Pewsheets

From Roger Brown…

Pewsheets

From time to time you may read or hear about someone who has ‘lost their faith’. They no longer go to church or have given up their Ministry because of problems with belief.

To ‘lose one’s faith’ is a strange phrase because faith is not a substance or commodity – a thing to be lost. Faith is about a relationship with the mystery we call God.

There are those people who are full of certainty, which in my view is a very worrying position to hold. The opposite of certainly is not doubt but faith.
Our Christian journey is about learning to live with questions. We cannot, by definition, know all the answers but we keep on our journey, as we say, ‘in good faith’. I suspect that many people hide their view on belief, thinking that others have no problems.

Believing is difficult, so join the club and let us journey together. For me, one of the most important words in the Bible is ‘Hope’. I find great encouragement in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Chapter 11). Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen!
Hope, as they say, springs eternal and St Paul tells us ‘There are three things that last for ever.  Faith, Hope and Love.’

Pewsheet for Week Beginning 2nd October 2016

Pewsheets

Click here for the pewsheet for the week beginning Sunday 2nd October 2016.

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Pewsheet for Week Beginning 18th September 2016

Pewsheets

Click here for the pewsheet for the week beginning Sunday 18th September 2016.

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A Walk in the Churchyard in Late Summer

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We had a query come in via the website from someone tracing their ancestors, so on a baking hot September day, Mark, our resident history-sleuth and myself (keeping him company) took ourselves up to St Nicholas’ to peer at ancient inscriptions and scratch our heads at Victorian paper plans of the graves.

Many are worn beyond reading and apparently you aren’t supposed to scrape off the ancient moss as it could be rare. Rare moss…. hmm.  Luckily we were also armed with a book from the Sixties, in which someone had painstakingly typed all the inscriptions legible at that time, which filled in a few literal blanks.

We’d started off our discussion at the back of church to escape the baking heat of the day, and saw that two visitors were looking round, using our new handy quick guides. They had good camera equipment and we left so as not to disturb them.

While kneeling on the grass trying to work out if that was an S or an F on a gravestone, the visitors approached us and got chatting about buildings – one man was a self confessed “Norman architecture freak” and the other “came along to take the pictures”. We were able to point them next in the direction of St Margaret’s at Ifield as another site of interest (especially as it’s near a pub!) and in return, the kindly photographer has just sent me a disk of the photographs he took of St Nicholas’.

A lovely morning for all. Here are some of his photographs. Thank you David!

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Fr. Roger Brown writes..

Pewsheets

Yesterday I read the obituary of Dr. David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham.  He was a very radical, passionate believer and teacher.  I remember hearing him speak at the General Synod about our understanding of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. He said the Resurrection was more than ‘a conjuring trick with bones’, that he was ‘not clear that God manoeuvres physical things but was clear that He works miracles through personal responses and faith’.

Bishop Jenkins challenged simplistic clichés and the way we often use words without thinking what they really mean.  Of course he was mocked by the media especially at Easter when he was accused of not believing in the traditional statement about the bodily Resurrection of Jesus.  As a statement of belief it poses more questions than it answers. Words matter and we need to use them with care.
A phrase that is used so very often is speaking of a dead person as having ‘passed away’.  We don’t pass away or pass to the other side.  We die.  Even today people try to avoid speaking about death.  At the heart of Christianity is the belief that Jesus died for our sins.  He didn’t ‘pass away’ for them.  He died.

So let us make sure we do use words with care and conviction.

Fr. Roger Brown

From the Rector…

Pewsheets

“Let mutual love continue” is a fittingly poignant scripture passage to have as a text for my final contribution to the column which goes online and in the pew sheet.

Our vision as a parish is to be a “Christian community growing in faith, hope and love” – and, as I am regularly reminded at weddings, St Paul declares that “the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13.13).  So, with the fifth anniversary of the Ball family moving in to the Rectory having just passed, I look back and recall my response to (I think) Bishop Mark at my interview.

Q. “What would you plan to do as Rector?”

A. “I’d want to love the people of the parish into a fuller experience of the joy of life in Christ” (or words to that effect).

Of course, I’ve failed more times that I’d care to admit.  But, even when struggling with parish admin late at night or perceived hostile comments, that motivation of love (received as well as given) has been a constant encouragement.  As another interregnum looms, I pray that I am not kidding myself in feeling there is a spirit abroad of greater confidence, a deeper sense of community and even some excitement amidst the anxiety for the future.  The fruit of mutual love, perhaps?

Going forward please, “do not neglect to do good and to share what you have”.  Most especially share, with each other and those who know it not, that precious gift of joy in the life of Christ.
Thank you for your love – receive mine.

+Anthony

Pewsheet for Week Beginning 28th August 2016

Pewsheets

Click here for the pewsheet for the week beginning Sunday 28th August 2016.

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