Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

I wonder if, like me, you have a chore that you don’t particularly enjoy until you remember what it replaced?  My last job of the evening is usually to unload the dishwasher and re-load it with the dinner things before setting it going and my first job in the morning is to unload it and put in the breakfast things.  With six of us in the manse, and eight on alternate weekends, we are usually a two-loads a day family.  This morning as I emptied it, I was grumbling to myself that I didn’t enjoy doing it and I suddenly remembered those early married years when we did all the washing-up by hand.  The excitement of our first dishwasher has disappeared in the daily rhythms of life and now, loading and unloading it are just one more chore.  I feel exactly the same about the laundry, even though as a child we lived without electricity for nearly ten years and had to hand-wash everything.  Times change, and so does our perception. 

This morning however, having caught myself in my negative thinking, I realised that I have fallen out of that old habit that my mother, and I expect many of our parents, taught us.  That of “counting our blessings.”  The old hymn that some of you may remember singing has gone out of fashion and perhaps so has counting the wonderful gifts in our lives. 

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost

Count your many blessings, name them one by one

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Count your blessings, name them one by one

Count your many blessings, see what God has done.

1 Thessalonions 5:16-18 tell us: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” and who can forget the beautiful lyricism of Irving Berlin’s song from White Christmas:

When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep, counting my blessings.

In this day and age of entitlement and knowing our rights, I wonder if it’s time to revive this spiritual habit?

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Sunday the 2nd of July is the UK’s third annual Thank You Day.  According to the Thank You Day website, over the past two years, 15 million people have taken part in this opportunity to say thank you for everyone and everything that make our communities great places to live in and to get connected with the people they live alongside all the year round. 

The idea is simply to remember and give thanks for people who have helped us, recognising that there are many people out there that we want to thank and that we don’t often take the time to do it.

Christians have always understood the importance of thanksgiving and the pages of the Bible are full of songs of thanksgiving.  However, we may also have grown up with the verses from Matthew 6 that begin: Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

The problem with this is that we can take it further as if it means “Don’t say thank you to me because then God won’t reward me.”  As a child, I knew certain adults who if you said, “Thank you” for something would say “Hush, you’re taking away my crowns in heaven.”   Purposefully or accidentally, this has come to mean that we don’t always remember to say thank you to people for things done in church.   The rationale is that they are done for God and therefore it is not for us to thank them, but we all benefit from the time and talent given in our worship and church life.  So I would like to say “Thank you”.  Thank you to the stewards and those who deal with the finance, property, safeguarding, GDPR and other administrative tasks.  Thank you to those who lead Junior Church, toddlers, ShoutAloud!, Geese and all those groups that work with children.  Thank you to those who organise coffee mornings, Thursday Circle.  Thank you to those who pray, formally or informally, to the musicians and Bible Study leaders, to the AV teams and those who take part in acts of worship, pastoral work, outreach online and in person and things that I may have forgotten, but without which nothing that we do would be as good as it currently is.  Thank you to those of you who offer lifts, pick up shopping and drop newsletters into letter boxes.  You will undoubtedly have your reward in heaven, but in the meantime, on behalf of all of us, thank you! 

God bless,

Vicci.  

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

I was talking to a friend of mine last week who was passing through on her way from another part of the country.  She was speaking of the palpable sense of the Holy Spirit that she had felt when visiting a particular church which she has since joined, and I came face to face once more with that particular thing that I have found which is that for many of us, the moments when we truly feel the Spirit moving are when we are really singing praise to God in a community of people who are also singing praise.  I have often worried about this, because I usually associate that with really great church musicians, and we are not overly blessed with those at the moment.  However, it came to me last Sunday, that although the musicians help, it is the whole-hearted singing that gives the real sense of God’s presence.  Can we, I wonder, still achieve that without a top-flight organist or a talented band?  Is it a requirement for us to have those in order to sing, or are we able ourselves to sing with such joy to the Lord that the accompaniment doesn’t matter? 

I think of moments when the style of accompaniment has seemed irrelevant and we have really rocked them in the aisles.  Of course, it helps if the songs are known, I do recognise that, and sometimes I think you will know a hymn because I know it and after all, you don’t.  However, I wonder also if there is something about our natural reticence that stops us really singing out.  Miriam in her time and David in his leading the people in a processional dance of praise feels a little awkward to many of us.  Yet we are the people of God whose desire is to praise him.  I wonder, even backed by the hymnal as many of us are nowadays, whether we can’t find that place where the praising of God seems to flow through us and join with the rest of the congregation in something that is greater than the sum of its parts?

Walter Brueggeman, the great contemporary theologian, suggests that worship is after all performance, but it is not the performance of the minister, readers or choir to the congregation, rather the whole of the worship is a great oratorio performance to and for God, with the minister as both conductor and soloist, the worship leaders and readers as principals and the whole of the congregation as the choir.  I wonder what difference thinking in those terms might mean to our worship?

God bless
Vicci

Thought for this week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

The weather really has changed and as we get out our sandals, we also start to experience something of the dirt and the dust on our feet that would have been the daily experience of Jesus and his contemporaries.  That dust, in a world where walking was the usual way around, was inevitably uncomfortable, and so the rules of hospitality involved bringing a bowl of water and a towel to wash your guests’ feet.  When Jesus visits the home of Simon where his feet are washed and anointed by a woman who dries them with her hair Jesus points out that she has only done in an exaggerated way, what Simon should have done as a matter of course.

By and large, our feet remain quite clean.  The roads of 21st century Britain are not as dusty as 1st century Palestine and we walk far less than our far-off ancestors.  I wonder what our equivalency might be?  That regular gesture of hospitality which, when offered in kindness and care shows regard for the needs of those who visit us at home or at church.  Perhaps it is the regular coffee, tea and biscuits that are our equivalency, or perhaps in such weather as this, we could offer fruit juice as a refreshing alternative after church as an extra touch of hospitable thinking. 

More than anything however, I would suggest that when Mary Magdalene, noticing that an act of hospitality had been omitted, made up for it with shameless generosity, she was modelling something very important.  The jar of nard was often worn around a woman’s neck, added to whenever possible, developing a pension pot for future need.  This was not a premeditated action perhaps, but instead a wiping out of the rudeness by treating the slighted Jesus with extra love and extra care, using what was to hand. 

How wonderful to spot that something has been left out, someone has been hurt or treated with disrespect, and without saying anything to anyone else, to make up for it a thousand-fold.  Next time we realise our feet are particularly grubby after a day in sandals, we might use it as a chance to reflect on how best we make sure that no-one in our church feels left out, hurt or treated with disrespect.  To notice and repair the hurt is surely part of our calling as the followers of he who washed his disciples’ feet two thousand years ago.

God bless

Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

I have recently returned from Superintendents’ Conference where a preacher suggested that one of the jobs of the Church is to be “a guardian of beauty.”  I was interested when discussing this sermon with others, that the part that they latched on to was not that part, and they almost hadn’t heard it, whilst engaging with other bits that I don’t remember being said – the perennial problem or perhaps gift of the sermon-writer.  But the phrase has stuck with me.

I remember being told many years ago that in the period when we were as a nation building huge and beautiful churches, part of the reason was so that people who were living in squalid and difficult environments with poor pay earned at risk to life and limb, could come somewhere on a Sunday, or even drop in at the end of the working day, and see something of the promise of heaven.  The beauty of the wood and stone carvings, the tapestries, the silver and gold, the artwork was there to offer us something to hold on to, as many of our great buildings still do.

Methodists have always been scathing about an approach that offers “pie in the sky when you die” and rightly so.  When Jesus came as a human and offered “life in all its fullness” he was talking about a hope for today, not for something in the far-off future – or rather, not just something in the far off future, for we Methodists do believe in Heaven.  Nevertheless, there is something about the church building and its grounds offering beauty, a calm space and a place of meditation and prayer as well as praise and worship; the ability to dig deep into the well of peace as well as times of fun and fellowship.  This summer, having tackled the challenges of the cold and its impact on our aging heating systems over the winter, we might want to look at our buildings from an aesthetic point of view.  Do we still hold to that vision that wanted our buildings to look like a little piece of heaven?   We can see it in some of the old Central Halls, in Wesley’s Chapel and in some of the churches around our circuit, but is there more?

I wrote a few weeks ago about whether our churches looked welcoming to those passing by and perhaps just getting a glimpse through our windows.  Now I am asking the question that goes further than that: are we not just welcoming?  Are we beautiful?

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

On the night of May 24th, 1738, John Wesley accepted an invitation to a religious meeting at Aldersgate Street in London where the key event was to be the reading of Martin Luther’s preface to the Romans.  He was feeling tired and mentally low and writes in his journal that he went “very unwillingly” and yet something happened.  At about 8:45pm, whilst listening to the reading, he went from a theoretical understanding of theology, to a personal experience of the living God and describes it as feeling his heart “strangely warmed.” 

He wrote: “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.” 

He wasn’t the first Wesley to feel this heart-warming experience: three days earlier on the 21st of May, Charles had also experienced a unique and extraordinary sense of the presence of God. 

Methodism didn’t catch fire and burn in 18th century Britain because Charles wrote good hymns or because John was an organiser par excellence (although both are true) but because of their personal, lived experiences of the living God, an experience that they found hard to articulate but which was best expressed by John’s “heart strangely warmed.”

We need our hearts to be strangely warmed today.  If we are to grow as disciples and as churches and come to know God afresh, then the sharing of these moments and the seeking to encounter God are the only way that we can hope to do so.  It is not enough to think that the idea is rather lovely, or even that it helps us make sense of the world.  Like John and Charles, we need to feel it, to experience it for ourselves.  For Charles it was this: “That I, a child of wrath and hell, I should be called a child of God, should know, should feel my sins forgiven, blest with this antepast of heaven.” 

“Antepast” is a strange word to us today, but it means a foretaste, specifically a first course to whet the appetite.  In Church terms, “a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.”  As we reflect on Aldersgate Sunday today, it is perhaps a day to recall our own conversion, and to pray that we too should continue to feel our hearts strangely warmed, or if they have yet to warm at all, should come to know fully the God we profess, Sunday by Sunday.

God bless, Vicci

Thought for the week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Have you ever had one of those days when you suddenly notice something that has probably been there for ages but you just haven’t seen it?  I had one of those days today when I looked out of the office window and realised that the little dots of dirt on the glass that I had thought were on the outside were actually on the inside.  My desk is underneath the window and the combination of my breath, the bookshelf on the windowsill not allowing enough air to circulate and condensation has produced a visible mark.   Now before you start to worry, let me reassure you that this is a minimal problem, rapidly removed with a damp cloth and a spritz of Windowlene.  It did however set me thinking about the breath of our spirit and the breath of the Spirit in our lives.  After all, if my normal breathing while sitting at my desk for some hours every day can leave a mark, what of these other breaths we speak of?

We sing the hymn “Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love as thou dost love, and do what thou dost do.”  There are times when we are more aware of the raging storms about us than the life-giving breath of God, but it is always there, and if we let the Spirit breathe through us through our reading of God’s word and prayer, then we also feel calmed and cleansed by that breath.  We are very familiar with the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel, and God’s promise, through the prophet, to breathe new life into the Children of Israel, but we may be less familiar with similar imagery in the book of Job.  In chapter 32:8 we read: “But it is a spirit in human-beings.  And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.”  In 33:4 we read: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

As we come towards Pentecost when the Church celebrates once more the coming of the Holy Spirit in power on those first Christian people, I wonder how aware we are of “The Spirit of God, unseen as the wind” blowing through us, and how aware we are of what passing through us, comes out in the way we breathe on the world through our words and our actions.  I hope that the marks we leave are both more permanent and more helpful than the marks on the inside of my office window this morning. 

God bless

Vicci

The Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla

As we look forward to this historic event please remember Tea Time for the Soul on Sunday 7th May, enjoy a short and simple service led by Rev’d Vicci Davidson where you can enjoy some classic hymns and fellowship, followed by tea and cakes. This time in celebration of the coronation.

This service is dementia friendly and all are welcome.

Also coming up is Christian Aid Week……

Christian Aid Week 14-20 May

All are welcome to join us for all or some of the following:

13 May: Volunteers Coffee Morning at URC, William Street & Christian Aid Stall, Peascod Street.

19 May: Ceilidh, United Reformed Church (URC) William Street (Purchase Tickets in ADVANCE)

20 May: Plant Sale, St Andrews’ Vicarage, Parsonage Lane (in the morning)

20 May: Brunch here at Windsor Methodist Church

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson and links to photographs taken at the Stations of the Cross event on Holy Saturday

Friends

In my teens I became increasingly short-sighted and, as is often the case, was unaware of it for quite a while. Eventually, I had my eyes tested and was given glasses. It was an extraordinary experience to have 20/20 vision for the first time in years. Spooky looking trees and corners turned out to be perfectly ordinary, and the fellow teen who I had fancied from afar for ages turned out not to be as utterly gorgeous as I had imagined (albeit with very good bone structure!) It was both wonderful and slightly disappointing to see the world as it really is.

When we read the Easter story, particularly those of us who have stayed with it throughout the Christian year and starting with Advent have prepared ourselves for the coming of God as a baby, been witnesses of Simeon’s response in the temple, rushed back to Jerusalem in fear when Jesus was lost at 13, observed the first miracles, heard the teaching and journeyed to the foot of the cross, we see how obvious it is that Jesus would rise. We may even feel rather frustrated with those first disciples, who didn’t get it, or certainly not until they saw it. If those are our feelings, we should perhaps be kinder. We all have 20/20 vision in hindsight, and only by resurrection hindsight do we behold Christ’s glory.

As we look back over the long sweep since Christmas, and as we look forward to Pentecost and Ordinary Time, we can see clearly that the only possible outcome of the death of the Son of God was resurrection. Faced with this truth, what then do we do with it? Soldier on, believe in “pie in the sky when you die” and don’t make a fuss, because it will all be better when we get to glory, was once the answer. But it isn’t a good enough answer for most people now. Instead, there is something about allowing the story to change us and in so doing to encourage us to move our little bit of the world closer to Heaven. To behave more like Christ, to notice and respond to need, to try to hear his word over the noisiness of twenty-first century life is our call. We are told in the Gospel of John 1:12 “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” A frustration of motherhood is that we carry our child for 9 months, not all of them easy, only to be told for at least as long afterwards “Don’t they look like their Dad?” We too should carry the family marks. We too should have people look at us and say, “Aren’t they like the Father? Can’t you see that this is a sibling of Jesus?

God bless,

Vicci

The Stations of the Cross on Holy Saturday:

This was a wonderful, peaceful and thought-provoking event and if you were unable to attend then please follow the link below to view photographs on our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064930801235

or visit the Thames Valley Circuit website to view photos in the “Gallery”section:

www.methodistthamesvalley.org.uk

Thoughts for Holy Week by Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

Once more, we have come through Holy Week.  We have journeyed with Jesus through the East Gate as the crowds gathered round donkey and colt to wave palms, to lay down their cloaks, to cry “Hosannah to the Son of David!”  We have entered the courts of the Temple and experienced the terrible anger of Jesus as he over-turned the tables of money-changers and animal-sellers and we have hoped that it will never be said of us: “It is said that my house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”  We have heard Jesus’ authority challenged and witnessed the decision of Judas to betray him.  We have heard the words “This is my body broken for you, do this as often as you eat it in remembrance of me” for the very first time and reflected as the Master knelt to wash feet and have been inspired again to love one another, as Christ has loved us.  We have sung our hymns and gone out into the night to the garden and witnessed Jesus plead with his Father that “if there is another way, let this cup be taken from me” and we too have hoped that in the end, we would have said with Jesus, “Yet not my will, but thine be done.”  We have fallen asleep whilst Jesus prayed and we have followed the betrayed Son of God to the courtyard of the High Priest’s house only to deny him as he is condemned by the Sanhedrin.  We have watched Pilate wash his hands and followed Jesus down the Via Dolorosa to the very foot of the cross, have watched the soldiers dice for his clothing and as he died we have wondered at his request to God, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Our hearts have been torn by the great cry “Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani?” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  In the end, we too have said, “Surely, this man was the Son of God” and in that moment it was as if we were the only one to have ever thought it.  It is finished. 

Now, everything begins.  The hill on which thieves and perfection hung side by side is silent.  The cross lies empty to the sky.  The stone is rolled away.  Soldiers are allowed to say they had slept on watch without punishment.  Angels are seen.  Women, entering the tomb to wash and prepare the body find the place empty, the winding cloths in place, the head wrap folded and laid where we, night after night, position our pillows.  Mary has seen our Lord in the garden.  The world has changed.  Nothing will ever be the same again.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

God bless,

Vicci

Saturday 8 April Praying the Stations of the Cross

There will be a series of artistic representations in various mediums, including painting, floral arrangements and even cake, of the stations of the cross. These will be accompanied by a sheet of meditations which will lead you around the church and the story, from Upper Room to Garden Tomb. Spend as much or as little time as you would like at each station and then join us in the Falder Hall for coffee and hot cross buns, or leave in the silence as you wish. The church will be open between 10 and 12 and you may start at any point. Drop in and take some time to reflect this Easter. All are welcome.

Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Fortnight 2023 is taking place 27 February – 12 March 2023.

This Fairtrade Fortnight, join us in spreading a simple message: making the small switch to Fairtrade supports producers in protecting the future of some of our most-loved food and the planet. 

Did you know?

Coffee, bananas and chocolate could soon be much more difficult to buy.

Climate change is making crops like these harder and harder to grow. Combined with deeply unfair trade, communities growing these crops are being pushed to the brink. 

But here’s the good news.  

More people choosing Fairtrade means extra income, power and support for those communities.

By making the small switch to Fairtrade, we can all support producers in protecting the future of some of our most-loved food and the planet. 

To read more about this visit the website…….

https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get-involved/current-campaigns/fairtrade-fortnight

The Transfiguration: A Reflection by Richard Cracknell

Friends:

A few years ago we were on holiday in Austria, it was July so it was shortsleeved shirt weather. One day we decided to take a trip up the Kitzsteinhorn mountain and we enjoyed cracking views of the sun-drenched countryside as we went up in the cable cars. As we got nearer the top, however, it began to get misty and patches of white appeared on the grassy banks below us. Soon we were fully enveloped in cloud and the ground was now covered in snow. It was like we had suddenly been transported to another world, where people were skiing dressed-up in thick coats, hats and gloves. We didn’t stay long at the top, mingling with the skiers who regarded us in our summer clothes with amusement. It’s fair to say I’ve seldom felt so out-of-place, or indeed so cold in all my life!

The mountain-top experience is a familiar motif in the Bible and some of the most important Biblical characters went up a mountain and found a different world above the cloud. A world where the boundaries between Earth and Heaven were blurred: Moses receiving the ten commandments, Elijah finding God in a gentle whisper. In last week’s gospel however, it is Jesus’ turn for a mountain-top experience which we know as the Transfiguration. This account comes shortly after Jesus speaks to His disciples for the first time about how He must suffer and be put to death. They all need time to process this news so Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a mountain to pray. But once they are on the mountain, He appears to take on the heavenly glory of His divine nature, we are told that:

‘His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.’

He is joined by Moses and Elijah who were maybe able to offer Him some support and re-assurance from their unique perspective. Peter wants to prolong the moment by offering to build tents for them, but he is interrupted by a voice from the cloud saying:

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

As quickly as it had occurred the transfiguration experience was over, and Jesus and His disciples returned from the mountain top, but I expect their experience stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

Maybe we crave our own mountain-top experience of God, an experience that would strengthen our faith and cement our own credentials as disciples of Jesus, but I think these are few and far between. We mustn’t be disheartened, however, for we are called to inhabit the lowlands of Gods kingdom and to share our faith and hope with those around us. For we believe that the glorious kingdom of God, glimpsed by those three disciples of old, will be shared by us all one day. This was made possible by Jesus who, having been re-assured by Moses, Elijah and God Himself on the mount of Transfiguration, took the path of obedience all the way to the cross. So that one day we too can ascend through the clouds - so to speak – to another world, a world without pain or conflict, a world full of the glory of God, where we shall be with Him in eternity, on the mountain top.

Richard”

Thought for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

Sophie and Tommy have taken a couple of days leave and travelled a little further north. Today they went to Warwick Castle and it reminded me of going myself at 18 when I was staying with a school friend. There was a talk on when it had been used as a prison which we joined. I don’t remember much about it now, excepting that we were told there had been a time when a judge could offer you a choice between hanging and deportation to Australia. There were a couple of Australians in the party who, as you might imagine, found the idea that it had actually been a choice hilarious. “Yes,” said one, “Guaranteed death or a life in Paradise, that’s a tough choice!” I am not going to rehearse all the reasons that using Australia as a penal colony was a terrible thing – we know it was – I merely note that I am aware of this in case anyone thinks I am being blasé or flippant about it. However, the Australian girl’s comment is fascinating in terms of Christianity. “Guaranteed death or a life in Paradise, that’s a tough choice!” Of course, she was being sarcastic. From her point of view, it was a no-brainer – Australia every time. Mark’s work as a chauffeur-bearer for a Funeral Director takes him into some extraordinary churches, particularly in central London. They are glorious works of art which were intended to give the poor and down-trodden working classes of the city a glimpse of the glory of heaven. However hard daily life was, they would come to church on a Sunday and for one brief hour rest their bodies and feast their eyes. Never mind if the text was impenetrable and the preaching boring, they could see the future promise of the Christian life. We live more in the now than in the future and of course, the “Pie in the sky when you die” model of Christian hope was never a good one. Jesus came “that they may have life in all its fullness” on earth and not just in some nebulous future. Nevertheless, I wonder if in our busy lives, we need to have some time still to think about the glories of heaven, if only so that we will remember that when we say “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we recall that we seek as disciples to grow more like Christ in who we are and how we are, and in so-doing, to shape a world that is more like heaven, a world that, because Jesus came, has a pattern and a way that leads us into paths of justice and mercy. God bless, Vicci

A thoughtful message for the week from Rev'd Vicci

Friends

Sophie and Tommy have taken a couple of days leave and travelled a little further north.  Today they went to Warwick Castle and it reminded me of going myself at 18 when I was staying with a school friend.   There was a talk on when it had been used as a prison which we joined.  I don’t remember much about it now, excepting that we were told there had been a time when a judge could offer you a choice between hanging and deportation to Australia.  There were a couple of Australians in the party who, as you might imagine, found the idea that it had actually been a choice hilarious.  “Yes,” said one, “Guaranteed death or a life in Paradise, that’s a tough choice!”

I am not going to rehearse all the reasons that using Australia as a penal colony was a terrible thing – we know it was – I merely note that I am aware of this in case anyone thinks I am being blasé or flippant about it.  However, the Australian girl’s comment is fascinating in terms of Christianity.  “Guaranteed death or a life in Paradise, that’s a tough choice!”  Of course, she was being sarcastic.  From her point of view, it was a no-brainer – Australia every time.

Mark’s work as a chauffeur-bearer for a Funeral Director takes him into some extraordinary churches, particularly in central London.  They are glorious works of art which were intended to give the poor and down-trodden working classes of the city a glimpse of the glory of heaven.  However hard daily life was, they would come to church on a Sunday and for one brief hour rest their bodies and feast their eyes.  Never mind if the text was impenetrable and the preaching boring, they could see the future promise of the Christian life.

We live more in the now than in the future and of course, the “Pie in the sky when you die” model of Christian hope was never a good one.  Jesus came “that they may have life in all its fullness” on earth and not just in some nebulous future.  Nevertheless, I wonder if in our busy lives, we need to have some time still to think about the glories of heaven, if only so that we will remember that when we say “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we recall that we seek as disciples to grow more like Christ in who we are and how we are, and in so-doing, to shape a world that is more like heaven, a world that, because Jesus came, has a pattern and a way that leads us into paths of justice and mercy. 

God bless,

Vicci

Friends

As we come to the end of this season of Covenant, we have an unusual Circuit Service on the morning of the 29th at Windsor.  Unusual because it is a Circuit Service in the morning and because it is a concert of Gospel Blues music. 

When the advertising from the band who are playing (“Sanctified”) first came across to us, I nearly queried the use of the word “Concert” because this is of course worship, and indeed it will be recognisably a morning service with prayers, readings, a sermon and congregational singing, it’s just that the congregational singing will be Gospel Blues and not our usual fare. 

Performance, or the hint of it, is a difficult topic in the Church and it has saddened me over the years when professional performers have shared their gifts in an act of offering and been seen as “performing” and therefore not worthy to be there.  It seems that we in the Church like it to be good, but not too good.  Which is ridiculous if you think about it.  Surely nothing we can offer is as good as the worship of the angels.  God knows and loves the spirit in which our gifts are made.  Other times, people have told me that they can tell if someone is worshipping or performing, but after decades of working in the performing arts with people of all ages and stages, I would challenge that.  In my experience, all artists present their work with a hope that it will be able to inform, educate, challenge or entertain, and that it will move people and yes, be judged as good.  But the idea that people who are professional performers do it from a spirit of “Look at me everyone” is just not true.  Indeed, professional performers are among the most insecure people I have ever met.

More than that though, I would challenge it because it comes from a position of “those people up there offering worship” and it being offered to the congregation – an audience whose job is to judge if it is good enough.  But of course, we all know really that it’s not about us at all.  It’s about God and worship is offered by the whole congregation, the whole of the time.  Sometimes that worship is led by worship leader, reader, musician and preacher, but it is our response in singing, thinking and focusing on God that makes it worship.  I am looking forward to being a part of the truth of that in all the worship that is led across the Thames Valley Circuit in the coming year as we too join with Miriam and David in singing and dancing, as well as praying and thinking, in response to the joy of our relationship with God.

God bless,

Vicci

SANCTIFIED! - A Celebration of Gospel Blues

When - on Sunday 29th January at 10.30am

Where - At Windsor Methodist Church

Come and join us for an uplifting hour of live music

featuring worship songs from some of the pioneers of gospel blues

All are welcome,Bring your friends!

Rev'd Vicci's thought for the week

Friends

As we arrive at the last Sunday in Advent, we come also to that week when we recall Mary’s gift to the world: the agreement to be the Theotokos, the one who gave birth to God – or as Luke says it “Mother of the Lord.”  In the Greek Orthodox church they say: “The love poured into the Theotokos to allow her to love so fully in her turn.”  Much is made at this time of the year of Mary’s obedience, less so of Joseph’s which is perhaps a shame.  But it may be we should also make much of their love for their child and the life that he called them to live. 

As we think of families displaced from their home towns at this time through war, corruption, global warming, political upheaval, we remember that Mary and Joseph said yes to being political refugees.

As we think of people who are homeless or living in insecure accommodation, we remember that Mary and Joseph said yes to having their baby in a stable, pushed there by the Roman Emperor who didn’t need people to go to where they had been born to be counted, but who wanted to put his stamp on the country; to say to them that they were under occupation and they had to do what they were told. 

As we think of the many children who will not survive this winter across the world, we remember that Mary and Joseph said yes to a flight into a foreign country in order to avoid being caught up in a massacre – the slaughter of the innocents.

As we think of the many gifts and the good food that we are perhaps already being offered this close to Christmas, we remember that Mary and Joseph knew food insecurity and will have worried about their status in Egypt at least until Joseph could get some work. 

As we think of the power or lack of power we have over our own lives, we remember that God himself chose to give up power we cannot begin to comprehend, emptying himself out so that he could be born as a human baby and live our lives from birth to death as the Son became the child who would grow into the man who would save the world. 

May God bless you with his love this Christmas season as we try to respond with the love of Mary and of Joseph. 

God bless,

Vicci

Thought for the day from Rev'd Vicci Davidson

Friends

This week we hear more about John the Baptist, that man who was “The voice of one calling in the wilderness ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord’.”  I wonder if sometimes he felt that he was not so much calling in the wilderness as whistling down the wind.  There are times, are there not, when we feel like that about sharing our own faith?  It is not so much that we can’t, or that we don’t dare, but more that other people just don’t seem to care.  Even our own families who we worked so hard to bring up in the faith, may have fallen away or become indifferent to something that is for us so very important. 

And yet… perhaps at this time of year when the darkness is lit by little points of light, little points of hope, others might still recognise something of the glory and the promise of the Christmas story.  If the stars are not as bright in our light-polluted landscapes as they were on that first Christmas Eve, still there is something magical about the twinkle of lights in the High Street, our neighbour’s houses, on our Christmas trees.  If the lights where you are don’t shine that brightly, or are too garish for your tastes, drive out to Cookham one evening and enjoy the magic of the little High Street lit by thousands of white Christmas lights. 

What do they represent, these little lights?  Well, they remind us of the star which wise men followed of course, but it seems to me that in this time of fear and worry, these little twinkling points of light in the gloom remind us that there is always hope.  That in the context of no room at the inn, there was still a stable.  In the context of a King desperate to maintain his own power, there were still people prepared to disobey him, and gifts that allowed the little family to flee to Egypt.  In the context of poverty and a little-respected job as shepherds, angels appeared to tell the Good News.  In the context of fear and occupation, a child was born, a Son was given and from that tiny, surprising, scarce-witnessed beginning, a hope was sent to the entire world that even today is offered, needed and longed for. 

Let us pray this Advent, that some at least will follow the lights of town centres and homes across the Circuit all the way to the door of the Church and on arriving will find that there is room for them. 

God bless,

Vicci

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

Friends

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

“The past is a foreign country they do things differently there.”

“Last night I dreamed of Manderley.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

All these famous introductions to books leave us wanting to know more of the story. How could it be both the best of times and the worst of times? Is it really a universally acknowledged truth? The past is a foreign country – yes, we can recognise that. Where or what or who is Manderley? And what is this Word that was in the beginning and was not just with God but was God?

This Sunday is the last of the Church Year and next Sunday will be the first of Advent and our lectionary readings will come round again to year A. Have we enjoyed the book? Has it led us onwards into the story so that we wanted to hear the next bit on the next Sunday, or has it been a dry round of unfamiliar and difficult bits, intertwined with stories we know so well that we switch off? How do we ensure that the story remains fresh and engaging so that those who hear it for the first time are excited and others are reminded or challenged by unfamiliar readings? These are the questions preachers ask themselves each week. How do we ensure that our reading and interpretation of the Bible seeks social justice as fiercely as Dickens, engages hearts and minds as strongly as Austen, holds us in a story-teller’s grip as firmly as JB Priestley and keeps us in suspense as much as Du Maurier?

This time of year, as we come to the end of the story and prepare to start it anew, let us “read” the story of the Church year with as much intent and excitement as we read the novels of our great writers, let us seek to find the Bible as un-put-downable as A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, The Go-Between or Rebecca. For we too have a story with a memorable beginning.

God bless,

Vicci