Phil Marsh began his ministry with us (and with the
Emmanuel and South Wilford schools) on 22 March, 2009. His
first message to us is further down the page. (For more on the process of how he became our
new vicar, look here or listen to his first
talk). Here is Phil's latest message.
Message for the AGM
21 April 2010
Dear Church Family,
Today I write, knowing what a mixed season we live in at the moment. I am hopeful that you have by now received a letter from me attached to an earlier email regarding the impact that our financial situation is having upon Angela, our youth worker. Letters have been sent to everyone by email, however we are aware that over the weekend some families failed to receive their email or had the attachments snipped off! To rectify this we have sent out a new set of letters in a pdf format to avoid the same thing happening again. If you have not received these letters regarding our financial situation and the difficult news that we are having to withdraw our funding from the youth work position, and what that sadly means for Angela, please do contact us and we will send you a paper copy. We hold Angela and Jon closely in our prayers at this time.
As mentioned in the letter I am making myself available to the young people at 4pm and the adult congregation at 7:30pm in church on Thursday evening for people to ask questions about this difficult decision that the PCC has taken. I have been asked if this is by individual appointment, but the idea is that we meet together in church for a time of open questions. Can I encourage you to attend if you have any concerns or queries you wish to raise over this situation. If you are unable to attend but would like to engage with the issue please do let me know personally.
I also want to encourage you to attend the AGM this Sunday afternoon, starting after coffee after the morning service, for a bring and share lunch, and a short meeting and presentation. The meeting will cover the election of new members of the PCC and the re-election of our wardens, as well as a presentation of the accounts and parish reports. This part of the meeting should be relatively short. The presentation will cover a review of this year just gone, and a presentation of the vision that we have been working on together as a church family for the future of the church. I am very excited by the possibilities raised by the churches sense of vision and am looking forward to sharing with you some of the things that are already happening and could be happening in the future.
We find ourselves in a strange season. We are experiencing grief as we lose Angela from the post of Youth worker, and yet we are looking forward for vision for the future. We cannot perhaps see what God is doing in the midst of this, but we are confident that God knows what He is doing. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, ‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.’ ‘We carry this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.’ May we each be held, shielded and led by God in this season that he may demonstrate, in the fullness of time, for His glory, His all surpassing power at work.
With you in trusting In Christ, Phil.
Happy New Year!
10 January 2010
So what does the start of a New Year hold for you? I guess it may depend upon where we fix our starting point.
It may be, like me, that at this point in January you’re left feeling that you are still trying to wind up to speed.
Or it may be that the New Year celebrations were lost for you in one long continuum of business or responsibility.
It may be that the advent of the New Year has led to resolutions that you are successfully persevering with or have already faded.
If we anchor the starting point for the forthcoming year on the fancy yet meaningless fireworks of a new year’s eve we may possibly be left feeling like it’s all a bit of a damp squib. Perhaps we need a different starting place.
It could of course be that the blanket of snow, (currently not deep enough at the time of writing for those praying for school closures), amplifies the feeling of dormancy, or of things not quite having started yet.
But they have. Look carefully and snowdrops are already beginning to emerge.
Beneath the soil spring is stirring. Newness awaits, hope deferred but assured lies not at all dormant beneath our feet.
Of course the bulbs are beginning to emerge not because the New Year has come, but because of the preparation of the autumn.
Rather we move with eager expectation and hope that the king is on the move.
So too we may find that our starting point for this year lies not on new year’s eve, but back in November, as we began on the 29th November, to celebrate and reflect on Advent, a time of preparation for the coming of the King.
Were we to consider this as the starting point for our new year together, (which the Christian calendar surely does), perhaps this season would feel different.
Instead of feeling like we are waiting for things to begin, perhaps we might perceive that they have already begun.
We do not wait for the Kings coming, for we have already celebrated His advent in the Christmas story.
We do not wait for the start of things, of his kingdom are already sprouting, already offering the promise that the winter blanket and freeze shall give way to glorious spring.
The only thing we await now is His second coming, the king’s return. That alone may shape our response to the year ahead.
Perhaps then it is not New Years Eve, but it is in the preparing for, and in the celebration of the coming of Christ that we find the best starting point for the new year ahead, for in this we find anticipation, purpose, hope, meaning and resolve.
The Church calendar has already begun, we are six weeks into the new Christian year already, we have prepared for His coming, we have celebrated His birth, and now we prepare to continue to follow and serve the One who loves us, looking to His return.
It is possible that the New Years Eve celebrations subtly rob us of this more meaningful starting point.
So what does the start of a New Year hold for you? I suspect how we approach this New Year will all depend upon whether or not we locate our starting point on a relatively meaningless calendar date, or whether or not we choose, as our start point, to fix our hopes and aspirations upon the advent of the King who has already come and for whose return we await.
For if we start here, we begin our year with the potential of traveling hand in hand with the King who has come, in the most remarkable fashion, and who promises to journey with us every step of the way, and who has a dream for this world of ours, and for each of us, that surpasses our wildest imagining.
May we each begin this mundane calendar year with a higher vision of starting all things with Him, and with Him as its beginning, may this year, for each of us, be transformed by His presence and His promise.
Every blessing in Christ Jesus, your fellow traveler along The Way, Phil
Thinking about our vision
12 November 2009
Dear friends,
It would be difficult for me to describe how fired up I am about the
feedback from the questionnaires people have returned regarding discerning
the churches sense of vision. The task group from the PCC responsible for
the process met last night to look through the collated responses and
consider how best to handle the vast amount of prayerful thought and comment
that has been submitted. In brief it is enough to say that you have returned
far more than we'd imagined, and have not just talked about vision, but
mission, strategy and values too. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be
drawing together another in sight newsletter to keep you up to speed with
where we are in the process. For now it is enough for me to say thank you,
and way to go church! Good job. If people still have questionnaires to
return please don't feel it is too late as we can easily add your comments
and observations into the mix as we go through this next stage.
I'm also looking forward to our next couple of mini sermon series. Having
finished looking at stewardship a couple of weeks ago, we continue now with
a pair of sermons over the next fortnight on the faithfulness of God. This
week we are going to consider how God is at work for us even when we
struggle to see it, and how we might find ways of positioning ourselves to
catch His whispers of comfort. Then two weeks later advent starts and Ian,
James and Jonathon are going to head up a three week series for us on the
themes of Advent. If you would like to study the themes of advent during
this coming season we are making a book of bible notes available for £5 each
that will be available in church over the next couple of Sundays.
Finally over October we have been encouraging everyone to prayerfully review
their stewardship, and our finance group are now beginning to plan budgets
for next year. If you have not yet been able to return your stewardship form
and are intending to do so, I know the finance group would be blessed to
have that information available to them as soon as possible as they
prayerfully plan on our behalf for the coming year.
As we approach Christmas season, which will be my first with you this year,
I feel compelled to express to you what an honour it is to serve you in my
role here at Wilford. You are a fantastic congregation to work with, and I
thank God for the privilege of being a part of those who get to provide
leadership here.
Your fellow co-worker for the Gospel,
Phil.
Thinking about money
18 October 2009
So there’s this young man. He’s new to the faith, and so, having only recently started to follow Jesus, living as a Christian is a whole new experience.
His local vicar has taken him under his wing and is offering some discipleship to the young fellow.
One day, as the vicar gives him a lift to some conference or other, he asks the young man about his relationship with his girlfriend.
It’s a topic of conversation they’ve covered before. Sex and relationships.
The young man answers honestly, and openly, and for a while they talk about the impact that following Christ is having on his relationships, and
on issues of sexual purity.
As that conversation draws to a close the young man turns to the vicar and asks him about his Jag, the vehicle they are currently ensconced in.
“It must have cost a pretty penny eh? How much exactly do you earn anyway?
How do you justify driving a posh car then?” The questions are asked in quick succession, the vicar stumbles over his replies, but eventually manages to bring things to a head by gently offering, “I don’t
see how much I earn is any of your concern really.”
Awkward silence follows. “So how come then,” the young man eventually asks in reply, “ how come my love life seems to be very much your concern?”
It's a true story once told to me by the vicar in concerned.
So challenged was he by the young man, that he returned to his home-group and shared his experience with them.
They prayed together and decided that actually the question of how they handled their money, the decisions they made over it, and how they spent it was as much a matter of their Christian discipleship as any discussion about their prayer
lives. Or, for that matter, any other part of their lives. As a result they agreed to share openly with one another, on a quarterly basis, their bank and credit card statements in order that they may keep one another accountable for that part of their lives.
Now I am not necessarily advocating that as an approach to the question of stewardship.
However, it does highlight that Christian stewardship of our income, possessions and resources, is an important part of our Christian discipleship.
It should not be something we only talk about when the church needs money, but should be an integral part of our understanding and thinking about our discipleship.
Jesus never shied away from the issue (or any issue for that matter), and the bible contains over 2,300 verses on the
subject.
Following on from our harvest thanksgiving celebration, over the next two Sundays
we are going to be thinking about our stewardship of all that God has given us.
It is something that I hope we will look at together on a yearly basis, and my prayer is that in our hearts and minds it will be set in the context of our discipleship.
It is something I believe we need to consider individually. But it is also something I am, and will be increasingly, encouraging the PCC to
think about in terms of how the church handles its resources with respect to mission, locally, nationally and globally.
I believe that the local church carries within it the hope of the world.
I also believe the local church and church corporate carries within it all of the resources necessary to address issues of injustice, inequality, and oppression.
I do not believe that God established government to bring the touch of heaven to Earth, but I do believe that that is a God-intended task for the church.
We are in an age where how we live, and how we handle our resources matters more than it ever has.
My prayer is that as we together consider our stewardship as part of our discipleship, so God may unlock in us and through us all of the resources of Heaven, and that we may be moved by Him, in such a way as to see His kingdom come, in ways that we have yet to imagine.
Your fellow learner on The Way. Phil.
Children and Communion
September 2009
It may be that you have heard on the grapevine that questions
surrounding children and communion are being discussed at the PCC.
This is true. Some time back the Diocese started to explore enabling
churches to have discussions regarding the admission of children to
communion.
In part this was due to a desire to be more inclusive and to
acknowledge our children as an important part of the family of God.
Yet it was also necessary because in this day of high mobility, church
congregations have become far more mixed in their makeup and
background. This has led to churches experiencing an influx of
families from other areas and denominations, where their children have
been in the habit of receiving communion.
Now, since the house of Bishops has made it possible for Anglican
parishes to admit children to communion, we can add into the mix the
diverse practice of amongst Anglican parishes. This means that any
given congregation is likely to be made up of a mix of folk, with a
variety of backgrounds and expectations and, in regard to children, a
situation where some have been admitted to communion and some not.
The bishops are very clear, and rightly so, that if a child has been
admitted to communion elsewhere then they should not be refused when they
join another congregation. This mixed picture has led to some good,
sound, theological thinking about the role communion plays in our
corporate life and what the grounds are for admitting someone, regardless
of age, to communion.
The bishops have stated that baptism is to be the marker. Baptism
is the outward sign that someone wishes to identify themselves or their
family with the person of Christ and the family of God. Communion is
the ongoing expression of that identification. In this way baptism
sits hand in hand with communion.
So why are we discussing it. Well it would be safe to say that we
as a congregation have a 'mixed economy'. We have those families
whose children have been prepared for communion elsewhere and been in the
habit of receiving it and continue to do so. We have those whose
children have had the experience of receiving communion but have not had
any preparation for that. we have those whose children wish to
receive and don't. And we have those who do not wish their children
to receive communion. As a parish we have no policy in place and the
Diocese requests that all parishes who admit children to communion
undertake an appropriate process of exploration. Also that in the
event a parish chooses to admit children to communion, dioscesan
expectation is that we provide appropriate preparation for those who are
admitted.
The decision we need to explore is whether or not we continue to have
an unstructured approach to the question or to develop a clearer position.
We are raising it now because the clergy and I have become aware that
the question of admitting children to communion is expressing itself most
obviously at the communion rail. Why can't I receive the
bread? How come they get it and I don't? These are good
questions.
However, on the spot decision making may cloud the picture
further. Instead we will ask, at the communion rail, "has your
child been in the habit of receiving communion?" For those for
whom the answer to this question is yes they have been in the habit of
receiving communion, then of course we will continue to administer
communion to your child. For those who have not been in the habit of
receiving communion, we will not administer bread and wine to them until
we have had this discussion and come to a parish plan of action. For
this reason we ask that children of primary school age come to the rail
accompanied by a parent.
The children of our congregation are a most valuable and important part
of the body of Christ. This question of who we admit to communion
strikes at the heart of how we understand ourselves as gathered community,
body of Christ, people of God and family. I am sure that for this
reason the PCC will work hard on this issue, and the outcome will be
richer and deeper understanding of how we envision ourselves - with a
robust and clearly articulated understanding of how we enable and support
our children's journey of faith.
We will also need to consult widely with the congregation so if anyone
has any thoughts, concerns or questions, please don't hesitate to speak to
myself, Jono, Diane, Megan, Eddie or Simon.
In Christ, Phil
A little pomp and circumstance ...
... for us all
