a result of seeing the information on them. We need to use them as part of our strategy for mission. They are the first thing that people will see. You may well be the first person that someone meets when they arrive at church. We all need to be as inviting as the new signs and to welcome people. We all need to be signposts so that those who come to our church may be shown the way to Jesus.
For many this month will see a time away. Jane and I had a week away in the Norwegian fjords and had a wonderful time. I trust that you too will have an excellent holiday and returned refreshed and recreated.
Peter Howson.
July 2013
Sunday 4th August will see a repeat of the road closures that took place during the Olympic Cycling events of 2012. RideLondon is a legacy event that will see 20,000 ‘fun’ cyclists passing through the area in the morning of that day and 150 ‘elite’ riders passing in a single burst at some point during the afternoon. As I write this, on 21st June, the exact route has yet to be published. This affects the Methodist Church in Weybridge as there is uncertainty as to whether the cyclists will pass the front of that Church; they did not do so last year. We already know that it will affect Byfleet Methodist Church by closing the village to traffic for up to twelve hours.
Church services will inevitably be affected. Brian Prothero at St James’ and I have been liasing with the local Councillors in an attempt to find out what is planned, and to see what is possible. Without firm facts it is difficult to make firm plans. The recent Church Council was unable to formulate a proper response except to note that the normal 10.30 am service will not take place. If the route is open to traffic early enough then it might be possible to have a ‘café church’ gathering at 6.30 pm. A decision will be taken in July. Watch the website for details. Café church is a relaxed gathering over tea/coffee and cake where those who come contribute to the worship and discussion. If you think that this is a good idea, and something to which you could invite others, please let me know.
Please be aware that travel along that route will probably cease in the early hours of the Sunday morning and may not restart until all barriers have been removed at some point in the evening. If you have anything planned for that day do please check with the relevant authorities as to whether you will be able to do what you intend to do on that day.
RideLondon is being sponsored by the Prudential. This raises, for me, the question of who gets what out of this day. Once again Christians are being marginalised in this country. Our opportunity to worship on a Sunday, as we have done for centuries, now has to take second place to other events. If they intend to do it again in 2014, and there is every indication that this is so, my personal view is that they should close the M25 in one direction and send the cyclists around that for a day. But that might inconvenience the wrong people!
Peter Howson.
Church services will inevitably be affected. Brian Prothero at St James’ and I have been liasing with the local Councillors in an attempt to find out what is planned, and to see what is possible. Without firm facts it is difficult to make firm plans. The recent Church Council was unable to formulate a proper response except to note that the normal 10.30 am service will not take place. If the route is open to traffic early enough then it might be possible to have a ‘café church’ gathering at 6.30 pm. A decision will be taken in July. Watch the website for details. Café church is a relaxed gathering over tea/coffee and cake where those who come contribute to the worship and discussion. If you think that this is a good idea, and something to which you could invite others, please let me know.
Please be aware that travel along that route will probably cease in the early hours of the Sunday morning and may not restart until all barriers have been removed at some point in the evening. If you have anything planned for that day do please check with the relevant authorities as to whether you will be able to do what you intend to do on that day.
RideLondon is being sponsored by the Prudential. This raises, for me, the question of who gets what out of this day. Once again Christians are being marginalised in this country. Our opportunity to worship on a Sunday, as we have done for centuries, now has to take second place to other events. If they intend to do it again in 2014, and there is every indication that this is so, my personal view is that they should close the M25 in one direction and send the cyclists around that for a day. But that might inconvenience the wrong people!
Peter Howson.
May 2013
It has been wonderful sharing Easter with a different group of people this year. For me, having never been attached to more than one congregation before in my ministry of nearly forty years, it has meant adapting to being with two groups over the period. I must work out next year how I can join the Weybridge family on Easter morning.
What I have been able to do in this Easter season is to share the stories of those first encounters with the Risen Christ. As I reflected when preaching on the story of ‘Doubting’ Thomas, there was frank disbelief, ‘You must be joking.’ (Or the Galilean equivalent of two thousand years ago) [John 20.25(b)] Then there was a search for meaning. [Luke 24.13 – 33] The disciples, like us, then had to face the question of what to do with this wonderful news. [John 21.1 – 14] The next story, after the meeting with Thomas and Jesus, was the encounter between Jesus and Peter. [John 21.15 – 19] Our translations at this point fail to do justice to the meeting. The English language is one of the richest in the world in terms of the number of words in regular use. It has brought into common parlance words from everywhere. And yet, at this point the English language translations have consistently failed to share the richness of the conversation. Jesus and Peter are not talking the same language when the question and answer session takes place. Jesus wants to know whether Peter agapes {αγαπας} him [John 21.15(a)] Peter’s reply is that he philo {φιλϖ} him [John 21.15(b)] It is the same in the next exchange.[John 21.16] The third time Jesus switches to the same word ‘philo’. Both agape and philo can be translated as ‘love’. The former means the special Christian love displayed in the risen Christ and thus is those who are his body. Philo is the word that gives us Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love) and means that kind of bonding between people of like minds in a common cause. It is enough to allow Peter to meet the charge given to him but Jesus shows that there is more for him to know. Significantly in this meeting by the lake it ends with these words to Peter: ‘Follow me.’ [John 21.19(b)]
Jesus accepted Thomas and Peter where they were at that moment. He accepts us where we are when we meet him. But he invites us to follow him, where ever that with take us on our earthly pilgrimage, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. For Peter and Thomas the next step was to come at Pentecost when they were able to pour out their secret to the whole world.
Peter
What I have been able to do in this Easter season is to share the stories of those first encounters with the Risen Christ. As I reflected when preaching on the story of ‘Doubting’ Thomas, there was frank disbelief, ‘You must be joking.’ (Or the Galilean equivalent of two thousand years ago) [John 20.25(b)] Then there was a search for meaning. [Luke 24.13 – 33] The disciples, like us, then had to face the question of what to do with this wonderful news. [John 21.1 – 14] The next story, after the meeting with Thomas and Jesus, was the encounter between Jesus and Peter. [John 21.15 – 19] Our translations at this point fail to do justice to the meeting. The English language is one of the richest in the world in terms of the number of words in regular use. It has brought into common parlance words from everywhere. And yet, at this point the English language translations have consistently failed to share the richness of the conversation. Jesus and Peter are not talking the same language when the question and answer session takes place. Jesus wants to know whether Peter agapes {αγαπας} him [John 21.15(a)] Peter’s reply is that he philo {φιλϖ} him [John 21.15(b)] It is the same in the next exchange.[John 21.16] The third time Jesus switches to the same word ‘philo’. Both agape and philo can be translated as ‘love’. The former means the special Christian love displayed in the risen Christ and thus is those who are his body. Philo is the word that gives us Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love) and means that kind of bonding between people of like minds in a common cause. It is enough to allow Peter to meet the charge given to him but Jesus shows that there is more for him to know. Significantly in this meeting by the lake it ends with these words to Peter: ‘Follow me.’ [John 21.19(b)]
Jesus accepted Thomas and Peter where they were at that moment. He accepts us where we are when we meet him. But he invites us to follow him, where ever that with take us on our earthly pilgrimage, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. For Peter and Thomas the next step was to come at Pentecost when they were able to pour out their secret to the whole world.
Peter
April 2013
Over the last few weeks I have had countless conversations about the weather. Given the unseasonable nature of this Spring it has been easy to talk to others, including strangers, about the cold, the lateness of the daffodils, the possibility of more snow, or whether it will rain. It has been a subject that has controlled much of our lives and which I have been happy to share with others.
Reflecting on this I have contrasted it with the difficulty I have in speaking of faith with others. It is easy as a Minister to do so in the formal setting of worship. It is possible to do so in the setting of a study group, including the excellent ecumenical Lent group I have attended this Lent in Weybridge. It is hard to do so in general conversation, both with those close to me and also with strangers. Of course that is partly because of the type of person I am. It is also because it is ‘bad form’ to talk about religion lest it lead to disagreements and arguments. Even so it makes me silent on a subject that has changed my life and continues to influence it every day of the week.
This month we are reminded that we have ‘Good News’ to share. Jesus is Risen! There is an opportunity to invite others to come and celebrate that with us on Easter Day. Since it is a unique event science cannot have anything to say about it since the scientific method relies on repeatable experiments. Jesus died once, and for all (in both senses of the phrase.) I also remember that the disciples only shared the astounding news amongst themselves. It was not until they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that they were enabled to share the Good News with the rest of the world. They then had the words that would make sense to others. So let us come to terms with the amazing Easter story so that we can be ready for Pentecost and the opportunity to share with others. Since at least 90% of the population have little or anything to do with the Christian faith there are plenty who need to hear.
Have a blessed Easter
Peter Howson
Reflecting on this I have contrasted it with the difficulty I have in speaking of faith with others. It is easy as a Minister to do so in the formal setting of worship. It is possible to do so in the setting of a study group, including the excellent ecumenical Lent group I have attended this Lent in Weybridge. It is hard to do so in general conversation, both with those close to me and also with strangers. Of course that is partly because of the type of person I am. It is also because it is ‘bad form’ to talk about religion lest it lead to disagreements and arguments. Even so it makes me silent on a subject that has changed my life and continues to influence it every day of the week.
This month we are reminded that we have ‘Good News’ to share. Jesus is Risen! There is an opportunity to invite others to come and celebrate that with us on Easter Day. Since it is a unique event science cannot have anything to say about it since the scientific method relies on repeatable experiments. Jesus died once, and for all (in both senses of the phrase.) I also remember that the disciples only shared the astounding news amongst themselves. It was not until they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that they were enabled to share the Good News with the rest of the world. They then had the words that would make sense to others. So let us come to terms with the amazing Easter story so that we can be ready for Pentecost and the opportunity to share with others. Since at least 90% of the population have little or anything to do with the Christian faith there are plenty who need to hear.
Have a blessed Easter
Peter Howson
March 2013
Sometimes it is possible to be absolutely certain about the exact moment when your life changed. One such moment occurred at 12.25 pm on Tuesday 29th January 2013. That was precise time when Jane slipped on the concourse at Waterloo Station and realised that she was no longer mobile. As most of you know it lead to surgery at St Thomas’s Hospital. Two weeks post op she is making excellent progress. There are though long weeks ahead before she regains full mobility. If everything goes to plan then at Easter she should be back to where she was before than moment. Everyone has been very supportive and both Jane and myself want to say a huge ‘Thank You’ to all at Weybridge Methodist Church who have expressed concern and offered help. It has been a great relief to know the support of such a caring group. I would also wish to testify to the care and attention that has been offered through the NHS. Responding to and dealing with the unforeseen is one of the areas in which their care is superb.
When talking of the transfiguration of Jesus as described by Luke (St Luke Chapter 9 verses 28 to 36) I spoke in my sermon at Weybridge about moments that can change lives. That was one such for Jesus, and it was also, in a different way, such a moment for the three disciples who went for a walk with Jesus that morning. The same has been true for generations of disciples across the centuries. The earliest stories are to be found in the Acts of the Apostles, but the reports continued as they do to this day. Methodism has always had a sense of the possibility of the experience of the presence of God in the life of a belief. For some it could be that dramatic moment, the very moment carefully recorded, when Jesus became a living reality for them. John Wesley wrote of 24th May 1738 that shortly before twenty to eight in the evening he felt that, ‘his heart was strangely warmed, and that he knew Jesus.’
Others see it by looking back and realising that at some point their life changed. Life changed for everyone on the first Easter Day. No longer need death by seen as the final enemy that destroyed life. For death had been destroyed. This Easter may we invite others to come and share our joy and that offer them the possibility of a change in their own life.
Peter Howson
When talking of the transfiguration of Jesus as described by Luke (St Luke Chapter 9 verses 28 to 36) I spoke in my sermon at Weybridge about moments that can change lives. That was one such for Jesus, and it was also, in a different way, such a moment for the three disciples who went for a walk with Jesus that morning. The same has been true for generations of disciples across the centuries. The earliest stories are to be found in the Acts of the Apostles, but the reports continued as they do to this day. Methodism has always had a sense of the possibility of the experience of the presence of God in the life of a belief. For some it could be that dramatic moment, the very moment carefully recorded, when Jesus became a living reality for them. John Wesley wrote of 24th May 1738 that shortly before twenty to eight in the evening he felt that, ‘his heart was strangely warmed, and that he knew Jesus.’
Others see it by looking back and realising that at some point their life changed. Life changed for everyone on the first Easter Day. No longer need death by seen as the final enemy that destroyed life. For death had been destroyed. This Easter may we invite others to come and share our joy and that offer them the possibility of a change in their own life.
Peter Howson
February 2013
Each year Easter Sunday falls on a different week. This year it will be 31st March, not quite the earliest is can be but earlier than it will be for the next couple of years. Various other days in the life of the church, both before and after Easter, are determined from that date. The first of these is ‘Ash Wednesday’ the traditional day on which the season of ‘Lent’ begins.
Popular culture always sees this as a time for ‘giving up’ something. This has become associated with feeling mournful and generally feeling unhappy. As a result Christians are regarded as killjoys and yet another reason is found to have nothing to do with the faith they hold as central to their lives. My challenge to you all for this year is to do the opposite. Take on something extra. It could be a lifestyle change but one in association with a new direction. If you want to give up chocolate, and why not since the Easter eggs will taste that much more special, then decide that you will donate the money that you usually spend on chocolate to the Methodist Relief and Development Fund, or some other such cause. Alternatively it is possible to take on something extra. Many chose to read a devotional book with an entry for each day. There are a number of suggestions on the internet. In some areas there are special study groups, often run ecumenically. If you are not a regular attender you might like to think about attending the Barnabas Group during Lent.
One way in which we shall be marking the beginning of Lent is with a service of Holy Communion on Wednesday 13th February. It will take place in the church and last for about half an hour. A meeting of the Church Council will follow at 8 pm. Thinking about faith in Lent allows the full meaning of the mystery and majesty of the Easter Day message ‘He is Risen’ to allow the full throated response: ‘He is Risen Indeed.’ But before that comes the story of the Passion, and of Holy Week. More about that next month.
Peter Howson
Popular culture always sees this as a time for ‘giving up’ something. This has become associated with feeling mournful and generally feeling unhappy. As a result Christians are regarded as killjoys and yet another reason is found to have nothing to do with the faith they hold as central to their lives. My challenge to you all for this year is to do the opposite. Take on something extra. It could be a lifestyle change but one in association with a new direction. If you want to give up chocolate, and why not since the Easter eggs will taste that much more special, then decide that you will donate the money that you usually spend on chocolate to the Methodist Relief and Development Fund, or some other such cause. Alternatively it is possible to take on something extra. Many chose to read a devotional book with an entry for each day. There are a number of suggestions on the internet. In some areas there are special study groups, often run ecumenically. If you are not a regular attender you might like to think about attending the Barnabas Group during Lent.
One way in which we shall be marking the beginning of Lent is with a service of Holy Communion on Wednesday 13th February. It will take place in the church and last for about half an hour. A meeting of the Church Council will follow at 8 pm. Thinking about faith in Lent allows the full meaning of the mystery and majesty of the Easter Day message ‘He is Risen’ to allow the full throated response: ‘He is Risen Indeed.’ But before that comes the story of the Passion, and of Holy Week. More about that next month.
Peter Howson
January 2013
A New Covenant
One of the marks of the personal faith that so enthused John Wesley, and has been a feature of the lives of so many of those who have shared his spiritual experience over the years, has been the idea of an act of worship to celebrate the relationship that exists between God and an individual. Wesley borrowed the idea of a ‘Covenant’ between God and an individual. This means the forming of a publically acknowledged relationship. In it a ceremony acknowledges that both parties bring something to the relationship. It is like a marriage, and nothing like a couple living together. The idea of a Covenant between God and his people occurs time and time again throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. So much so that that together, they are sometimes called the Old Covenant. This is then put alongside the more familiar title of the Old Testament. Equally the New Testament can be called the New Covenant. The old covenant was made with Noah, (Genesis 9.8) with Abraham, (Genesis 17.4) with Moses, (Exodus 24.7) and with David. (2 Samuel 23.5) It is this relationship to which the prophets refer when they speak of people turning away from Yahweh, or God. Jeremiah the prophet looks forward to a new covenant that will be written on the heart rather than on paper. (Jeremiah 31.31 – 34) Jesus is for us the mediator of the new covenant and it is written in his blood.
The covenant we have with God makes many promises to us. They are set out in the Word of God. Paul writes specifically of the fruits of the Spirit, (Galatians 6.22 – 26) and of the gifts of the Spirit. (I Corinthians 12.4 – 11) We have been celebrating Christmas because it gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves of the way in which they relationship between God and humans changes with the ‘Word made flesh’. (John 1.14) As Luke shows in the opening chapters of his Gospel, the old order has been struck dumb (1.5 - 41) and the new speaks with authority (Chapter 2.41 - 52) Now at the start of the year we are invited to come to a Covenant Service to mark or renew this relationship with God. Having heard God’s promises to us we make our response in a solemn prayer of commitment. If you have not been to a Covenant Service please ask for a copy of the words and read them through before coming. Even if you have been coming for many years it is good to read the words of the service through before attending. For me, as for many others in the Methodist family, the words of the Covenant prayer are very serious words. Covenants are also events that are marked by signs and actions. The Covenant we have with God is sealed by the body and blood of Jesus that we receive at the Holy Communion with which the service reaches its climax. This action becomes the sign of what God has done for us, what he is doing for us, and what he promises that he will do for us.
As we are invited to say to God at the Covenant Service, ‘I am no longer mine, but yours.’
Peter
One of the marks of the personal faith that so enthused John Wesley, and has been a feature of the lives of so many of those who have shared his spiritual experience over the years, has been the idea of an act of worship to celebrate the relationship that exists between God and an individual. Wesley borrowed the idea of a ‘Covenant’ between God and an individual. This means the forming of a publically acknowledged relationship. In it a ceremony acknowledges that both parties bring something to the relationship. It is like a marriage, and nothing like a couple living together. The idea of a Covenant between God and his people occurs time and time again throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. So much so that that together, they are sometimes called the Old Covenant. This is then put alongside the more familiar title of the Old Testament. Equally the New Testament can be called the New Covenant. The old covenant was made with Noah, (Genesis 9.8) with Abraham, (Genesis 17.4) with Moses, (Exodus 24.7) and with David. (2 Samuel 23.5) It is this relationship to which the prophets refer when they speak of people turning away from Yahweh, or God. Jeremiah the prophet looks forward to a new covenant that will be written on the heart rather than on paper. (Jeremiah 31.31 – 34) Jesus is for us the mediator of the new covenant and it is written in his blood.
The covenant we have with God makes many promises to us. They are set out in the Word of God. Paul writes specifically of the fruits of the Spirit, (Galatians 6.22 – 26) and of the gifts of the Spirit. (I Corinthians 12.4 – 11) We have been celebrating Christmas because it gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves of the way in which they relationship between God and humans changes with the ‘Word made flesh’. (John 1.14) As Luke shows in the opening chapters of his Gospel, the old order has been struck dumb (1.5 - 41) and the new speaks with authority (Chapter 2.41 - 52) Now at the start of the year we are invited to come to a Covenant Service to mark or renew this relationship with God. Having heard God’s promises to us we make our response in a solemn prayer of commitment. If you have not been to a Covenant Service please ask for a copy of the words and read them through before coming. Even if you have been coming for many years it is good to read the words of the service through before attending. For me, as for many others in the Methodist family, the words of the Covenant prayer are very serious words. Covenants are also events that are marked by signs and actions. The Covenant we have with God is sealed by the body and blood of Jesus that we receive at the Holy Communion with which the service reaches its climax. This action becomes the sign of what God has done for us, what he is doing for us, and what he promises that he will do for us.
As we are invited to say to God at the Covenant Service, ‘I am no longer mine, but yours.’
Peter
December 2012
'Mission Matters'
On 26th December the world will have moved on from Christmas. In order, as Christians, to catch the attention of those around us, we have to engage with them in an agenda that forces us to celebrate Christmas before we come to Christmas Day and then to stop doing so immediately afterwards. In one sense this is no problem. The Biblical witness knows nothing of 25th December. It fails to mention any snow, deep, crisp or uneven. There were three gifts but any number of wise people. The mission of the church is to share the story of the Word of God made flesh in Jesus; the fact that God is with us. And this is not a story merely for children. Indeed this Christmas we ought to set out to reclaim the story for adults.
It is the birth of a ‘Saviour’ that we are celebrating. The birth is merely the prelude to the death and resurrection not an end in itself. Too much concentrating on the nativity story can leave Jesus in the manager. A baby, over whom the world can mutter sweet things, and then ignore; a baby who would appear to have nothing to offer to our contemporary world. But then we hardly ever read Matthew Chapter 2 verses 13 to 18 because we do not want to tell that particular story to the children. State induced violence is not merely something from the pages of history. Harmful thoughts towards others are not merely the preserve of tyrants who feel threatened.
At least in the dark days of December we have the opportunity to catch the attention of those around us and offer something of why we are celebrating this birth. I hope that we will find a place for the Christmas hymns alongside the carols.
He laid his glory by, He wrapped him in our clay;
Unmarked by human eye, The latent Godhead lay;
Infant of days he here became, And bore the mild Immanuel’s name.
So wrote Charles Wesley of this amazing truth of the Incarnation: God as Human Being.
Our task is not to bemoan the secularisation of Christmas. It is to reclaim the season in the name of Christ. To infuse it with the joy that comes from eating and drinking as our Lord’s guests at his table, that his joy may be in us and our joy may be complete. There will be an opportunity to do so on Christmas morning. After a shortened service those who wish to come to the Lord’s Table will be invited to stay for a service of Holy Communion. All are welcome who wish to come and meet him so please feel free to invite everyone you know.
We are also hoping to offer our own invitation to ‘manse pies’. Details have yet to be finalised as we wait for work at the manse to be finished. Please watch the notices. Meanwhile may the joy of the angels, the humility of the shepherds, and the peace of the Christ be God’s gift to you this Christmas.
Peter Howson
On 26th December the world will have moved on from Christmas. In order, as Christians, to catch the attention of those around us, we have to engage with them in an agenda that forces us to celebrate Christmas before we come to Christmas Day and then to stop doing so immediately afterwards. In one sense this is no problem. The Biblical witness knows nothing of 25th December. It fails to mention any snow, deep, crisp or uneven. There were three gifts but any number of wise people. The mission of the church is to share the story of the Word of God made flesh in Jesus; the fact that God is with us. And this is not a story merely for children. Indeed this Christmas we ought to set out to reclaim the story for adults.
It is the birth of a ‘Saviour’ that we are celebrating. The birth is merely the prelude to the death and resurrection not an end in itself. Too much concentrating on the nativity story can leave Jesus in the manager. A baby, over whom the world can mutter sweet things, and then ignore; a baby who would appear to have nothing to offer to our contemporary world. But then we hardly ever read Matthew Chapter 2 verses 13 to 18 because we do not want to tell that particular story to the children. State induced violence is not merely something from the pages of history. Harmful thoughts towards others are not merely the preserve of tyrants who feel threatened.
At least in the dark days of December we have the opportunity to catch the attention of those around us and offer something of why we are celebrating this birth. I hope that we will find a place for the Christmas hymns alongside the carols.
He laid his glory by, He wrapped him in our clay;
Unmarked by human eye, The latent Godhead lay;
Infant of days he here became, And bore the mild Immanuel’s name.
So wrote Charles Wesley of this amazing truth of the Incarnation: God as Human Being.
Our task is not to bemoan the secularisation of Christmas. It is to reclaim the season in the name of Christ. To infuse it with the joy that comes from eating and drinking as our Lord’s guests at his table, that his joy may be in us and our joy may be complete. There will be an opportunity to do so on Christmas morning. After a shortened service those who wish to come to the Lord’s Table will be invited to stay for a service of Holy Communion. All are welcome who wish to come and meet him so please feel free to invite everyone you know.
We are also hoping to offer our own invitation to ‘manse pies’. Details have yet to be finalised as we wait for work at the manse to be finished. Please watch the notices. Meanwhile may the joy of the angels, the humility of the shepherds, and the peace of the Christ be God’s gift to you this Christmas.
Peter Howson
November 2012
‘Membership Matters’
Many of you will have been asked to complete a form at church headed, ‘Your help is requested’. It asks for contact details. This is because I inherited an incomplete, and in some cases seriously out of date, list of contacts. The form also asked about the membership status of the person completing it. That is why each person associated with Weybridge Methodist Church has been asked to complete their own form. There needs to be an accurate list of Members of Weybridge Methodist Church.
For some, especially those from non-Methodist backgrounds this question may well seem confusing. It also might appear to imply that those who are not Members are outside the Church. This is not so. Membership of the Methodist Church, expressed in membership held at a local level, is not required to be a Christian, or indeed to feel that one is a member of the body of Christ, which is the Church universal. The point of entry to the church is through the Sacrament of Baptism. This may have taken place when the person involved was a child, or as an adult. If the former it is likely to have been ‘confirmed’ as an adult. This is what happened to me. I became a Member of the Methodist Church as a teenager when I made a profession of faith.
So why have this specific form of church membership? The list of members show who is entitled to vote on the few occasions when formal votes are required to run the church either locally, at Circuit or Connexional level. Generally when votes are not needed an attempt would be made to involve all those associated with the local church, friends as well as the members. Membership involves no financial obligation and is freely available to all who love Jesus and wish respond to the call to follow him. Methodist membership can be held in tandem with the formal membership of another church, so long as its rules permit. Membership can be received through transfer from other churches.
Membership in the Methodist Church is signified by the annual ‘Membership Ticket’. These have been around since the days of John Wesley over 250 years ago. Many people keep them from year to year. They have a practical application in our own age as they can be shown to the staff at any hospital to indicate that you would like the chaplain for the Methodist community to visit.
I am interested in holding a series of groups to discuss membership and would be happy to hear from anyone who would like to attend. Those for whom it might be of interest are those who now feel this is the moment to come into membership of the church and those who want to reflect on the membership they took on at some point in the past. Do get in contact and discuss it with me.
Peter Howson
Many of you will have been asked to complete a form at church headed, ‘Your help is requested’. It asks for contact details. This is because I inherited an incomplete, and in some cases seriously out of date, list of contacts. The form also asked about the membership status of the person completing it. That is why each person associated with Weybridge Methodist Church has been asked to complete their own form. There needs to be an accurate list of Members of Weybridge Methodist Church.
For some, especially those from non-Methodist backgrounds this question may well seem confusing. It also might appear to imply that those who are not Members are outside the Church. This is not so. Membership of the Methodist Church, expressed in membership held at a local level, is not required to be a Christian, or indeed to feel that one is a member of the body of Christ, which is the Church universal. The point of entry to the church is through the Sacrament of Baptism. This may have taken place when the person involved was a child, or as an adult. If the former it is likely to have been ‘confirmed’ as an adult. This is what happened to me. I became a Member of the Methodist Church as a teenager when I made a profession of faith.
So why have this specific form of church membership? The list of members show who is entitled to vote on the few occasions when formal votes are required to run the church either locally, at Circuit or Connexional level. Generally when votes are not needed an attempt would be made to involve all those associated with the local church, friends as well as the members. Membership involves no financial obligation and is freely available to all who love Jesus and wish respond to the call to follow him. Methodist membership can be held in tandem with the formal membership of another church, so long as its rules permit. Membership can be received through transfer from other churches.
Membership in the Methodist Church is signified by the annual ‘Membership Ticket’. These have been around since the days of John Wesley over 250 years ago. Many people keep them from year to year. They have a practical application in our own age as they can be shown to the staff at any hospital to indicate that you would like the chaplain for the Methodist community to visit.
I am interested in holding a series of groups to discuss membership and would be happy to hear from anyone who would like to attend. Those for whom it might be of interest are those who now feel this is the moment to come into membership of the church and those who want to reflect on the membership they took on at some point in the past. Do get in contact and discuss it with me.
Peter Howson
October 2012
This is my first monthly contribution. I want to begin by expressing my thanks to all who have helped to make our move to Surrey so welcoming. As I have said already on a number of occasions the readiness to extend a welcome to others is one of the marks of the Christian family. Whilst writing this I am also thinking around the readings for the coming Sunday, which once again stress the diversity of those to whom God extends his grace. So we must be prepared to welcome those who come to seek God. I have been inspired by many of the stories in Acts as they recount the situations that faced that first generation of those who were sharing the Good News of God at work in Jesus and what it meant for the world. For me, especially important has been the story in Acts Chapter 8 and verses 26 to 38. Here is a man, who could be debarred from God’s Community on at least three grounds, asking, ‘What is to prevent me being Baptised?’ One of the glories of our experience for me is that we do not answer that question by replying that you have to be able to make an adult profession of faith to be baptised.
This brings me back to the experience of my ‘Welcome Service,’ not least because the choir sang for us the modern hymn, ‘All are Welcome in this Place.’ It was good to have felt welcomed and even better to know that one was becoming a member of a
community that welcomed others. ‘Thank You,’ to all who made things happen that evening. I hope too that it reminded everyone that we are not alone in our Christian pilgrimage. Ministers in the Methodist Church are welcomed to their new ‘station’. This might
seem a strange arcane language but behind it lays the message that I have been asked to come and share this part of a joint pilgrimage which we are making together in Weybridge. I was not ‘given’ the keys as a symbol of ownership but rather lent them that they might be for me a way of helping in our joint journey over the coming months and years.
Jane also joins me in personal thanks for the welcome that she has received. You will know that the manse requires some work to be completed before it can function properly. This restricts the entertaining we can do. A further restriction is imposed by the damage that was done to our dining table in the move from Inverness. Once these things are repaired we look to being able to invite you to enjoy our hospitality.
Finally may I thank all those who contributed so generously to the Harvest Thanksgiving. May we be enabled to meet not just the material hunger of the world but also the spiritual starvation that is all around us.
With good wishes
PETER HOWSON
This brings me back to the experience of my ‘Welcome Service,’ not least because the choir sang for us the modern hymn, ‘All are Welcome in this Place.’ It was good to have felt welcomed and even better to know that one was becoming a member of a
community that welcomed others. ‘Thank You,’ to all who made things happen that evening. I hope too that it reminded everyone that we are not alone in our Christian pilgrimage. Ministers in the Methodist Church are welcomed to their new ‘station’. This might
seem a strange arcane language but behind it lays the message that I have been asked to come and share this part of a joint pilgrimage which we are making together in Weybridge. I was not ‘given’ the keys as a symbol of ownership but rather lent them that they might be for me a way of helping in our joint journey over the coming months and years.
Jane also joins me in personal thanks for the welcome that she has received. You will know that the manse requires some work to be completed before it can function properly. This restricts the entertaining we can do. A further restriction is imposed by the damage that was done to our dining table in the move from Inverness. Once these things are repaired we look to being able to invite you to enjoy our hospitality.
Finally may I thank all those who contributed so generously to the Harvest Thanksgiving. May we be enabled to meet not just the material hunger of the world but also the spiritual starvation that is all around us.
With good wishes
PETER HOWSON
September 2012
As we are in an interregnum during August there is no message from a minister this month.
On 29th July we hosted an open air service followed by a barbeque lunch. This was a wonderful time of fellowship with church friends and members of the local community who joined us for this event. The weather was changeable but as James pointed out we didn’t really help by sending out mixed messages with our song choices: we started with ‘Lord reign in me’ and ended with ‘Shine Jesus Shine’. No wonder the weather was confused!
The time of worship was enjoyed by young and old and celebrated the Olympic spirit of fairness and personal striving for the ultimate prize and the journey we have to take as Christians.
It will be a while before we forget the spectacle of Louella and Ethan tying for first place in the Olympic dash, proudly receiving their medals and rapidly consuming them with appropriately chocolaty faces. Or Louella and Ethan running round those gathered for worship with the ‘Olympic’ torch. Unfortunately Brett experienced an issue with his ‘main’ camera but he was able to provide some photos from his backup to remind us of this special time; a selection will be on the notice board outside the Heath Hall.
The message delivered was, I hope, that we all run the race of Life but we don’t have to be the fastest, highest, longest, strongest or the best to gain an elusive medal or prize. There is a prize freely available to all because Jesus bore the pain so that all can freely gain.
On 29th July we hosted an open air service followed by a barbeque lunch. This was a wonderful time of fellowship with church friends and members of the local community who joined us for this event. The weather was changeable but as James pointed out we didn’t really help by sending out mixed messages with our song choices: we started with ‘Lord reign in me’ and ended with ‘Shine Jesus Shine’. No wonder the weather was confused!
The time of worship was enjoyed by young and old and celebrated the Olympic spirit of fairness and personal striving for the ultimate prize and the journey we have to take as Christians.
It will be a while before we forget the spectacle of Louella and Ethan tying for first place in the Olympic dash, proudly receiving their medals and rapidly consuming them with appropriately chocolaty faces. Or Louella and Ethan running round those gathered for worship with the ‘Olympic’ torch. Unfortunately Brett experienced an issue with his ‘main’ camera but he was able to provide some photos from his backup to remind us of this special time; a selection will be on the notice board outside the Heath Hall.
The message delivered was, I hope, that we all run the race of Life but we don’t have to be the fastest, highest, longest, strongest or the best to gain an elusive medal or prize. There is a prize freely available to all because Jesus bore the pain so that all can freely gain.
August 2012
The 1924 Olympics were hosted by the city of Paris. One of the British athletes, Eric Liddell was a devout Christian and he refused to run in a heat held on Sunday (the Christian Sabbath). He was forced to withdraw from the 100-metres race, his best event. The schedule had been published several months earlier and his decision was made well before the Games. Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, though his best pre-Olympics time of 49.6 seconds, set in winning the 1924 AAA championship 440 yards was modest by international standards. When he was in the starting blocks for the Olympic 400 metres race someone slipped a piece of paper into his hand with a quotation from 1 Samuel 2:30: "Those who honor me I will honor."
The 400 metres had been considered a middle-distance event in which runners raced round the first bend and coasted through the back leg. Inspired by the Biblical message, and deprived of a view of the other runners because he drew the outside lane, Liddell raced the whole of the first 200 metres to be well clear of the favoured Americans. With little option but to then treat the race as a complete sprint, he continued to race round the final bend. He was challenged all the way down the home straight but held on to take the win. He broke the existing Olympic and world records with a time of 47.6 seconds
Liddell’s performance in the 400 metres in Paris stood as a European record for 12 years, until beaten at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. After the Olympics and graduation from Edinburgh University, Liddell continued to compete. Shortly after the Games, his final leg in the 4 x 400 metres race in a British Empire vs. USA contest helped secure the victory over the gold-medal winning Americans. A year later, in 1925, at the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association (SAAA) meeting in Hampden Park in Glasgow, he equaled his Scottish championship record of 10.0 seconds in the 100 meters, won the 220 metre race in 22.2 seconds, won the 440 metre contest in 47.7, and participated in a winning relay team. He was only the fourth athlete to have won all three sprints at the SAAA, achieving this feat in 1924 and 1925. These were his final races before he returned to China, (where he was born), as a missionary.
Quote from Eric Liddell: "You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me. But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race. It's hard. It requires concentration of will, energy of soul. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it. But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe you're dinners burnt. Maybe you haven't got a job. So who am I to say, 'Believe, have faith,' in the face of life's realities? I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, 'Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me.' If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race."
The 400 metres had been considered a middle-distance event in which runners raced round the first bend and coasted through the back leg. Inspired by the Biblical message, and deprived of a view of the other runners because he drew the outside lane, Liddell raced the whole of the first 200 metres to be well clear of the favoured Americans. With little option but to then treat the race as a complete sprint, he continued to race round the final bend. He was challenged all the way down the home straight but held on to take the win. He broke the existing Olympic and world records with a time of 47.6 seconds
Liddell’s performance in the 400 metres in Paris stood as a European record for 12 years, until beaten at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. After the Olympics and graduation from Edinburgh University, Liddell continued to compete. Shortly after the Games, his final leg in the 4 x 400 metres race in a British Empire vs. USA contest helped secure the victory over the gold-medal winning Americans. A year later, in 1925, at the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association (SAAA) meeting in Hampden Park in Glasgow, he equaled his Scottish championship record of 10.0 seconds in the 100 meters, won the 220 metre race in 22.2 seconds, won the 440 metre contest in 47.7, and participated in a winning relay team. He was only the fourth athlete to have won all three sprints at the SAAA, achieving this feat in 1924 and 1925. These were his final races before he returned to China, (where he was born), as a missionary.
Quote from Eric Liddell: "You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me. But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race. It's hard. It requires concentration of will, energy of soul. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it. But how long does that last? You go home. Maybe you're dinners burnt. Maybe you haven't got a job. So who am I to say, 'Believe, have faith,' in the face of life's realities? I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, 'Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me.' If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race."
July 2012
Dear Friends,
This month the Methodist Church holds its annual Conference in Plymouth. There will be important conversations and decisions to be made, not least about how the Methodist Church will educate, train, develop the whole people of God (lay and ordained members of the Methodist Church) in the coming years. On 1st July Conference will also see the reception into Full Connexion and Ordination of over forty presbyters and deacons. Please hold our Church, Conference, and newly ordained ministers in your thoughts and prayers.
On 15th July we will celebrate a baptism during our service of Holy Communion. As part of this service, the congregation will also make promises to maintain the life of the church so this child will always have a place to worship God. Please hold him, and his parents in your prayers.
On 29th July there will be an open-air service and BBQ in the grounds of Weybridge Methodist Church to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics and the women’s road race that will be taking place through Weybridge on that date. It is hoped that this will be an opportunity to share the Good News of God-in-Christ with those who come to watch this Olympic event. Please make a note of church announcements relating to this event and please support it by bringing friends and family with you.
This month should also see the announcement about ministry within the Woking and Walton-on-Thames circuit from September 2012. This includes arrangements for who will have pastoral charge at Weybridge Methodist Church and how the full-time staff will be configured. The next three-four months will involve a period of transition for all of us. Paul writing to the Ephesians reminds us,
‘As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.’ (Eph 4.1-7)
As we move into the future may we hold these words before us and may we remember that God is with us.
Chrissie
This month the Methodist Church holds its annual Conference in Plymouth. There will be important conversations and decisions to be made, not least about how the Methodist Church will educate, train, develop the whole people of God (lay and ordained members of the Methodist Church) in the coming years. On 1st July Conference will also see the reception into Full Connexion and Ordination of over forty presbyters and deacons. Please hold our Church, Conference, and newly ordained ministers in your thoughts and prayers.
On 15th July we will celebrate a baptism during our service of Holy Communion. As part of this service, the congregation will also make promises to maintain the life of the church so this child will always have a place to worship God. Please hold him, and his parents in your prayers.
On 29th July there will be an open-air service and BBQ in the grounds of Weybridge Methodist Church to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics and the women’s road race that will be taking place through Weybridge on that date. It is hoped that this will be an opportunity to share the Good News of God-in-Christ with those who come to watch this Olympic event. Please make a note of church announcements relating to this event and please support it by bringing friends and family with you.
This month should also see the announcement about ministry within the Woking and Walton-on-Thames circuit from September 2012. This includes arrangements for who will have pastoral charge at Weybridge Methodist Church and how the full-time staff will be configured. The next three-four months will involve a period of transition for all of us. Paul writing to the Ephesians reminds us,
‘As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.’ (Eph 4.1-7)
As we move into the future may we hold these words before us and may we remember that God is with us.
Chrissie
June 2012
As Chrissie is away, this month our main editorial is some advice supplied by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley.
During his life John Wesley translated many hymns, primarily from German, but it is his brother Charles who is best known for his hymn writing. During his life time Charles Wesley published 6,000 hymns (including one fabulous carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing) and wrote a further 2,000. Singing was always important to the Wesley’s and in 1761 John published some guidelines to his followers.
Given the challenges we face with our own smaller congregation and the variety of accompaniment we use the following may be of some interest. It would seem that this area may have been a challenge to many another congregation over the years!
John Wesley’s Directions for Singing
1. Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please.
2. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
3. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
4. Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.
5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.
6. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
7. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
From John Wesley’s Select Hymns, 1761
During his life John Wesley translated many hymns, primarily from German, but it is his brother Charles who is best known for his hymn writing. During his life time Charles Wesley published 6,000 hymns (including one fabulous carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing) and wrote a further 2,000. Singing was always important to the Wesley’s and in 1761 John published some guidelines to his followers.
Given the challenges we face with our own smaller congregation and the variety of accompaniment we use the following may be of some interest. It would seem that this area may have been a challenge to many another congregation over the years!
John Wesley’s Directions for Singing
1. Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please.
2. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
3. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
4. Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.
5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.
6. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
7. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
From John Wesley’s Select Hymns, 1761
May 2012
Dear Friends,
I write this as we approach Pentecost where we celebrate the birth of the Church. During Pentecost the Christian community grew from 120 to 3,000 new believers in a single day as Christianity became a faith movement, based on the loving promises of God. What began with Jesus’ incarnation became a spiritual revolution as God’s kingdom burst into our world for all people and all nations.
Since the first Pentecost, Christians have been spreading the miracle of Pentecost, whispering and sometimes shouting the good news about the love, freedom and salvation God offers to all people. And each of us spreads that news in our own way, in our own language. We may not use quite the same words as other people. Sometimes different churches use different words and have diverse approaches to worship, teaching or mission. But the Holy Spirit is still at work in and through the Church. The Holy Spirit still bridges the language barrier so that people might be drawn ever closer in love and commitment, and empowered to proclaim God's deeds of power in their own lives. It is in those ‘Pentecost moments’ that the Church is reborn, our mission is clarified, and our many voices are united as one. May the Holy Spirit work in and through Weybridge Methodist Church. May the Holy Spirit work in and through each one of us.
Just as in the earliest days, the Holy Spirit still gives each of us the courage and the power and the language we need to spread the good news and sometimes those words are pretty simple and straightforward. May this year be a time when we are drawn ever closer in love and commitment and empowered to proclaim God's deeds of power in our lives.
May the Holy Spirit fill you, strengthen you, and guide you.
Chrissie
I write this as we approach Pentecost where we celebrate the birth of the Church. During Pentecost the Christian community grew from 120 to 3,000 new believers in a single day as Christianity became a faith movement, based on the loving promises of God. What began with Jesus’ incarnation became a spiritual revolution as God’s kingdom burst into our world for all people and all nations.
Since the first Pentecost, Christians have been spreading the miracle of Pentecost, whispering and sometimes shouting the good news about the love, freedom and salvation God offers to all people. And each of us spreads that news in our own way, in our own language. We may not use quite the same words as other people. Sometimes different churches use different words and have diverse approaches to worship, teaching or mission. But the Holy Spirit is still at work in and through the Church. The Holy Spirit still bridges the language barrier so that people might be drawn ever closer in love and commitment, and empowered to proclaim God's deeds of power in their own lives. It is in those ‘Pentecost moments’ that the Church is reborn, our mission is clarified, and our many voices are united as one. May the Holy Spirit work in and through Weybridge Methodist Church. May the Holy Spirit work in and through each one of us.
Just as in the earliest days, the Holy Spirit still gives each of us the courage and the power and the language we need to spread the good news and sometimes those words are pretty simple and straightforward. May this year be a time when we are drawn ever closer in love and commitment and empowered to proclaim God's deeds of power in our lives.
May the Holy Spirit fill you, strengthen you, and guide you.
Chrissie
April 2012
Dear Friends,
As I write the crocuses and daffodils are beginning to open, the trees and hedgerows are in blossom, and lambs are being born. Each reminds us of the cycle of creation and new life. For another two weeks we remain in the Lenten season, a time when we examine our Christian discipleship, and ask for God’s renewal, even as we search after God’s heart. I wonder what we have discovered during the past few weeks? I wonder what experiences have brought us face to face with the living God? In recent weeks we have celebrated the lives of two long-serving and much loved members, Derek Mayland and Bessie Downes. We have mourned their passing, but also celebrated that they now belong to the communion of saints and are now with God. We have been reminded of God’s promises of everlasting love and received God’s comfort. How can we as a Christian community, and as individual Christians, ensure that we continue to grow in grace and holiness to reach our potential as children of God? How are we taking hold for ourselves of God’s call and promise to participate in the mission of God and proclaim the Good News to the ends of the earth?
As I write we are fast approaching the Passion Sundays and the start of Holy Week. We face important questions that demand answers, answers of eternal significance. As we look back over the past year how will this Easter Sunday be different from last year? What have we learned? How have we grown? What evidence do we have of our continuing transformation into Christ’s likeness?
On the 1st April we will hold our General Church Meeting. A time when we elect people to serve our church community and a time to reflect on our participation in the mission of God and our vision for the coming year. Please prayerfully consider how you may use your gifts and skills in the life of the church. We particularly need vestry and door stewards, a worship co-ordinator, church council members, people to read the Bible and lead prayers in church, and to be involved in Weybridge Churches Together. If you are willing to continue in these roles, or to offer to take on a new role please let me know in advance of the Meeting.
The next few months will bring a time of transition and change, but scripture proclaims the good news that ‘the best of all God is with us!’
Love and prayers this Easter,
Chrissie
As I write the crocuses and daffodils are beginning to open, the trees and hedgerows are in blossom, and lambs are being born. Each reminds us of the cycle of creation and new life. For another two weeks we remain in the Lenten season, a time when we examine our Christian discipleship, and ask for God’s renewal, even as we search after God’s heart. I wonder what we have discovered during the past few weeks? I wonder what experiences have brought us face to face with the living God? In recent weeks we have celebrated the lives of two long-serving and much loved members, Derek Mayland and Bessie Downes. We have mourned their passing, but also celebrated that they now belong to the communion of saints and are now with God. We have been reminded of God’s promises of everlasting love and received God’s comfort. How can we as a Christian community, and as individual Christians, ensure that we continue to grow in grace and holiness to reach our potential as children of God? How are we taking hold for ourselves of God’s call and promise to participate in the mission of God and proclaim the Good News to the ends of the earth?
As I write we are fast approaching the Passion Sundays and the start of Holy Week. We face important questions that demand answers, answers of eternal significance. As we look back over the past year how will this Easter Sunday be different from last year? What have we learned? How have we grown? What evidence do we have of our continuing transformation into Christ’s likeness?
On the 1st April we will hold our General Church Meeting. A time when we elect people to serve our church community and a time to reflect on our participation in the mission of God and our vision for the coming year. Please prayerfully consider how you may use your gifts and skills in the life of the church. We particularly need vestry and door stewards, a worship co-ordinator, church council members, people to read the Bible and lead prayers in church, and to be involved in Weybridge Churches Together. If you are willing to continue in these roles, or to offer to take on a new role please let me know in advance of the Meeting.
The next few months will bring a time of transition and change, but scripture proclaims the good news that ‘the best of all God is with us!’
Love and prayers this Easter,
Chrissie
March 2012
Dear Friends,
This week we begin our journey through Lent. One theme in Lent is that of “healing”. As Christians how can we participate in the Good News of Christ and help to heal the world? Our families? Our neighbourhood? Our relationships? Healing includes the understanding that God has always been, and still is, at work in the world bringing wholeness and healing. Wherever the world struggles with its process of bringing justice, equality and freedom to the surface, we can trust that God is present and working.
Reflecting on healing as “salvation” helps us to understand that it is not just related to individuals, but the world as a whole. It includes the psychological, social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of life as experienced by all people. We are called to value all people; as Christians, we also are people with a specific history, and that history has shaped our faith and influences who we are today. Along our personal journey through life most of us have wrestled directly with the question of “Who is Jesus”? Our church history is clear that there has always been the desire to achieve an “orthodoxy” or uniformity of belief about who Jesus is. The great church councils of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon in the 4th and 5th centuries tried to define this once and for all, doing their best to reach a unified answer.
“Who is Jesus” is still a relevant question and we struggle with it just as people of the first century did. Think about the New Testament for a moment. It seems to me that the New Testament is made up of small books that are the stories people remember of their encounters or spiritual experiences of meeting Jesus. I wonder what it would be like for us if we wrote our own stories of “meeting Jesus” in our own life experiences, and then left those stories in a book of some kind for later generations to read and ponder. We would obviously have many different stories to tell; just as we find recorded in the Bible we read today. It might also bring a fresh meaning and a dimension of healing back into our world view.
Lent is a special time of the church year. It’s a good pause in our too busy lives. Taking the time to get centred and remembering who we are and what our real purpose in life is, can be very helpful. I hope you’ll take the time in this Lenten journey to take some deep breaths, to reflect, and to ask yourself how much healing you’re offering to the world you live in. Lent is our invitation to join with God, following the examples of Jesus in bringing the creation to wholeness - it’s a pretty big need right now.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
This week we begin our journey through Lent. One theme in Lent is that of “healing”. As Christians how can we participate in the Good News of Christ and help to heal the world? Our families? Our neighbourhood? Our relationships? Healing includes the understanding that God has always been, and still is, at work in the world bringing wholeness and healing. Wherever the world struggles with its process of bringing justice, equality and freedom to the surface, we can trust that God is present and working.
Reflecting on healing as “salvation” helps us to understand that it is not just related to individuals, but the world as a whole. It includes the psychological, social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of life as experienced by all people. We are called to value all people; as Christians, we also are people with a specific history, and that history has shaped our faith and influences who we are today. Along our personal journey through life most of us have wrestled directly with the question of “Who is Jesus”? Our church history is clear that there has always been the desire to achieve an “orthodoxy” or uniformity of belief about who Jesus is. The great church councils of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon in the 4th and 5th centuries tried to define this once and for all, doing their best to reach a unified answer.
“Who is Jesus” is still a relevant question and we struggle with it just as people of the first century did. Think about the New Testament for a moment. It seems to me that the New Testament is made up of small books that are the stories people remember of their encounters or spiritual experiences of meeting Jesus. I wonder what it would be like for us if we wrote our own stories of “meeting Jesus” in our own life experiences, and then left those stories in a book of some kind for later generations to read and ponder. We would obviously have many different stories to tell; just as we find recorded in the Bible we read today. It might also bring a fresh meaning and a dimension of healing back into our world view.
Lent is a special time of the church year. It’s a good pause in our too busy lives. Taking the time to get centred and remembering who we are and what our real purpose in life is, can be very helpful. I hope you’ll take the time in this Lenten journey to take some deep breaths, to reflect, and to ask yourself how much healing you’re offering to the world you live in. Lent is our invitation to join with God, following the examples of Jesus in bringing the creation to wholeness - it’s a pretty big need right now.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
February 2012
Dear Friends,
As I write we are in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a time when people from all church denominations meet together to pray for the Christian Church, that it may be united in its mission to spread God’s good news in Christ.
Each denomination has much to offer the others and fruitful conversation is possible about how the Church serves, thinks, acts, and participates in the mission of God. As Methodists our heritage and tradition isn’t as old as that of the Church of England, and certainly not as ancient as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The history of the people called Methodists is just as important though because the thrust of the Methodist movement is that of a people, raised up by the providence of God, to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land. And Methodism is based on the ‘Four Alls’: All need to be saved, all can be saved, all can know they are saved, all can be saved to the uppermost. In the 18th century the preaching by an Anglican priest who went by the name of John Wesley reached out to the poor, the oppressed, the outcasts of society. It made a difference – some historians claim it also prevented England from suffering a revolution much like that experienced across Europe. The Methodist movement changed the face of Christian service and worship. It’s a proud heritage. Unfortunately, it’s also one that many Methodists don’t know, or forget. Our traditions matter, but they are supposed to free us up to worship and serve God, not tie us up and keep us down. We are all part of the Christian church that began 2000 years ago. The world out there often doesn’t know the differences or similarities between Christian denominations, and it doesn’t particularly care. More importantly they don’t know the story of Jesus that reconciles human beings with God offering them life in all its fullness.
This years’ Week of Prayer for Christian has the theme ‘change’. Change is at the heart of our Christian faith. St Paul said that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, and we are called to live as children in the light. Even in the changes that we face. This year there will be changes in the Woking and Walton-on-Thames circuit as ministerial staff move to new appointments and this circuit decides how it will minister within congregations and to the wider community. Each one of us will be affected and all of us can be involved in talking about the changes that need to happen. As part of this decision-making process Weybridge Methodist Church will meet around noon on 29th January to hear and discuss the options that are available as we look forward to September 2012 and beyond. All are invited and I urge each one of you to attend, to listen to each other, and to feed back to the Circuit Leadership Team prior to the next Circuit meeting.
Just as praying for Christian unity matters, it also matters that our circuit is enabled to love and care for others, grow in Christian discipleship, and proclaim God’s good news. Please make every effort to attend the meeting and remember that in all the changes of life God calls us and equips us.
Love and prayers,
Chrissie
As I write we are in the middle of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a time when people from all church denominations meet together to pray for the Christian Church, that it may be united in its mission to spread God’s good news in Christ.
Each denomination has much to offer the others and fruitful conversation is possible about how the Church serves, thinks, acts, and participates in the mission of God. As Methodists our heritage and tradition isn’t as old as that of the Church of England, and certainly not as ancient as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The history of the people called Methodists is just as important though because the thrust of the Methodist movement is that of a people, raised up by the providence of God, to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land. And Methodism is based on the ‘Four Alls’: All need to be saved, all can be saved, all can know they are saved, all can be saved to the uppermost. In the 18th century the preaching by an Anglican priest who went by the name of John Wesley reached out to the poor, the oppressed, the outcasts of society. It made a difference – some historians claim it also prevented England from suffering a revolution much like that experienced across Europe. The Methodist movement changed the face of Christian service and worship. It’s a proud heritage. Unfortunately, it’s also one that many Methodists don’t know, or forget. Our traditions matter, but they are supposed to free us up to worship and serve God, not tie us up and keep us down. We are all part of the Christian church that began 2000 years ago. The world out there often doesn’t know the differences or similarities between Christian denominations, and it doesn’t particularly care. More importantly they don’t know the story of Jesus that reconciles human beings with God offering them life in all its fullness.
This years’ Week of Prayer for Christian has the theme ‘change’. Change is at the heart of our Christian faith. St Paul said that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, and we are called to live as children in the light. Even in the changes that we face. This year there will be changes in the Woking and Walton-on-Thames circuit as ministerial staff move to new appointments and this circuit decides how it will minister within congregations and to the wider community. Each one of us will be affected and all of us can be involved in talking about the changes that need to happen. As part of this decision-making process Weybridge Methodist Church will meet around noon on 29th January to hear and discuss the options that are available as we look forward to September 2012 and beyond. All are invited and I urge each one of you to attend, to listen to each other, and to feed back to the Circuit Leadership Team prior to the next Circuit meeting.
Just as praying for Christian unity matters, it also matters that our circuit is enabled to love and care for others, grow in Christian discipleship, and proclaim God’s good news. Please make every effort to attend the meeting and remember that in all the changes of life God calls us and equips us.
Love and prayers,
Chrissie
January 2012
Dear Friends,
As we stand at the beginning of a new year each one of us will have hopes, ideas, plans, concerns and fears for what lies ahead in 2012.
As we recall the Christmas story, embark on a near year and make our Covenant with God where is our focus? What will we value the most? The stuff we give and get? The things we put down? The people around us? Or the gift of a baby, born in a dirty, draughty stable, who grew up to be the man who said I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full? Where will our focus be in 2012? On our own dreams and ambitions? Or on our God, who loves us more than we can say and became human to make the point?
Church historian and theologian, Jaroslav Pelikan says, ‘Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life… Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes then the whole enterprise will crumble’.
May God forgive us if we are stuck in the rut of traditionalism, and may God’s Holy Spirit enable us to follow the tradition.
Love and prayers for 2012,
Chrissie
As we stand at the beginning of a new year each one of us will have hopes, ideas, plans, concerns and fears for what lies ahead in 2012.
As we recall the Christmas story, embark on a near year and make our Covenant with God where is our focus? What will we value the most? The stuff we give and get? The things we put down? The people around us? Or the gift of a baby, born in a dirty, draughty stable, who grew up to be the man who said I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full? Where will our focus be in 2012? On our own dreams and ambitions? Or on our God, who loves us more than we can say and became human to make the point?
Church historian and theologian, Jaroslav Pelikan says, ‘Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life… Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes then the whole enterprise will crumble’.
May God forgive us if we are stuck in the rut of traditionalism, and may God’s Holy Spirit enable us to follow the tradition.
Love and prayers for 2012,
Chrissie
December 2011
Dear Friends,
Once again we enter the Advent season. A time when we look forward expectantly to the birth of Christ, the fulfilment of God’s promise to renew and transform the world. But Advent is so much more than an eager anticipation of Christmas Day, even if our attitude is similar to the small boy in the current John Lewis Christmas television advertisement.
Advent is a time when we take an honest look at our own lives and our relationship with God. The liturgical colour for Advent is purple – it’s a sign of repentance for the ways we live that do not reflect the love God has for us, and our calling as Christian people to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
If we want to see peace and justice in our world it begins with us, our relationship with God and how it influences and affects how we relate to others. If we want to see spiritual and numerical growth at Weybridge Methodist Church it begins with our commitment to Christian discipleship and fellowship with one another. This cannot be done for us or without us – it has to come from within us. If we want to be transformed by God’s Holy Spirit it requires an act of our will, an attitude of honesty, and repentance from the things we think, do, and say, that are not life-giving to us or others. If we want the miracle of Christmas – God incarnate, God become human – we need to take on the mind of Christ, to desire to become more Christ-like.
May this Advent season be a time of honesty, repentance, and a seeking after transformation for ourselves and our congregation.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
Once again we enter the Advent season. A time when we look forward expectantly to the birth of Christ, the fulfilment of God’s promise to renew and transform the world. But Advent is so much more than an eager anticipation of Christmas Day, even if our attitude is similar to the small boy in the current John Lewis Christmas television advertisement.
Advent is a time when we take an honest look at our own lives and our relationship with God. The liturgical colour for Advent is purple – it’s a sign of repentance for the ways we live that do not reflect the love God has for us, and our calling as Christian people to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
If we want to see peace and justice in our world it begins with us, our relationship with God and how it influences and affects how we relate to others. If we want to see spiritual and numerical growth at Weybridge Methodist Church it begins with our commitment to Christian discipleship and fellowship with one another. This cannot be done for us or without us – it has to come from within us. If we want to be transformed by God’s Holy Spirit it requires an act of our will, an attitude of honesty, and repentance from the things we think, do, and say, that are not life-giving to us or others. If we want the miracle of Christmas – God incarnate, God become human – we need to take on the mind of Christ, to desire to become more Christ-like.
May this Advent season be a time of honesty, repentance, and a seeking after transformation for ourselves and our congregation.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
October 2011
Dear Friends,
Almost since the beginning of human history individuals and communities have given thanks for the successful harvesting of crops. It isn’t surprising. Being able to grow food ensures people can live. Being able to sell food means people can barter or buy other essentials for life, even luxuries. On 16th October we celebrate our harvest festival. A time when we give thanks to God for all that we have. Just as importantly, it is an opportunity to share the essentials of life, even luxuries, with those who are the poorest in our society.
As we celebrate the annual harvest we need to also remember God’s harvest; the kingdom of God. Earlier this year the congregation at Weybridge Methodist Church put together a plan of how this community of faith can participate in spreading God’s Good News. As Christian people we are called not only to worship God, but to serve God as well. At our Church Council 18th October we will revisit our plan and talk about how much we have done to date and how we can put these plans into action, and then act! It’s the calling of each one of us; we cannot sit back and hope, or expect, someone else to do these things for us. There are opportunities for everyone in the congregation to be involved. If we don’t do it, God hasn’t made any other plans.
God’s kingdom is shared and extended because we share God’s Good News with people outside the doors of Weybridge Methodist Church. It will take time, money and energy, but the rewards are far greater than the cost.
I urge each one of you to remember God’s love, to give thanks, and to share it with all whom you meet. Please let me, or a member of Church Council, know in advance of the 18th October what you are prepared to do to ensure Weybridge Methodist Church puts into practice God’s message of love, grace, mercy, hope, joy, and peace. The Bible reminds us that the harvest is ready but the workers are few. Let’s not be discouraged by the numbers. Let’s make sure that we participate in God’s kingdom work. Our God, and our society, needs you!
Every blessing,
Chrissie
Almost since the beginning of human history individuals and communities have given thanks for the successful harvesting of crops. It isn’t surprising. Being able to grow food ensures people can live. Being able to sell food means people can barter or buy other essentials for life, even luxuries. On 16th October we celebrate our harvest festival. A time when we give thanks to God for all that we have. Just as importantly, it is an opportunity to share the essentials of life, even luxuries, with those who are the poorest in our society.
As we celebrate the annual harvest we need to also remember God’s harvest; the kingdom of God. Earlier this year the congregation at Weybridge Methodist Church put together a plan of how this community of faith can participate in spreading God’s Good News. As Christian people we are called not only to worship God, but to serve God as well. At our Church Council 18th October we will revisit our plan and talk about how much we have done to date and how we can put these plans into action, and then act! It’s the calling of each one of us; we cannot sit back and hope, or expect, someone else to do these things for us. There are opportunities for everyone in the congregation to be involved. If we don’t do it, God hasn’t made any other plans.
God’s kingdom is shared and extended because we share God’s Good News with people outside the doors of Weybridge Methodist Church. It will take time, money and energy, but the rewards are far greater than the cost.
I urge each one of you to remember God’s love, to give thanks, and to share it with all whom you meet. Please let me, or a member of Church Council, know in advance of the 18th October what you are prepared to do to ensure Weybridge Methodist Church puts into practice God’s message of love, grace, mercy, hope, joy, and peace. The Bible reminds us that the harvest is ready but the workers are few. Let’s not be discouraged by the numbers. Let’s make sure that we participate in God’s kingdom work. Our God, and our society, needs you!
Every blessing,
Chrissie
September 2011
Dear Friends,
Many of you will, by now, have heard the news that the Woking and Walton-on-Thames circuit has agreed to the curtailment of my appointment from August 2012. Over the past six months I have prayerfully considered how I may actively and fruitfully fulfil my calling as a presbyter in the Methodist Church. During this time I have received counsel from family, friends, and experienced ministers. My decision to ask for a curtailment has not been easy or made lightly.
In most professions it is unusual to give or receive twelve months’ notice. However, by so doing, it provides the best opportunity for both me and the circuit to seek a new appointment. The stationing process in the Methodist Church begins in September when circuits and ministers seeking appointments complete a profile form. This is followed by three stationing matching rounds, November and December 2011, and January 2012. At each round, ministers and circuits meet together and then decide whether they wish to accept the match. After January, matching continues until as many ministers and circuits as possible have new appointments for September 2012. All appointments are then approved at the Methodist Conference in June 2012. This is in keeping with the ecclesiology of the Methodist Church where ministers are sent to circuits as ‘circuit ministers’.
Over the past year, at circuit and local church level, we have experienced a time of change and constancy. There have been changes within the circuit staff and the circuit leadership team, and within the community at Weybridge Methodist Church. At the same time decisions have either not been made, or have not materialized into action.
The Methodist community in Weybridge spent three months at the beginning of this year seeking God’s vision, discussing ways forward, and how these ideas may be implemented. At the next Church Council we will revisit these themes and explore our progress. The body of Christ depends on the participation of each member for plans to come to life and bear fruit. God calls each one of us to an ever-deepening relationship as we fulfil our high calling to proclaim the Good News of Christ, but Christian discipleship is not done to us, or for us, or without us. As individuals and corporately we are all called to positively and actively participate in, and demonstrate, the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. As I wrote in July’s newsletter we are called to action; the service of Holy Communion reminds us of Christ’s words, ‘do this in remembrance of me.’
It is my prayer that over the coming year all of us will continue to seek God’s will and work together for God’s praise and glory as we move towards the future.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
Many of you will, by now, have heard the news that the Woking and Walton-on-Thames circuit has agreed to the curtailment of my appointment from August 2012. Over the past six months I have prayerfully considered how I may actively and fruitfully fulfil my calling as a presbyter in the Methodist Church. During this time I have received counsel from family, friends, and experienced ministers. My decision to ask for a curtailment has not been easy or made lightly.
In most professions it is unusual to give or receive twelve months’ notice. However, by so doing, it provides the best opportunity for both me and the circuit to seek a new appointment. The stationing process in the Methodist Church begins in September when circuits and ministers seeking appointments complete a profile form. This is followed by three stationing matching rounds, November and December 2011, and January 2012. At each round, ministers and circuits meet together and then decide whether they wish to accept the match. After January, matching continues until as many ministers and circuits as possible have new appointments for September 2012. All appointments are then approved at the Methodist Conference in June 2012. This is in keeping with the ecclesiology of the Methodist Church where ministers are sent to circuits as ‘circuit ministers’.
Over the past year, at circuit and local church level, we have experienced a time of change and constancy. There have been changes within the circuit staff and the circuit leadership team, and within the community at Weybridge Methodist Church. At the same time decisions have either not been made, or have not materialized into action.
The Methodist community in Weybridge spent three months at the beginning of this year seeking God’s vision, discussing ways forward, and how these ideas may be implemented. At the next Church Council we will revisit these themes and explore our progress. The body of Christ depends on the participation of each member for plans to come to life and bear fruit. God calls each one of us to an ever-deepening relationship as we fulfil our high calling to proclaim the Good News of Christ, but Christian discipleship is not done to us, or for us, or without us. As individuals and corporately we are all called to positively and actively participate in, and demonstrate, the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. As I wrote in July’s newsletter we are called to action; the service of Holy Communion reminds us of Christ’s words, ‘do this in remembrance of me.’
It is my prayer that over the coming year all of us will continue to seek God’s will and work together for God’s praise and glory as we move towards the future.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
August 2011
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your prayers as I went forward for Reception into Full Connexion and Ordination at the beginning of July. A particular thanks to the circuit for the gift of an ‘ordinary time’ stole which I will enjoy wearing when I preside at Holy Communion. It was wonderful to be able to share the occasion with friends old and new and I hope you may also be able to enjoy watching the service where I was Received into Full Connexion, it can be found on the internet with the following link (I’m usually stood behind the President of Conference!):
http://www.methodistconference.org.uk/southport-2011/2011-07-03/1100-am/conference-worship-service
This year was also the first time I have been at Conference for the duration and it really was a joy to behold the Methodist Church discussing important issues and making strategic decisions about our future. The singing is also fantastic and saw the launch of the new Methodist hymn and song book, Singing the Faith – it’s worth considering buying a copy! The Conference saw the inauguration of Revd. Leo Osborne as President and Mrs Ruth Pickles as Vice-President. It also bade farewell to Revd. Ken Howcroft, Assistant Secretary to Conference, who will be ‘our man in Rome’ from September. However, the future is safe in the hands of Revd. Gareth Powell who has worked with Ken for a number of years and will become the new Assistant Secretary to Conference. Following a Conference decision, Revd. Dr. Martyn Atkins was elected to remain the General Secretary until 2018. The 2012 Conference will be in Plymouth where Revd. Dr. Mark Wakefield will become President and Mr Mike Smith Vice-President. It is wonderful to think that the Methodist Conference has been in continuous session since 1744 since conference never closes, ends its sessions, or dissolves itself but simply adjourns until it meets again!
May you continue to enjoy the weather and may you each find refreshment and renewal over the summer period.
Love and prayers,
Chrissie
Thank you for your prayers as I went forward for Reception into Full Connexion and Ordination at the beginning of July. A particular thanks to the circuit for the gift of an ‘ordinary time’ stole which I will enjoy wearing when I preside at Holy Communion. It was wonderful to be able to share the occasion with friends old and new and I hope you may also be able to enjoy watching the service where I was Received into Full Connexion, it can be found on the internet with the following link (I’m usually stood behind the President of Conference!):
http://www.methodistconference.org.uk/southport-2011/2011-07-03/1100-am/conference-worship-service
This year was also the first time I have been at Conference for the duration and it really was a joy to behold the Methodist Church discussing important issues and making strategic decisions about our future. The singing is also fantastic and saw the launch of the new Methodist hymn and song book, Singing the Faith – it’s worth considering buying a copy! The Conference saw the inauguration of Revd. Leo Osborne as President and Mrs Ruth Pickles as Vice-President. It also bade farewell to Revd. Ken Howcroft, Assistant Secretary to Conference, who will be ‘our man in Rome’ from September. However, the future is safe in the hands of Revd. Gareth Powell who has worked with Ken for a number of years and will become the new Assistant Secretary to Conference. Following a Conference decision, Revd. Dr. Martyn Atkins was elected to remain the General Secretary until 2018. The 2012 Conference will be in Plymouth where Revd. Dr. Mark Wakefield will become President and Mr Mike Smith Vice-President. It is wonderful to think that the Methodist Conference has been in continuous session since 1744 since conference never closes, ends its sessions, or dissolves itself but simply adjourns until it meets again!
May you continue to enjoy the weather and may you each find refreshment and renewal over the summer period.
Love and prayers,
Chrissie
July 2011
Dear Friends,
This is the last time I shall write before I am received into full Connexion and ordained at the 2011 Methodist Conference in Southport. I’m looking forward to the ordination retreat and the opportunity to reflect on the journey that brings me to this day and to the journey ahead. Reception into full Connexion and ordination means many things; the most visible difference will be my authorization to preside at Holy Communion. I am delighted that my first service with you post-ordination is a celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Recently I have been exploring the different eucharistic services Methodists have used since 1936 and I found a very helpful reflection from Gordon Wakefield about receiving Holy Communion; I pray you will find this abridged version a helpful way to consider what it means to eat the bread and drink the wine:
How shall I come?
As I am – I could not come otherwise – with my muddled ideas on the meaning of life… and yet with a strange hunger and thirst for the life I think I see in Christ and the saints, for ultimate reality as against the passing show and subterfuge of the dimension in which I spend much of my time. I shall come seeking… even though I do not know precisely what… I shall come, too, out of loyalty to my fellow Christians throughout the world, who ‘do this’ because they believe Christ told them to. I shall try to prepare my mind… If nothing else, I shall pray: Lord, help me to join with your people on earth and in heaven to celebrate your love and be at one with you in your continuing purpose for all humanity and all creation. But I must also decide who I am going to take with me… I ought to join in Christian worship with a specific intention directed as a rule to someone other than myself, who may not be present.
What happens when I am here?
There may be felt inspiration, a powerful sermon, fine music and a sense of Christ’s presence. It may be all anti-climax, badly organized, the microphone out of order, the preacher not at their best, a dull and wearisome formality and I shall be like stone as I receive bread and wine. My thoughts may wander… Perhaps there is something wrong with me and I need to go to the root of my being and talk over my failure to respond… But I ought to fasten on to something – some phrase in prayer, Scripture or sermon, some action or demand. If the heavenly thoughts won’t come I ought to ask how the love which the service is supposed to proclaim – even though it is done badly – may reach others through me? Sometimes I shall want to still my mind altogether… carried along by the drama of the liturgy. And I must never forget that I am a member of the congregation. I must not simply regard the service as the background to my own private thoughts. I must join in…
What should happen afterwards?
I shall probably get caught up in friendly words with the dispersing people before I become immersed once again in the cares or pleasures of my own particular relationships. Sometimes I shall need to go away quietly by myself and think over again what has happened and what its demand on me is. The service ought to come back to me during the week… as I make my domestic or business decisions and deal with the people I meet… But most important of all is action. ‘DO this in remembrance of me.’ I myself with fellow Christians must become the sacrament of God’s love to the world. Christ says, not only of the eucharistic bread but of the Church: THIS IS MY BODY.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
This is the last time I shall write before I am received into full Connexion and ordained at the 2011 Methodist Conference in Southport. I’m looking forward to the ordination retreat and the opportunity to reflect on the journey that brings me to this day and to the journey ahead. Reception into full Connexion and ordination means many things; the most visible difference will be my authorization to preside at Holy Communion. I am delighted that my first service with you post-ordination is a celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Recently I have been exploring the different eucharistic services Methodists have used since 1936 and I found a very helpful reflection from Gordon Wakefield about receiving Holy Communion; I pray you will find this abridged version a helpful way to consider what it means to eat the bread and drink the wine:
How shall I come?
As I am – I could not come otherwise – with my muddled ideas on the meaning of life… and yet with a strange hunger and thirst for the life I think I see in Christ and the saints, for ultimate reality as against the passing show and subterfuge of the dimension in which I spend much of my time. I shall come seeking… even though I do not know precisely what… I shall come, too, out of loyalty to my fellow Christians throughout the world, who ‘do this’ because they believe Christ told them to. I shall try to prepare my mind… If nothing else, I shall pray: Lord, help me to join with your people on earth and in heaven to celebrate your love and be at one with you in your continuing purpose for all humanity and all creation. But I must also decide who I am going to take with me… I ought to join in Christian worship with a specific intention directed as a rule to someone other than myself, who may not be present.
What happens when I am here?
There may be felt inspiration, a powerful sermon, fine music and a sense of Christ’s presence. It may be all anti-climax, badly organized, the microphone out of order, the preacher not at their best, a dull and wearisome formality and I shall be like stone as I receive bread and wine. My thoughts may wander… Perhaps there is something wrong with me and I need to go to the root of my being and talk over my failure to respond… But I ought to fasten on to something – some phrase in prayer, Scripture or sermon, some action or demand. If the heavenly thoughts won’t come I ought to ask how the love which the service is supposed to proclaim – even though it is done badly – may reach others through me? Sometimes I shall want to still my mind altogether… carried along by the drama of the liturgy. And I must never forget that I am a member of the congregation. I must not simply regard the service as the background to my own private thoughts. I must join in…
What should happen afterwards?
I shall probably get caught up in friendly words with the dispersing people before I become immersed once again in the cares or pleasures of my own particular relationships. Sometimes I shall need to go away quietly by myself and think over again what has happened and what its demand on me is. The service ought to come back to me during the week… as I make my domestic or business decisions and deal with the people I meet… But most important of all is action. ‘DO this in remembrance of me.’ I myself with fellow Christians must become the sacrament of God’s love to the world. Christ says, not only of the eucharistic bread but of the Church: THIS IS MY BODY.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
June 2011
Dear Friends,
God is known by many names. In the Hebrew Bible he is known to Moses as ‘I AM’. As people of faith developed their relationship with God other names come into use to address and describe God such as Creator, Deliverer, Truth, Redeemer, Father, Rock, Mother, Prince of Peace, Immanuel, Love, Life, Light of the world, Saviour. This list could on forever. People use different names to denote God’s nature and communicate the acts of the divine. Which names do you use? Are you more comfortable with some than others? Do you use different names in different situations? How do you decide?
On 19th June we will celebrate Trinity Sunday. The word ‘Trinity’ is not in the Bible but there are many Bible verses that point to the triune God of Father, Son and Spirit. And the Nicene Creed has been used in the Church to profess the Christian faith since 325 AD. It’s inscribed on the wall behind our communion table. It took a serious Church Council in the fourth century to try and describe how God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It also led to Church division. In many ways it still does. How do you understand the Trinity? Three people, three natures, three different modes of working? Do you focus on the Spirit, the Father, or the Son, or a combination encompassed by the word ‘God’?
The prayer in the Hebrew Bible, the Shema, still recited today reminds us the Lord our God, the Lord is one! As we continue our journey through the Easter season with Jesus’ ascension and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost may we each celebrate and pray:
O God our mystery, you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Spirit, and ever live and reign in the perfect unity of love. You bring us to life, call us to freedom, and move between us with love. May we so participate in the dance of your trinity, that our lives may resonate with you, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
God is known by many names. In the Hebrew Bible he is known to Moses as ‘I AM’. As people of faith developed their relationship with God other names come into use to address and describe God such as Creator, Deliverer, Truth, Redeemer, Father, Rock, Mother, Prince of Peace, Immanuel, Love, Life, Light of the world, Saviour. This list could on forever. People use different names to denote God’s nature and communicate the acts of the divine. Which names do you use? Are you more comfortable with some than others? Do you use different names in different situations? How do you decide?
On 19th June we will celebrate Trinity Sunday. The word ‘Trinity’ is not in the Bible but there are many Bible verses that point to the triune God of Father, Son and Spirit. And the Nicene Creed has been used in the Church to profess the Christian faith since 325 AD. It’s inscribed on the wall behind our communion table. It took a serious Church Council in the fourth century to try and describe how God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It also led to Church division. In many ways it still does. How do you understand the Trinity? Three people, three natures, three different modes of working? Do you focus on the Spirit, the Father, or the Son, or a combination encompassed by the word ‘God’?
The prayer in the Hebrew Bible, the Shema, still recited today reminds us the Lord our God, the Lord is one! As we continue our journey through the Easter season with Jesus’ ascension and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost may we each celebrate and pray:
O God our mystery, you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Spirit, and ever live and reign in the perfect unity of love. You bring us to life, call us to freedom, and move between us with love. May we so participate in the dance of your trinity, that our lives may resonate with you, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Every blessing,
Chrissie
