AUTUMN 2010: from the vicar
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ
I’m writing an AUTUMN LETTER with a bit of a difference.
I do, of course, wish to draw your attention to the Alpha course (begins 27 September), Harvest services at St Peters on Sunday 3 October with harvest supper and performance on Saturday 9, and at St Mary’s on Sunday 10 October (when there will be a joint morning service for the 9:30 and 11:00am services at 10:30am followed, hopefully, by a shared lunch), confirmation service (Sunday 17 October, 6:30pm at St Peter’s), and parish memorial service (Sunday 21 November, 3pm, also at St Peter’s).
The Alive at Five service will, for the time being, cease to happen. The service was a great opportunity to develop a different style of worship, and also as a place for people to develop new gifts. Sadly numbers have not been great, and we feel it is best to focus where there is growth. Evening services continue at St Mary’s at 6:30pm and we will be preaching through the Sermon on the Mount.
Work on the Hyndman Centre begins this week, and should be completed by the end of January. The Centre will hopefully remain open for most of this period.
Prayer remains at the centre of all that we are and do. So I again remind people of our Parish Prayer Meetings, held on the 3 Wednesday of each month, at 7:45pm, in the Hyndman Centre. It would be lovely if you could join us. However I recognize that many cannot and that people also meet at other times to pray. We have a new page on the website, http://www.stmarystpeter.net/index.php?PID=1978 , with items for prayer for the particular month. Please do use this in prayer groups, homegroups and personal prayer.
2011 is the 400 anniversary since the first publication of the King James Bible. We are therefore putting a programme in place focusing on the Bible. Robin is drawing up plans for a Bible exhibition in May in St Mary’s; We also plan to have an integrated bible reading scheme and Sunday preaching programme, encouraging people to read through the whole of the New Testament in 2011. More details to follow.
We also have a Parish Retreat booked for Friday 25 March to Sunday 27 March at Pleshey retreat house. Paul Hunt has agreed to lead our retreat. He is Spirituality Advisor in the Diocese of Worcester, and he was a CMS mission partner in Iran (before and during the Revolution). More details will follow, but please put these dates in your diary now.
And now, for something a little different!
I was very struck by a verse in Acts 9:31. It reads, 'and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, [the Church] multiplied' (ESV).
The earliest Christians knew the fear of God.
They knew from reading the Old Testament that God is the creator of the world; that he is absolute, sovereign, all powerful and holy; that rebellion against God (sin) brought and brings devastating consequences for people and for their families. They also knew the reality that human beings, as a whole are cut off from God, separated by self-centredness, pride, laziness and lust: we desire the things of this world before we desire being with the One who gave us those things.
One of the dreadful things about Hell is that people are there by divine decision and by personal choice. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), the rich man, in hell, does not ask to come out of hell. He asks that Lazarus should come and be his servant in hell. He is so used to the world rotating about him that he cannot contemplate being in a place where the world rotates around God, even when being in his own world means he is in torment. We begin to see that process happening here and now, as we reject God, turn in on ourselves and allow destructive forces to control us.
But the earliest Christians also experienced the astonishing power of God: a power that brought Jesus Christ back from the dead, healing to a man crippled from birth, shook buildings, struck Ananias and Sapphira down dead for lying to the church, and which breaks open and transforms a vicious persecutor of the church.
So as we move into Autumn, my prayer is that we will be a people who know and walk in the fear of the Lord. I would ask you to pray with me that our vision of God will grow bigger; that we will become more aware of what separation from God actually means (and what the cost to God was of reconciling himself to us), and that we will see what it is that our sin, particularly our recurring sins, do to God and to us; that God will judge us now so that we can change now; that the word of God will be a double-edged sword to us; and that, like the first Christians, we will be shaken by the power of God.
But I also pray that, like those first believers, we will know the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God with us and in us. He reveals to our hearts what we are told when we read the bible and meet as church: that this all powerful God is love; that because of Jesus our sins are forgiven; that when we have received Jesus we have gone through the barrier which separated us from God; that we can know God not simply as Almighty God, but as our Father in heaven. It is the Holy Spirit who makes us aware of the immeasurable blessings God has lavished on us, both seen and unseen. So do ask God to give us his Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13) and to fill us with his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).
Many of our people, in both churches, have experienced deep pain in the past few months. God does not promise to spare us from pain, but he does promise to be with us, walk with us as we go through pain (Isaiah 43:2), to ultimately restore us (1 Peter 5:10) and the whole of creation (Romans 8:20-21), and to bring us comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
I do not think that it surprising that the early church ‘multiplied’ in numbers. A people who take God seriously, and know God intimately, are astonishingly attractive. And God can work in them, among them and through them. I pray for that to be also said of us.
Thank you again for your partnership in the Gospel
Malcolm Rogers
(26 August 2010)