Clergy

The Curate Writes…

Clergy

From Sunday when Shirley and Mark (who were both baptised) and Caroline and Sam were all confirmed by Bishop Mark at a moving ceremony at Worth Abbey to the events of the General Election on Thursday, it has been quite a week in many ways.
I believe that our readings today offer an insight into both.

In the reading from Acts, Peter realises that the Holy Spirit is being poured out to everyone and our Gospel reading tells us of a love that loves one another in the sacrificial and abundant way of Jesus Christ.
It is this pouring out of the gift of the Holy Spirit that Shirley, Mark, Caroline and Sam experienced on Sunday as Bishop Mark placed his hands on their heads. It is the receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, that is open to all that then prompts us, and gives us strength to love one another just as Jesus loved us.

As a New Home Group met in Maidenbower Vicarage this week for the first time, as the Pilgrim Course and Confirmation Group merged, both Liz and I could feel that love for one another as we celebrated the events of Sunday. This love also prompts some brave individuals to express that love for one another by seeking to serve as Members of Parliament.

As I write we have just learnt that Henry Smith has been re-elected as our MP. In his service for Crawley, Henry will be making sacrifices as he continues to serve us and we must uphold him and his family in prayer. We must also pray for those who offered to serve but were unsuccessful and who must now discern their futures. We think especially of Noreen and Geoff’s son, Chris.

Steve

The Rector Writes…

Clergy

Alleluia! Christ is Risen.

This Sunday is one bursting with activity – like the vine branches in our gospel reading bearing much fruit. It is a joy to be welcoming Bishop Geoffrey back to the 9.45 service at St Nicholas and for Canon Christine as his deacon for that service. Her recent installation as a Canon of Chichester recognises the contribution she has made to ecumenism and theological education.

Their visit reminds us of the way in which we, both as individuals and as a Christian community in this place and time, are branches connected with others and abiding in the one true vine. We are each called to bear fruit but also to rejoice in the fruit borne by other branches. As the Nic’s congregation gathers for the monthly all-age worship service at St Nicholas this morning we give thanks for the life that congregation draws from the Messy Church initiative at St Barnabas – and rejoice at the plans developing to have Nic’s on another Sunday in the month too and start a new Messy Church service in Maidenbower.

They’re the kind of examples of our common life that featured in the encouraging visit Archdeacon Fiona made to the parish last week as part of the review of ministry in Crawley and Horsham. The gospel reading also reminds us that fruit-bearing branches need to be pruned in order to stay healthy – something that applies in each of our spiritual lives as well as our common life. No one said it was easy! But, again, we can see the fruit in occasions like this afternoon’s baptisms & confirmations at Worth Abbey (by Bishop Mark) do, please, pray for the 16 candidates and   especially the 12 candidates prepared by Steve and myself.

Anthony

The Curate Writes…

Clergy

‘I am the good shepherd’ is our Gospel reading today and at different times a good shepherd will gather his flock – and this is at the heart of the Big Church Day Out.

‘What’ is the Big Church Day Out? And ‘Why’ am I writing about it?

The ‘What Question’ – The Big Church Day Out seeks to bring whole Church families together to have fun and fellowship in the stunning setting of Wiston House in the West Sussex countryside.

The ‘Why Question’ – because Liz and I are co-ordinating a group from the Parish – Sunday 24th May – gates open at 10am and close at 10pm.

Liz will leave early and set up a space for our Parish to gather together for the day.

After the Church services, Anthony, James and I will then leave to join everyone for a bring-your-own picnic (I will be trawling other picnics for the best bits!). Then you will be free to enjoy the wide range of fun things to do – from the main concert stage to the peace and prayer space of the Wiston Chapel – to the cream tea tent with Graham Kendrick playing, while others will enjoy rock climbing, face painting and fairground rides.

There is something for everyone – including a vast array of cafes and catering vans. The day will end with Bishop Richard launching the Diocesan Mission Strategy on stage. We have a big discount on tickets; £18 for adults, £12.50 for children (age 5 to 16) and £2.50 for under 5’s. There is a “sign up sheet” and more info at the back of both Churches, but do ask Steve and Liz about anything. These days are so important in building and deepening the Church family.

Steve

The Associate Vicar Writes…

Clergy

If there was one point to make about the Gospel this Sunday then it should be this: The disciples’ unbelief knows no bounds.

  • They are told by the women and don’t believe that someone could be raised from the dead.
  • They didn’t believe the two disciples who running back from Emmaus after their encounter with the risen Christ came to tell them the good news.
  • When Jesus enters the room they believe he is a ghost.
  • Even after Jesus shows him his wounds they still don’t believe it possible that Jesus could have come back from the tomb.

It takes Jesus eating for them to believe that he was alive.  It is not only Thomas who doubts but all eleven disciples are struggling to come to terms with this weird and wonderful news.

David Lose, president of the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia, and one of my favourite bloggers, writes on this Sunday’s reading “If you don’t have serious doubts about the Easter story, you’re not paying attention.”  That a human being is able to be raised from the dead is so improbable that it demands of us to completely rethink how we believe the world functions.  What looked like total failure suddenly became a victory that changed the world.

And so doubt is inextricably part of our faith.  It is part of the process that enables us to expand our understanding of how God works in our world.  And how God works in and through everyone of us! The disciples’ understanding of the world was changed by meeting the risen Christ.  Our understanding should change too, if we are paying attention.

This also affects how we see ourselves within our Christian community.  What wonderful works is God able to do with us?  We might have to re-imagine how God can use us as God’s Church in our parish.

The Curate writes…

Clergy, Uncategorized

I am writing this, having just got in from a round of golf at Tilgate. I teed off at 6am all alone with the sun just rising and just enough light to see my golf ball.  The next few hours I was alone amongst God’s wonderful creation, with my golf clubs, a small white ball and several deer for company.

I was thinking what I might write in this weeks pew sheet – should I expand upon the need to have healthy doubts, such as Thomas in our Gospel reading, and always be willing to ask ourselves questions so that our faith remains real, open and vibrant. However, as I swung a golf club and then looked for my ball in the woods – my thoughts settled on the enormous challenging picture that our Acts reading offers of the early Church. A place where testimonies were given, there was no envy, there was no need and there was grace upon them all.

What about our Parish? As a family we have found the last year financially challenging as we made the decision that Liz would not seek paid employment in order to support the girls and our ministry in the Parish. This was okay apart from some rather large car bills, but God has blessed us even then – for several anonymous cash gifts arrived that exactly covered the bills. We also received two bags of food goodies at Christmas and a bag of Christmas gifts on our doorstep. This has meant that we have all felt loved, valued and provided for by a loving family – a family that this weekend bids goodbye to Meurig (thank you, Meurig, for all you have done). A family that can at times truly reflect the picture of Church, painted in Acts.

Thank You – the Burstons

The Rector Writes…

Clergy

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

Last night at the Easter Vigil, bells rang out and we brought the church out of darkness into light – the light of Christ.

This morning we celebrate afresh, in the spirit of Mary Magdalene, the glorious Gospel … the Good News that Christ died and on the third day rose again … the Good News that heralds the joyous fact that from that moment on everything was different. Our celebration continues today with the wonderful privilege of baptising, as has been the custom of the Church on this day since the earliest times, three precious young children.

We welcome three children, their families and friends today for baptism. Our celebration today is a far cry from the media’s insistence that Easter, like Christmas, has lost its real meaning; that it has become just another retail season. The BBC writes, “A large, feathery egg stands in the middle of a small street in a shopping area in north London. Beneath it is an Easter message: ‘This egg is to remind people to shop at the independent retailer’”.

Such messages reinforce the importance of our telling, re-telling and telling again the Good News of the Easter Story – just as Peter and Paul do in our readings. It is the re-telling of this story, our story, which has been at the heart of our Holy Week Services. And so we have been reminded that it remains just as much Good News today as it did to the early Christians. Following the risen Christ means life, abundant and joy-filled life. That is what we celebrate today in the renewal of our Baptismal vows together with those being newly baptised.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The Curate Writes…

Clergy

It must have been an amazing moment for the disciples.  They had spent several years waiting for it.  Their Teacher was entering the city of Jerusalem to the acclaim of the masses – surely this was the time when the Jewish nation would be restored and the Roman occupation ended.

At the euphoria, Jesus’ prediction of his suffering death must have faded briefly away.  However, as we know, the cheers of the masses soon disappeared through Holy Week.  What the crowd saw as the way to restore the Jewish Nation was not God’s plan.

In many ways, being surprised by God has been the story of my life.  I was happy in the police with a career mapped out to retirement and then I came to faith.  The plan I had sketched out for myself was gone, God had rather different, exciting and challenging plans.  Indeed, when I started Theological College I had a clear vision of the type of Church I would serve my curacy in. Again God had different ideas – Liz, the girls and I found us called to the wonderful Parish of Worth.

Likewise, I have no doubt that the new members and existing members of our PCC never expected to be members and for some Church and Deputy Church Wardens.

So, as they enter their terms of office I would like to thank them for stepping out in faith and ask them and all of us to be continually open that God’s plans might not always be our plans.

Steve

The Associate Vicar writes…

Clergy

Last Tuesday we were asked at the Lent Course to take stock of our Lenten journey. It had been nearly four weeks since the beginning of Lent. As we all experience it can feel an awful long time and the energy that might still have been there at the beginning of lent often has faded a little by now.

With this Sunday we enter Passiontide.  These last two weeks before Good Friday we are on the home straight of Lent. How did we set out on our Lenten path? What has made us stumble on the way?

The Readings this Sunday remind us that stumbling is all too human. Israel stumbled their way through the desert for forty years.

But God is faithful. God is in the process of setting up a new covenant. Although we might stumble Jesus hasn’t and so we have hope that we too have a share in the new covenant promised to.

In this hope we can regain strength to continue where we might have left our Lenten journey. Let this Sunday be a time where we can refocus on our path with James so that we are prepared and ready to enter into the joy of Easter.

 

James

The Rector Writes…

Clergy

As a fitting preparation for Mothering Sunday, my week has had a considerable focus on children through two school chaplaincy-related events. The first arranged by Gordon Parry (as part of his ‘day job’) for our Diocese looked at the changing context and expectations of chaplains. The second, held at Worth School and led by a brother from the Taizé Community, reflected on faith development for teenagers. One message that came through strongly in both sessions was the need to listen, listen and listen again to what young people are telling us about their experience of the world, about their experience of God and (if we’re lucky!) their experience of the church. It needs the sort of listening that a loving parent does for their child. It is a kind of listening that gets beyond the ‘surface chatter’, the glib “It’s fine” to the deeper experiences of loneliness, insecurity or uncertainty. As I reflected on this I was greatly encouraged by the knowledge of our commitment as a parish to young people and families. I felt a profound gratitude to those who have stepped forward to support (in so many ways) the vision of our church family providing a safe place (physically and emotionally) where all can feel valued and confident in exploring and growing in the realisation of God’s love for them, discovering their self-worth. A mother-like church. As Jesus hung on the cross, in his last agony, he took care to form a new bond between his mother and John. We are the inheritors of that promise and command: to be as mother and son to each other. Whether or not our experience of mothers (or motherhood) and families has been positive, we can identify with the ideal of a relationship of unconditional love. It is God’s gift.

Anthony

The Curate writes..

Clergy

The Ten Commandments was said at the 8am Service today. Rules and especially these rules are important for us to flourish.

I grew up playing football in the park pretty much all summer. We would put jumpers down as goal posts, select captain and teams and kick off.

Games would last until either until the score became ridiculous one-sided or we had to go home to tea (generally late! – sorry mum) or more often when someone ignored the vague rules we played to – football without any rules isn’t much fun; goalkeepers picked up the ball miles from their goals, they changed the size of their goals depending how they felt, the pitch would stretch across the whole of the park as their lines to follow and handball and fouling could be the norm.

How much better it was when we played for our clubs when we followed the rules – marked out pitches, standardised goals and a referee. This allowed the game to flow, skills to develop and a better experience; and so it is with life – we live in a culture that demands freedom and fights against any rules. However, a society without any rules doesn’t allow us to flourish or protect each other.

Obviously the other extreme is following the rules so tightly that they become oppressive – a whistle happy referee (with no idea of the advantage rule) kills any chance of an exciting and free-flowing game. Jesus showed that a faith based only on following the letter of the law, like the Pharisees, was not the way to live a life abundantly.

He did not abolish the law but challenged us to see it through the lens of loving God and each other. That is still our challenge today not to ignore the rules but also not to become Christians that create a faith suffocated by rules. To play the game, knowing like Jesus – the advantage rule!

Steve