Wednesday 4 October 2023

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I know that many of you are continuing to enjoy some time away and making the most of this beautiful weather.

Perhaps because the weather is so good and many people are on holiday, very few tickets have been sold for our TearFund Quiz. Therefore, this event, which was going to be held this Saturday, is now postponed. We hope to find an alternative date for this, perhaps in the winter months.

Harvest Festival and Auction, THIS SUNDAY
This is a special service when we celebrate the fruitfulness of the earth and all the good gifts God has given us. Please bring fruit, vegetables and other goodies to decorate the church. The service will be an All Age Eucharist with the children involved in the service in different ways.

After the service, there will be an Auction in the Church Hall when we sell off the harvest produce to raise money for TearFund (a Christian Aid Agency which works with some of the most needy people in our world).

Lectio Divina
A group of us meet every Thursday morning, 10:30-11:15am, via Zoom, to meditate on a short Bible passage and share our reflections. Ask Helen for the Zoom link.
NB There will be NO lectio meeting on Thursday 12th October, or Thursday 19th October.

Mental Health and the Christian Faith
On Sunday 29th October, after the service, we will be having an informal discussion about Mental Health and the Christian Faith.

These things are not always easy to talk about but I am aware that concerns over mental health (for ourselves of our loved ones) affect many of us, and we may be asking how our Christian faith and belonging to a church community relate to these concerns. I hope we can encourage and support one another.

I will be sending out more information about this shortly, but please note this date in your diary if you are interested.

Abundant Grace
As a further reflection on God's grace, I quote below a powerful section from a novel called 'The Man on a Donkey' by Hilda Prescott. Towards the end of the novel, a character called Gib Dawe, who is a priest utterly ashamed of his many failures and sins, describes himself in despair as a 'leaking bucket not to be mended.' What follows is one of the most powerful descriptions of grace that I know.

'Once he had seen his sin as a thing that clung close as his shadow clung to his heels; now he knew that it was the very stuff of his soul. Never could he, a leaking bucket not to be mended, retain God's saving Grace, however freely outpoured. Never could he, that heavy lump of sin, do any other than sink, and sink again, however often Christ, walking on the waves, should stretch His hand to lift and bring him safe.

He did not know that though the bucket be leaky it matters not at all when it is deep in the deep sea, and the water both without it and within. He did not know, because he was too proud to know, that a man must endure to sink, and sink again, but always crying upon God, never for shame ceasing to cry, until the day when he shall find himself lifted by the bland swell of that power, inward, secret, as little to be known as to be doubted, the power of omnipotent grace in tranquil irresistible operation.'

With love in Christ,
Helen