Thought for the week by Tim Dee McCullough

There are two things you never want to see being made: laws and sausages. I respectfully submit a third item for consideration: conveyancing, which remains as much a mystery now, as a house owner, as it was beforehand!

Major life transitions such as moving house can be a time of growth or a time of decline; very rarely do we stand still in those times. I often think that how we meet the change is as important as the change itself. If we regard significant upheavals throughout Biblical history, the people we hear about are those who accepted what was happening and made a conscious decision to embrace, influence, or change events. So too is this reflected in the rich and diverse heritage of the Methodist Connexion.

Transitions hurt: we’re exchanging an old reality for a new reality. In my career, leading strategic programmes, it can be astonishing how hard people will fight against change because of the fear and pain involved, no matter how much the proposal will improve their day-to-day experience. The same five stages of grief we experience when losing a loved one (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) apply just as equally to transitions. It is human for us to react, I find however, we achieve better outcomes when we respond.

Ruth responded to the death of her husband by finding an alternative source of food to support herself and Naomi. Joseph responded to his captivity by making himself useful, from Potiphar to the Pharoah. Esther responded to Haman’s machinations by using her influence and talents to save the Jewish people. Peter responded to the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and we now have the global church. William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, not to mention John Wesley, responded to the abject horrors of slavery by ensuring its abolition in the British Empire. Martin Luther King Jr responded to racial injustice by bringing about the most ground-breaking reforms for racial equality in the USA in his time. Would it have been more comfortable for each of these figures to react from fear and stay silent, than to respond? Undoubtedly at first, though I suspect the pain of not responding would have eventually overwhelmed the comfort of standing still.

Some questions to consider this week: What transition(s) are we each facing? How might we each work through these transitions prayerfully? What will be our first step to respond?

Very best wishes,

Tim

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

Thank you to all of you who have sent congratulations to the family on the birth of Rupert Mark.  What a lovely thing it is to have a baby in the house again!  But what a world he has been born into.  Concerns about the budget, increasingly difficult news from the Middle East, and the 2nd reading of the Assisted Dying bill, started in the House of Lords, are all matters for concern.  For us, as Christians they are particularly so because of our long-held belief, passed down to us by Christ, of the desire of God that humanity should have “life in all its fullness.”  Poverty and want, war and assisted suicide all challenge that belief in different ways. 

What then, are we doing about it here in the Thames Valley?  Well we continue to support our local foodbanks and other charitable activities, and across the Circuit we are running warm spaces, exploring partnerships with the local social services and schools and seeking to become ever more eco-friendly and more inclusive in our working and our welcoming. 

It's harder to know what to do with the situation in the Middle East.  But as I responded to an old friend’s invitation to her Adult Bat Mitzvah (think Adult Baptism) I realised that part of what we can do is to continue to build and strengthen those bonds with people whose heritage lies in that part of the world, Jewish or Palestinian.

The assisted dying bill is something that all Christians should be aware of, and lobby our MPs on.  Whichever side of the argument you come down on, and there are strong cases to be made for either, I wonder if now is the time for it?  It seems to me that the conversation should happen in an environment in which health and social care is working effectively and well, and this is not currently the case.  However, the Circuit Staff are thinking about the possibility of a zoom discussion on this topic, and we would like to know if that might be of interest.

I wonder what world Rupert’s grandchildren will be born into?  After all, poverty, war and ethical concerns are not new.  I suppose that all any of us can do is try to live well in the time given to us, seeking first the Kingdom of God, and trusting him for the rest. 

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

Methodism is a connexional church and the collective noun for us is “The Connexion”, deliberately spelled the way it was back in the 18th century.  However, what does that actually mean?   The technical description is “a form of church organisation especially in mission areas where scattered churches are held together by itinerant evangelists”.  However, in our understanding, it refers to the way in which Methodist churches are connected and work together to support one another, share resources and carry out mission and ministry.  All of us, at our best, are connected in a network of loyalties and commitments that support, yet supersede, local concerns. 

We do this in practical terms by paying quarterly into the Circuit through the assessment, which allows us as a circuit to employ ministers and an administrator, and also to undertake joint ministry and mission projects.  The big one on the horizon at the moment is the van project, and if you want to know more about that, then speak to your circuit meeting reps or to me next time you see us. 

But thinking about it in a more spiritual sense, we can understand it like this.  If each of us is a small piece or shard of pottery, we can hold a little water, but if those pieces are brought together, glued into a single cup, then they are capable of holding far more water than is ever possible by simply adding up the single pieces.  We are able to go beyond feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit into holding within our togetherness “streams of living water” that allow our cup to be filled and then to overflow. 

The times we spend together in fellowship, in our pastoral groups, in choir or Bible Study, or simply in coffee after worship, allow the pieces to come together and form the cup, and thus for the greater work of God within us as individuals, as a church community, and taking the water out as it were, within the wider community. 

It is so easy to see church worship, usually on a Sunday morning, as a place when we are either fed or not fed, but it is far greater than this, and the times we spend together at any time are also part of that which glues us together into a cup that indeed runs over with the love and blessing of God.

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

I recently read the unattributed thought: “Prayer is the key for the morning and the bolt for the evening”.  I grew up in a time and place where doors were not locked all day, but the key would be turned at night as the last person went to bed, and then turned in the other direction in the morning, when the first person went out to get the milk in, so it made a lot of sense. 

We know that starting and finishing our day with prayer is a good idea, but of course, we so often “hit the ground running” when the alarm goes off in the morning and fall into bed in the evening too tired to follow through on out night-time prayers, or wake in the morning with the faint realisation that we may have fallen asleep halfway through last night’s devotions.

Yet prayer at its best opens the day well and secures it for the night.  Last Sunday, I was talking about the teaching of Jesus that says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  I spoke of the idea that the eye of the needle was a contemporary term for the postern gate at the side of the main city gates in the time of Jesus, and that it was just wide enough to let your camel in if you had taken off its load.  The main gates were closed at night, but the postern gate could be opened by the guard to let late travellers through.  There’s something about those night-time prayers that close the city gates, and although bad dreams do sometimes creep in through the side gate, mostly it seems our prayers protect us.

Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing” but Jesus seems to be content with the simple shortness of the Our Father, although he tells stories that encourage us to keep on going back with our requests if they don’t appear to be heard.  A previous Archbishop of Canterbury once confessed on national radio that he only felt he really prayed for ten minutes a day, although it took him nearly two hours of attempt to get there.  Prayer, it seems, is difficult.  Nevertheless, it is the very life blood of our practice as Christians, and perhaps in that sentence is the clue.  If we understand ourselves to be practising prayer, rather than expecting it to be perfect every time, perhaps we will become better at it, and then our day really will be supported and strengthened as our spirit communes with the Holy Spirit of God. 

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

I don’t know if you remember the project that London Underground ran and as far as I know, still runs, “Poems on the Underground.” Many of us when travelling were delighted by a reminder of some poem first met long ago in English lessons, when education required us to learn poetry by heart. I was recently reminded in this way, of the John Donne piece “No man is an island.”

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man`s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

There are times when people die, and they are so much a part of our lives, and the lives of our churches, that we really understand what John Donne was saying. Such a person was Alison Mount, the senior steward at Windsor Methodist Church, who died and was promoted to glory last Saturday. I know that people across the circuit will be saddened by that news and will want to send their love and prayers to everyone at Windsor and especially to her family and close friends.

The Methodist understanding of this idea that “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind” is expressed in the idea of connexionalism. We are a connexional Church and therefore we care about the welfare of all our congregations and each member of our communities. God is a connexional God, who not only cares for and loves each one of us, but who also connects us one to another through the work of Jesus in our lives, and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who resides in each one of us. As the old chorus says, “Bind us together, with cords that cannot be broken. Bind us together with love.”

I said last week that it had been a hard autumn, and it is not yet easier. However, we are bound together by our love for and faith in Jesus, who built his church on us. May we continue to work together to serve him.

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

As I sit here at my desk reflecting on Harvest Services for Sunday (including one which starts at the allotment at Cookham Rise, for which I am hoping it will be dry!) the rain is driving past my window with some force.  I am reminded in a “these poets really don’t know what they are talking about” sort of way, of the famous poem “To Autumn” by Keats:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close-bosomed friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

……

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o’er brimm’d their clammy cells.

Well, summer has not o’er brimm'd anything, but has left us bereft, and the mists are driven away by the rain, and the mellow fruitfulness requires rapid harvest if it is not to be lost in mud or water-logged beyond hope.  And yet, we need the rain.  Plants need water, and diminished reservoirs need topping up.  We too need water.  Our bodies are between 55% and 60% made of water.  It is perhaps therefore unsurprising that Jesus should refer to himself as “living water”.  Perhaps he is saying something of the importance of being constantly aware of him in our lives.  Or if not constantly, at least whenever we have a glass of water. 

I have mentioned before my belief that grace before meals is an important part of the daily round of the Christian life; a short moment to re-connect us with God.  I wonder if a few moments of thanksgiving, or confession or intercession every time we took a drink of water would increase our prayer intake as well.  After all, streams of living water may flow, but it is up to us to dip our cups in the water of life and drink.

God bless,

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

As we celebrate harvest time, we are reminded of God’s abundant provision in nature and in our lives. The harvest season calls us to pause, give thanks, and reflect on the generosity of God, who sustains us materially and spiritually. 

In Deuteronomy 26:10, we are instructed to present the "firstfruits" of the land as an offering to God. This passage highlights the importance of gratitude. The firstfruits were not just about crops, but about acknowledging God’s role as the ultimate giver. In the same way, as we gather our harvest today—whether literal or symbolic—we too are called to offer the best of ourselves: our talents, time, and service to others.

This harvest season also challenges us to think beyond our own blessings and consider those in need. The Methodist tradition teaches that gratitude is incomplete without action. As John Wesley famously said, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can.”

So, as we give thanks for the fruits of the earth, let us also look to how we can share that abundance with others, especially those who may not have enough. The harvest is an invitation to both gratitude and generosity, reminding us that the gifts we receive from God are meant to be shared.

A prayer for Harvest:

Loving Creator,
We thank you for the beauty and bounty of the earth.
As we celebrate this harvest time, fill our hearts with gratitude for your abundant provision.
Help us to use what we have wisely, and share it with those in need.
May we bear fruit not just in our fields, but in our lives, as we live out your call to love and serve others.
Amen.

This week, let us cultivate both gratitude and generosity, living out the spirit of the harvest in all that we do.

God bless

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

It seems impossible that this Sunday marks the first day of autumn. Surely it was only just the other day that we started 2024. Where did the summer go? Where did the year go? Time, as we know, just keeps galloping on. Through good times and bad the days run by and they seem to run faster and faster as we get older.

This week, the good and the bad have come so thick and fast that they have almost fallen over each other. There has been much sadness at Windsor as we say “goodbye” to two well-loved members who have gone to Glory, and yet at the same time, three people were given notes to preach at the Local Preachers’ meeting on Thursday – truly something to celebrate.

Jesus’ ministry must have felt similarly exhausting in its ups and downs. He healed the sick, fed the multitudes, only to have them fall away when he told them he had to die – that the good times must share space with the bad. He proclaimed God’s kingdom come, and was condemned for letting his disciples eat without undertaking the full ritual hand-washing. He died, but rose again to meet with Mary in the garden. The speed of the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, must have been bewildering.

It is no wonder that throughout the Gospel account, we see examples of Jesus seeking to take himself away from the crowds and spend time alone with God. As he walked on the hillside near Galilee, or through the streets of Jerusalem, he was reminded of the great promises of God. These promises of salvation and protection and love can be found throughout the Bible from the Creation to the end of Revelation. God loves us. He protects us. He goes before us to prepare a place. He celebrates with us in the good times and grieves with us in the bad. Nothing can separate us from his love. And while his supporting, nurturing love goes on, he continues to build his Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

Whether this autumn marks for you the beginning of a new time of exploring and studying, training and preparation, or a time of grieving and of letting go, this is true: that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” My prayer is that each of us should be able to find just a little slowing down time, to reflect on the truth of that well-loved verse.

God bless, Vicci

Fairtrade Fortnight from Mon, 9 Sept 2024 – Sun, 22 Sept 2024

Fairtrade Fortnight 2024 will run from the 9th of September – 22nd of September. It's 30 years since Fairtrade products first hit the shelves and this year for Fairtrade Fortnight, we're spotlighting how YOU can Be The Change, by choosing Fairtrade every time.

Our goal is more than people just being aware, it’s about them encouraging an active choice to support over 2 million Fairtrade farmers and workers across 58 countries, wherever possible, to ensure they can earn a fairer wage.

This year’s campaign will highlight that however big or small a purchase this Fairtrade Fortnight, you have the power to #BeTheChange.

When you choose Fairtrade, you contribute to a fairer, more sustainable future for food production.

When you choose Fairtrade, you help ensure farmers receive a fairer price for what they grow.

When you choose Fairtrade, you help rebalance power in supply chains.

Taking a step further

Dear Lord,
You call us to a neighbourly love
That is generous in practical ways,
That doesn’t leave by the roadside
Those harmed by sin and greed
But goes out of its way
To bring healing.
Help us to see
How neighbours near and far
Are suffering, their resources stolen
By unjust people and systems.
And fill us, we pray, with your Spirit,
That we may be inspired
To go further each day in using our gifts
Of time and money and talent
Lovingly
In ways that redress injustice
And renew life.
Amen

This information obtained from the Fairtrade Foundation website :  https://www.fairtrade.org.uk

Rev'd Vicci thought for the week

Friends

I had hoped to write you a bright, bubbly piece on the joys of leave and looking forward to the autumn. Instead, turning to the news to ensure that nothing dreadful has happened that I might need to reflect upon, I find that dreadful things have indeed happened, and that lovely though the summer was, there is work to be done.

As I write (Tuesday afternoon) it is to the news that a further group of refugees seeking to reach Britain have been lost in the English Channel with 12 confirmed dead and more missing. Simultaneously, a group of 5 12- and 14-year-olds in Leicester have been arrested for the murder of an 80-year-old man walking his dog. What is going on? While some people are struggling so badly in life, that a rough crossing in an inappropriate vessel to get to inhospitable shores feels like a risk worth taking, others at an age that is both tragically young and definitely old enough to recognise evil, have killed in a brutal and inexplicable act of group violence.

Over the summer, I have been reading a book by Dave Kinnaman called “You Lost Me”. Written in America in 2011, it looks at research on why children who grow up in the Church fall away as young adults. In the end, the answer seems to be that the Church is not able to speak relevantly to the world, or even about the world. Young people who are interested in fashion, finance, medicine, science, media and politics are not finding the Church saying anything in these areas, beyond a kind of generalised “steer clear”, “beware” or even “Here be dragons”!

Sophie and I will be exploring the truth or otherwise of some of this with our young people at Geese over the coming term, not so much because the stories I highlighted above are personally relevant to them, but because they are symptomatic of wider community issues that we must address as a church and as a nation.

Methodism was born in an age of political upheaval where across the water, French nobility was sacrificed on the steps of Madame la Guillotine, and at home, there was a fear that education, spiritual or academic, of the common people would result in the same. Perhaps there are areas in which we need to take up that early banner again!

God bless, Vicci

Fairtrade Fortnight from Mon, 9 Sept 2024 – Sun, 22 Sept 2024

Fairtrade Fortnight 2024 will run from the 9th of September – 22nd of September. It's 30 years since Fairtrade products first hit the shelves and this year for Fairtrade Fortnight, we're spotlighting how YOU can Be The Change, by choosing Fairtrade every time.

Our goal is more than people just being aware, it’s about them encouraging an active choice to support over 2 million Fairtrade farmers and workers across 58 countries, wherever possible, to ensure they can earn a fairer wage.

This year’s campaign will highlight that however big or small a purchase this Fairtrade Fortnight, you have the power to #BeTheChange.

When you choose Fairtrade, you contribute to a fairer, more sustainable future for food production.

When you choose Fairtrade, you help ensure farmers receive a fairer price for what they grow.

When you choose Fairtrade, you help rebalance power in supply chains.

Taking a step further

Dear Lord,
You call us to a neighbourly love
That is generous in practical ways,
That doesn’t leave by the roadside
Those harmed by sin and greed
But goes out of its way
To bring healing.
Help us to see
How neighbours near and far
Are suffering, their resources stolen
By unjust people and systems.
And fill us, we pray, with your Spirit,
That we may be inspired
To go further each day in using our gifts
Of time and money and talent
Lovingly
In ways that redress injustice
And renew life.
Amen

This information obtained from the Fairtrade Foundation website :  https://www.fairtrade.org.uk

A timely prayer from the Church Prayer Group

A timely prayer from Pat via the Church Prayer Group

There are so many voices calling to us in our world today, Lord, but one voice has spoken loud and clear.

We offer ourselves to You now, as your faithful servants.

We offer our minds – to think for You.

We offer our eyes – to see the needs of others.

We offer our voices – to speak for You.

We offer our hands. - to work for Your kingdom.

We offer our feet to walk in Your path.

We offer our hearts – to love You above all, and to love others as much as we love ourselves.

We offer our lives – to be used in Your service, and to the glory of Your name. Accept us, bless us, and use us for Your glory.

Amen

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

As I write this last thought for the week before the summer recess, I wonder how the year can have gone by so quickly.  It is said that gardening is a hobby that is more often taken up by the older people in a community and that this is because time goes more quickly as we age.  Certainly, I am more likely to be pleasantly surprised when I notice green shoots than my grandchildren, who may feel that they have been watching undisturbed patches of barren earth for “months and months”. 

The sweep of the year, accelerating relatively as it does with age, increases our tendency to see everything hopping from one planning session to the next.  Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest, Remembrance each come round in their time, and we lose a little of the importance of that “ordinary” or “proper” time as the Church calls the periods in-between.  Some of you will have been in church when I spoke about it as the “great, green, growing time” which reflects on the idea that the liturgical colour for ordinary time is green.  It’s easy to see this time as the boring bit that fills in between the lows of the traditional fasting seasons of Advent and Lent, and the highs of the great celebrations of Christmas and Easter, but it is more than that.  At their best, these ordinary times help us to understand how to take our faith into our daily living.  We can’t live on the mountain-tops of Easter and Pentecost, and neither should we live in the penitential seasons for too long.  Instead, ordinary time invites us to reflect on daily bread for daily need; on a God who can calm the waters of the sea of Galilee but also calm the storms of our lives; a brother who walks out to us and holds us up when we are floundering, who helps our thinking, and eats breakfast with us when our thinking has finally brought in a catch; a shepherd who speaks to us of lost things: coins and sheep, brothers and sons, and promises us that the lost shall be found. 

As we come into the holiday period, let us give God the glory for the ordinary times, for the daily living of food and drink, play and travel, friends and family, and yes, even life and death.  For God is in all of these things and meets us in the highs and the lows, but also in the ordinary and perhaps there, in the ordinary, is also where we grow as disciples, as prayer warriors, as followers of the living God. 

God bless, Vicci   

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

On the 14th of July 1865, the British climber, Edward Whymper reached the top of the Matterhorn – the first ever to do so.  He was part of a team of six and it was his eighth attempt.  The upward ascent was surprisingly easy, but after an hour of enjoying the magnificent view under a wind-whipped shirt (they had forgotten to bring a flag!) the group decided it was time to turn homeward.  On the way down, things were much tougher, and the mountaineers roped themselves together.  When one slipped, the back three, Whymper and two guides, were able to secure themselves.  The front four however had no chance when the rope snapped, and they went sliding down the mountain to their deaths. 

The event was seen as the end of the “golden age of Alpinism” which up until then had seen very few deaths.  Thus the great achievement became also the great ending, although such is human nature that when Queen Victoria, who had lost a relative in the accident, declared that no-one of royal blood should attempt the climb ever again, every Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to have a go at the previously unconquerable mountain. 

Why did they climb it?  There is something is there not, about going somewhere where others have never been, climbing something that is so difficult that when you get there, you really know you have done something? 

In the story of the Tower of Babel, told in Genesis 11:1-9, humans wanted to climb all the way to heaven.  Building a tower that they hoped would reach to God, they were struck down: the tower broken, the people scattered and for the first time, they spoke multiple languages, so that it was harder for people to understand each other.  Perhaps we have always longed for the heights in one way or another.

The faithful following of a path of simple, loving discipleship is not a glamorous climb, but a hard slog.  Following, fully following, the way of Christ, demands that we test each step: Is this truly loving?  Does it exclude anyone?  Is it at odds with what I understand the Bible to say?  If so, what do others say that the Bible means when it says this thing?  There is risk, but there is also joy and whatever happens, for good or for ill, we can know that while we remain tethered to the Lord, the rope that holds us will never break.

God bless, Vicci

ALIVE! To Tell The Story! – your feedback

This was a truly wonderful, well attended performance. Those of us fortunate enough to be present were amazed by the talent of the choir, soloists, and performers from across our circuit. We are very grateful for the professionalism of Rev’d Vicci leading this, and all the hours of rehearsing put in by the singers and actors. Thanks to everyone involved and a special thanks to Jane for all her delicious home-made cakes and scones served during the break - enjoyed by all!

Friends

This Sunday, the 30th of June, marks the anniversary of the launch of the first ever emergency number.  The 999 number was introduced in London after a house fire in Wimpole Street in 1935 in which five women died.  Launched in 1937, it was later extended to the whole country.  When 999 was dialled, a buzzer sounded and a red light flashed in the exchange to attract an operator’s attention. 

When the new service was launched, a notice in the Evening News advised the public how to use it:

“Only dial 999… if the matter is urgent; if for instance, the man in the flat next to yours is murdering his wife, or you have seen a heavily masked cat burglar peering round the stack pipe of the local bank building. 

If the matter is less urgent, if you have merely lost little Towser or a lorry has come to rest in your front garden, just call the local police.”

There are many things about this story that might interest us: the comparatively short length of time from the fire in November 1935 to June 1937 is one.  In this 18-month period, the powers that be decided that they must stop the repeat of such a tragedy; figured out what to do about it; invented a system; and then launched it.   I also love the Evening News advice – how much less burden there would be on our own over-stretched emergency services if people paid attention to when it was an appropriately serious event to dial 999 for.

As Christians however, we have an additional service to draw on, whether we want a cosy chat, or to send up emergency flares.  We call it prayer.  The wonderful thing about prayer is that it’s not us who have to decide whether or not to call.  God is available to us 24/7 and although he decides when to respond, he listens instantly.  God may sometimes say “No,” or “Not yet,” to a request, but he never says: “You are held in a queue; the operator will be with you as soon as possible.”  He never says, “That is not something you should have dialled this number about.”   I very much hope that this is not a week in which you have to dial 999 on earth or in heaven, but I also hope it is a week in which all of us remember that the lines to God are always open.

God bless, Vicci

A Reflection by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

During the course of the church year, we celebrate God the Creator at Harvest, we celebrate God the Father and Jesus the Son at Christmas and at Easter, we celebrate God the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and finally, on the Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate our belief that God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are both three distinct expressions of God and also one. The Holy Trinity, three in one and one in three. Over the years, artists, writers and theologians have tried to express this, and every year, preachers lay out our doctrine, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes of course, people are just happy to take it as we say it, without needing to understand it, it just is.

Whoever you are, on what I expect is a sliding scale between the two positions rather than one thing or another, it is true that we are unusual in our affirmation of a God who is three in one and one in three. One of the classic ways of explaining this is to ask someone to stand in front of the congregation and to ask them what they do; who they are to various people. They may reply: “I am a wife, a teacher, a church organist,” as I did when a long-ago preacher asked me to help them in that way. It was a good answer and allowed the preacher to point out that I was indeed one woman, who was expressed in three different ways. All fine and dandy, until the next day when my daughter was asking me to do something while I was doing something else and I said, “I will do it in a bit. Right now I am doing this, and I can’t do two things at once.” To which she replied, “Well, Ian says you can do three things at once!” Not perhaps the message that he had intended to give in his lovely all age address!

However, it is true that we all live multiple lives and do multiple things, and many of us find that to be life-enhancing and energising. It is how we build our community. For others of us, it has become exhausting, and we need to lay down at least one of our multi-faceted beings. On the 14th of June at Windsor Methodist Church, 6pm – 7:30, we are having a fun look at some of the roles in church and circuit using a “speed dating” model. Hosted by our youth group, it will be a lot of fun, even if you don’t need (or want!) another role in the church. Come and see as we continue to grow our community and to serve each other.

God bless, Vicci

A reflection by Rev'd Vicci

Dear Friends

I don’t know about you, but I love it when I learn a new word or expression.  The new one I learned this week was “desire path”.  A desire path is a path that has been created by numbers of people walking where they want to go sufficiently frequently for a path to form in the grass or woodland.  Of course, in the days before the Romans gave us roads, most footways were desire paths, but it reminded me of a book I have on my shelves called “We make the road by walking” by Brian McLaren. 

The book reminds us that none of us, however old, are “done” yet.  We continue being sculpted until the day we die.  As individuals and as communities, we have the option to move forward if we choose and also the freedom to stagnate and regress.

The Bible too speaks of such things, most specifically in that wonderful imagery of the potter and the clay that is found in Jeremiah 18:2-5 when God tells Jeremiah: “’Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message’.  So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”

God doesn’t make us walk in one particular way, nor does he force us into one particular shape.  In the same way, the Romans brought roads to Judea, but Jesus and the disciples walked along desire paths at the edge of the desert, in the hills above Galilee, on the Mount of Olives.  Just as Jesus lived in occupied territory but walked in his Father’s way, so we live in a time and place occupied by all the worries, concerns, determination to acquire power, money or things that this life demands of us, and yet we are called, if we choose to follow, to avoid worldly roads, and walk instead upon desire paths leading always towards Jesus and his Father, empowered for the journey by the supporting presence of the Holy Spirit.   

God bless

Vicci

A reflection by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

The lectionary for this Sunday morning includes Acts 10:44-48. In the time from Easter to Pentecost, we hear some of the occurrences in the Acts of the Apostles, reminding us what the Holy Spirit did for them and what we are therefore offered. This little short reading is located in a much wider sweep of story that involves Peter being offered a variety of food in a vision and telling God that he cannot eat it because it is unclean, with God telling him that if he tells him it is now clean, then of course he can eat it. Challenged by this thinking, Peter is then faced with the household of the Gentile Cornelius who has felt called by God to ask Peter to come and explain the Gospel to them. Ultimately, this leads to their baptism as they are filled with the Spirit. “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been pouted out on the gentiles, for they heard the speaking in tongues and extolling God. Peter said: “Can anybody withhold the water for baptising these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?

It is always a shock when people who we have declared or felt to be “other” than us turn out to have our gifts. How can that be? How can “they” who grew up in a different country, on a different continent, who wear different clothes or eat different food or have had a different education or have a different accent or sense of humour, how can they have our gifts?

For the Jewish people at the time of Jesus, the knowledge that they were God’s chosen people was incredibly significant to their understanding of who they were – their national identity was tied up in it. The idea that started to be developed as the disciples spread out from Jerusalem and told the story to the Samaritans and to the Gentiles, encouraging them to establish churches was potentially frightening to those who had so much invested in the idea that there was one true God, and they had him.

I wonder if we are not sometimes guilty of similar thought patterns, albeit reinterpreted for our own times? The day we truly wake up to the idea that God does not have favourites is the day everything changes.

God bless,

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci

Friends

When I was at primary school, we would colour in a piece of paper in thick rainbow colours and then colour that over with black crayon.  Then we would use something sharp and pointed, perhaps the end of a set of compasses, to draw into it, the black crayon would reveal the colour underneath and we would end up with multi-coloured pictures.  When we talk about Jesus dying so that our sins are forgiven, or our being “washed in the blood of the lamb” we are using language that tries to explain that underneath the stuff that gets in the way of God and our relationships with other people there is a beautiful and wonderful person – the Bible tells us that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”.  The word “fearfully” here means “awe-inspiring” and God is working with us all the time to cut through that crayoned top layer of mess and sin and confusion and get to the beautiful stuff underneath that he knows is there because he put it there.

Sometimes, part of what gets in the way between us and God or us and healthy relationships with the rest of the world, is pain – physical pain, mental pain, the pain of grief.  I am always moved by the many ways in which some people are able to take the pain of grief and cut through the top layer to the beauty underneath it by doing something good in memory of the person who has died.  On Sunday at Windsor, Carolyn Keston from Rosie’s Rainbow Fund will be coming to speak to us during the service and her story is in that mode – I hope that all the Windsor folk reading this will try to attend. 

However, it’s not just the big things that we want God to cut through to but the gentle, ongoing trying and trying again to do our best in the face of difficulty.   In the words of the old hymn: “I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.”  There is a feeling of worry in many of our churches at the moment around dwindling numbers, and so in particular I would encourage you to cut through that by marking in your diaries the next two big circuit events: The Easter Offering Service at 3pm on the 12th of May at Hampshire Avenue and the Circuit Musical production “Alive to Tell the Story” at 3pm on the 23rd of June at Windsor.  Christ is the light in the darkness and the rainbow at the end of the storm.

God bless, Vicci