Rector's Letters - St Nicholas Church, Barton-le-Clay

March 2010

Today I attended a meeting of those who are members of the Anglican part of the Franciscan Order - we are known as, tertiaries because we are the 3rd element of the order in Anglicanism. The First Order is made up of friars and sisters, living in community but with a calling to mission and ministry in the world. You see them from time to time at events like Greenbelt or on occasions like Christian Aid marches or in parishes too, conducting missions. The second order is exclusively nuns. These also live in community but as a closed community where they remain. They serve God and the Church by a minitry of prayer (it is from this community that we buy our community wafers). The third order (tertiaries) are men and women, single or married, ordained or lay, who live in ordinary homes, but meet to "be" community regularly through the year. Angela and I have both felt a calling to this life and have been professed members since the 1980s.

It is difficult to describe what the Third Order is, as it is a community that does not live as a community. Its origins lie back in the 13th century, although in the Anglican church it only came into being in the early 20th century. Its origin and inception lie with St Francis. His dramatic movement from rich playboy to dynamic reformer of the church is an inspiration to all Franciscans - how he responded to the divine challenge to "rebuild my church" starting from a quick fix of dubious legality and ending by radically overhauling his own life and then the lives of others and finally the Church itself. By the end of his life he had, in a very real sense, rebuil the church and his followers and successors have continued to be at the forefront of modelling and reforming the church ever since.

In this Diocese alone there are over 60 tertiaries and several thousand in the Church of England, to say nothing of the wider Anglican Communion. We are not very obvious, because we do not ear any special clothers and we are committed to serve the church and to resist any temptation to in any way become a church within a church. We, like our brothers and sisters in the first order, are committed to serving the church in ministry and mission and, like our sisters in the second order, try to make prayer and spirituality central in our live. We go down the traditional route of testing our vocations as postulants and novices before we make a life profession. We promise to live by a rule of life that accords with the principles of the order and to give high priority to attending the meetings which promote and develop our communty life together.

If you are interested in a history of St Francis or finding out more about the third order, we have a website - tssf.org.uk - or talk to Angela or me about it.

Pax et Bonum (a traditional Francis greeting meaning peace and goodness)

Graham Newton

February 2010

It will soon be time to think about Lent (Ash Wednesday is 17th Feburary)!!!. Fliers are available for "Challenge" - the Diocesan Lent initiative from our new Bishop. This is what the publicity says about it. "Make a difference in 2010. The Challenge to people, schools and churches across the Diocese of St Albans is : dare to make a difference in your lives, in your communities and in the world by living the words of Jesus.

READ a verse from the bible each day in Lent
LEARN it, PRAY about it and then
DO something to make a difference
SHARE what you have learned and what you have done

You can register on the Challenge website www.challenge2010.org or through your parish; ask your parish priest, churchwarden or other leader. The verses, which are all from Luke's Gospel and record something Jesus said, will be sent by email or by text (for a small charge) or will be available through Twitter and RSS. Alternatively the verses will be available to be downloaded from the website and you, your parish, your school or youth group can print them off.

The website will give further details and ideas about how to make the Challenge a shared exercise within your congregation, class, youth group or among your friends. In particular you will be able to write comments on the website and upload short video clips, via YouTube, so that you can share with others what the verse means to you and how you are seeking to act on it. its simple, its risky, its life changing: are you up for it? Dare to make a difference by living the words of Jesus.

Our Lent Course with the Methodist Church is "Not a tame lion" based on the writings of CS Lewis, using the films Shaddowlands and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Here is how the course is described. "We would all like a religion that kept us within our comfort zone, but just as CS Lewis' Aslan is not a tame lion, neither is the Christ of the gospels always a comfortable Saviour, saying and doing things that are often unexpected and challenging. 'Nor is this a comfortable Lent course. Lent of course was never intended to be a time of comfort. It was traditionally a time of sackcloth and ashes and rumblings in the stomach, a drab, grey run-up to the glorious resurrection theme of Easter. Discomfort is much less fashionable nowadays. But whatever your Lenten attitude to chocolate or alcohol, maybe, for this Lent at least, you will be willing to submit your spirit to a little bit of mental exercise and your mind to a little bit of spiritual challenge".

The actual course will be held in the Methodist Church on Wednesdays 24th February and 3rd, 10th, 17th and 14th March, preceded by a supper together. There will be preview opportunities on Feburary 3rd (Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and 10th (Shadowlands) for those who have not seen them to view the films. To have seen the films is desirable but not essential for doing the course.

Best wishes, Graham Newton

December 2009

Dear Reader,

I must be getting older! After all, don't people say that time passes faster as one gets older? This year seems to have shot by, and to be writing to you for the Outlook that sees us into 2010 came upon me almost as a surprise.

However, first we have to 'do' Christmas. From my perspective doing Christmas is a succession of carol events and services, the liturgies actually around Christmas, and then family jollifications. It is such a busy time that the idea of personal, spiritual preparation can sometimes seems no more than a dream. I am sure I am no different to many of you, the readers of Outlook, in finding December a helterskelter month. We have all of Lent to prepare for Easter, but the days between Advent Sunday (29th November this year) and Christmas Day include the patronal festival at St Nicholas, the Christingle Service and carol services for each of our churches. This year I am adding to our programme 2 evenings to STOP and REFLECT (they are in the diary section). We live in a world where times to stop relax and reflect are at a premium and many of us are quite unused to this whole idea. Retreats and quiet days have a long history in creating the spiritual space to grow. I know that many are quite fearful of the idea of silence so I would like to suggest you consider coming to one or both of these quiet evenings. Hopefully they will be relaxing and give you a taster of what a quiet day is like. I hope they will also be a blessed preparation for Christmas.

So, having survived the tinsel and turkey, the cards and the cake, we arrive at the new year. 2010!!! It doesn't seem 5 minutes since we were seeing in the millennium and worrying about the non-existent consequences for our computers of the millennium bug! For many of us 2009 has been a year to forget - a year of jobs lost, bereavement or illness, a year of watching the steady stream of coffins from Afghanistan, of seeing pension plans shrink. It’s at times like these that I am really glad God did not grant us the gift of forward vision. We have to head into 2010 in hope. For me that hope is in God - whether 2010 is judged this time next year as having been better or worse than 2009, I trust that God will give me the necessary gifts of wisdom, courage, laughter or whatever is needful for me. There is a wonderful prayer for peace from Jainism that goes as follows:-

Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth.
Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust
Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace.
Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe. Amen

It may not be from our Christian heritage of prayer, but it is, nonetheless my prayer for 2010. Might it be yours?

Best wishes for Christmas and the New year. Graham Newton (Rector)

November 2009

Dear Reader

At last we have been able to restore heating to St Nicholas’, and just in time!

When the old, subterranean, boiler house flooded in May 2008 we hoped to have new heating in place by the end of 2008, not to be worrying lest the 2009/10 heating season would also be problematic! However, these things can so often be beyond our control and waiting becomes the order of the day. I would like to thank everyone for their patience and for their good humour last winter when we either shivered or used the hall.

Once we get into November we start planning in detail for Advent and Christmas and there is all the usual fayre to look forward to. In Advent there is the Tree Festival, the Patronal Festival and the Christingle. I am also going to run 2 evenings I am calling, "Peace & Prayer Preparation for Christmas". These will be a combination of music, short addresses and quiet times. And will, I hope give those who come refreshment as well as preparation for Christmas. We are also hard at work, now, preparing for the Christmas Tree Festival. This is an event that has become something of a village institution with lots of community groups and families decorating the trees and the church looking and smelling so beautiful. It has become one of those events where you are likely to bump into old friends or even make new ones as we enjoy looking at the trees, drinking mulled wine or eating excellent cakes, and listening to the music. Hopefully, in that place that has been prayed in for over 800 years, and despite the gentle hubbub of conversation, many will also have a sense of the presence of God too.

But I would not want November to be thought of solely as part of the early preparation for the Christmas season for it has its important events in its own right - most notably Remembrance Sunday. It could never be right to allow the cost of war in pain and continuing suffering to be taken for granted both for the sake of those who are suffering and as a spur to us all to work and pray for a better world in which evil no longer has to be confronted violently. It is this double significance - facing squarely the cost of war and renewing commitment to the cause of peace - that I try to place at the core of the service we hold for the village. I try to make this service appropriate for those needing to “touch base” with their own involvement with past periods when we were at war but also for the younger generation who sooner or later will become the key players in the quest for a world at peace.

Graham Newton (Rector)

August 2009

Dear Reader

At the end of September at St Nicholas' we will be taking part in Back to Church Sunday. This year it has the slogan, "Come as you are". I had to smile at that because it reminded me of an event that happened many years ago when our daughter, Sarah, was 18. It was Good Friday and she wanted to come to the service but was going on to a party afterwards, so she came dressed ready for the party - at the time she was into what I believe was called "Goth" music and fashion!! One of the congregation was unwise enough to say to her that he was surprised at her coming to church dressed as she was - she told him exactly what she thought about that and reminded him that she was there but his daughter was not!! She offered to go and apologise, but I told her that if an apology was due, it was most certainly not from her. Happily such intolerance is much rarer now, though it was not so long ago that someone asked me if they were "allowed" into a service wearing jeans. I told her that Adam & Eve started coming into the presence of God without even a fig leaf!! I got a rather startled look as she thought for a moment that I was suggesting she should come to a service a la Eve!!!!

When we use the slogan, "Come as you are", it may be that we are encouraging people to feel comfortable and at home in our church and services, wearing what makes them feel OK, but I hope it goes much deeper than that. I hope people will share in the life of the church aware that they are valued and welcomed as a whole - with their strengths and weaknesses, with their moral bravery and cowardess with their history of good deeds and bad behaviour, of hopes raised and spirits dashed. Too many people at the periphery of the Church have this perception that the Church is a club for saints and feel that that excludes them. I hope that those who are part of the Church are all too aware that it is rather a school for sinners and that that is where we all belong.

When we look at the ministry of Jesus we see that all through, whether he was talking to the great and "good" or the crushed and the outcast, they were able "come as they were" into the aura of his love. They were greeted and welcomed, they were taught, fed and healed and they left His presence refreshed and renewed. That is my hope for all those who "come as they are" into the churches and communities to which I am priest and pastor. That is what I put my effort into in leading the worship and life of all the churches where the Church has asked me to serve. But this is not just about the priest in his/her parish, for together we are called to be as if we are Christ ministering to the wider community, greeting, welcoming, meeting need and enabling the refreshing and renewing gifts of God to permeate our locality.

Back to Church Sunday (27th September), with its theme "Come as you are", is also Harvest Festival at St Nicholas. A day when we reflect on the generosity of God in creation and recommit to sharing our riches with those who are seriously poor - the hungry, the homeless and the refugee. We remind ourselves of the truth of the cliché, "God provides enough for our need but not for our greed". In other words it is an opportunity to be thankful but also to be aware that we all come as we are, rich and poor, generous and mean, giving and taking and that he loves us all, as indeed he suffered on the cross for us all.

Graham Newton (Rector)

July 2009

Dear Reader

I am not a great follower of football. I have only twice EVER been to watch a professional match on the touchline, so to speak. The first time was at Chelsea and the second at Port Vale and for no other reason I regard myself as an armchair supporter of these two clubs. Those who are genuine and enthusiastic followers of one team or another are all too aware of this "flaw" in their Rector from the number of occasions that I have fixed a meeting etc on the evening of a really important match!!!!

So, without going into the footballing merits or otherwise, I was amazed to see on the television news today that the Manchester United player Christiano Ronaldo had been sold to Real Madrid for 80 million pounds. When I contrast that with the fact that almost half of the worlds population exist on about £1.50 a day, I have to ask myself, "Can any one human being be worth that much?" or I can turn the question round and ask myself the equally shocking question, "Can so many (about 3 billion) people be worth so little?".

Now, I have no doubt that those into football in a big way would be able to give me the reasons why the top players can be worth that amount, but that to me is not the point. They may be brilliant, and they may earn amazing sums for their clubs in turnstile revenue and advertising arrangements, but still I am left with a world divided between the haves and the have nots. None of us who write or read this letter can have any idea what it is like to live on £1.50 a day. Many of us at the present time are grappling with the ill consequences of the credit crunch and the recession and some are being crushed under the weight of debt that only a few short months ago seemed reasonable but is now threatening to bury us.

And yet our welfare state, for all its failings, will ensure that there is food on the table for our children, a bed in hospital when we need it and education to the age of 16. I don't think that anyone in our society needs to be in that genially poverty stricken half of the world community. We do well to remember this when we are at our bleakest.

However there is another aspect to all of this. There was a survey recently into which were the happiest nations and which the saddest. Here we were near the bottom. Why might that have been? I think we do have in this land - not material poverty, but a poverty in self esteem, a poverty in spirituality. Christiano Ronaldo knows he is gifted, admired and wanted, but so many in our society feel they are useless, unloved and unwanted - that nobody cares. What a tragedy that is and what a waste when it disempowers those who feel like that. Our faith teaches us that we are ALL loved and wanted by God and we are ALL gifted, if only we can have the courage to trust - God and our neighbours.

Being damaged and disabled by a consuming lack of self esteem is one of the most common and most harmful factors that bring people to me for pastoral support. All too often there is an unresolved event or relationship breakdown that has convinced the sufferer that they are useless and that neither God nor his church has anything to say or to offer to them in their plight. Yet we can offer the thought and belief that each and every one of us is made in the image of God and is of infinite value to him. We are worth far more than £80 million to him - we are worth the sacrificial love seen in the life, death & resurrection of His Son. We also sometimes need reminding that in his Son we are all brothers and sisters called to love and care for each other - including doing whatever we can, however minute it may seem to the size of the issue, for our brothers and sisters living on £1.50 a day

Graham Newton

June 2009

Dear Reader,

We recently held our annual Parish Conference on the theme 'Journeys into Faith'. This could have been an exercise in 'navel gazing' during which we simply looked at what we liked and disliked about what we do and how we worship at St. Nicholas. BUT IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT!!

Most of the time together was spent in effect asking ourselves, 'When people look at us, what do they see and what do they get?' There was a strong desire that what they want and get is a warm, open and generous welcome. There was a desire too to change where necessary so that this is always very evidently the case.

I know that our building is on the edge of the village but that does not mean we want our community to be there too. We want the village to feel confident that we aspire to be fully engaged with the life of the village and that that is our aspiration because we care.

There is nothing unique or special (or loaded) about our desire to be part of the village's life - a group of humanists or a community from other faiths could have the same aspiration. The difference is our motivation which comes from the example of Jesus. He provided wine for a wedding where nobody knew him and food for thousands just because they were there. We care because like him, the village is where we are and we belong.

On a final note, you may have noticed that, at about 11.15am on Sunday mornings, the church bell rings three times, twice. This is done so that members unable to get to church, and others who value knowing, can tell that we have come to that special moment when first the bread and then the wine is blessed. We hope that those for whom this is important are pleased, and those for whom it is not, do not mind.

Your friend and priest
Graham Newton

May 2009

Dear Reader

Phew! Lent and Holy Week over for another year! Its not that I don't enjoy them - I find them deeply healing and enriching, but they are a bit of an endurance trial. Now we look forward to the Easter season, culminating in the feast of Pentecost when we recall and celebrate the gift to us of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the nurture and support to be found in the Church. Sadly in our culture and in our Church the feast of the Ascension (when we recall the final ending of our Lord's earthly ministry) is often passed by.

I say, "sadly" because our society is not very good at endings and needs all the examples and help it can get and the 2 endings of Jesus' ministry are very instructive. The first ending was his death on Good Friday. Here we are presented with a picture of an untimely, unjust and violent ending which seems to encapsulate the failure of his ministry and the victory of the corrupt, the cruel, the weak and the inept. It was a particularly cruel death that was suited to the harsh times in which Jesus lived, but the other elements in it are timeless - they exist as much today as they did 2000 years ago. In the midst of it all, Jesus came under the control of these evil and weak forces and is faced with the failure of all that he believed in, including God and himself. Yet two things stand out - he did retain his dignity and his ability to love even those who were tormenting him and he did retain his humanity, offering hope to those suffering a similar fate, and comfort to his despairing mother and closest follower. I hope I and we can ensure that the endings we are involved in - and there are other endings than death where all this is equally valid (divorce, redundancy, ill health) - give others the dignity and humanity they deserve and need.

So lets look at the second ending as he returned finally to his heavenly home. Gone is the violence and despair. Because Jesus and his followers knew that this day was coming, they had planned for it and he had spent a lot of time lovingly moving them through the agenda of failure and betrayal so that they were ready for the post-Jesus era to begin. But all that was made possible by the acceptance that in that ending there was the hope and promise of a new beginning. The new was not going to be easy, but it was going to be "real" and that was enough. If only we too can help others to see beyond an ending - whatever ending it might be - to see that there is hope and promise and possibility even where the seeing and hoping are most difficult.

I guess all of us have faced the pain of endings at some stage, and will do so many times before the final ending that we all have to face. In this Easter season we are reminded that even that final ending is not the end and that there is the promise of what lies beyond for which we can prepare ourselves and others. My thoughts and prayers at this time are particularly focussed on those facing the ending and change that comes from losing their employment and all the uncertainties and fears about what that new situation's impact will be on home, relationships etc.

Graham Newton, Rector

April 2009

Dear Friends

It was a delight to share in the service of welcome and installation for Sverker Linge in our friendship link parish of Vreta Kloster in Sweden. As usual when we visit our Swedish friends the welcome was enthusiastic and warm. The service, at which I was invited to take part, was prayerful and the music was wonderful. Even the winter landscape was superb - the snow which had fallen several days previously was still crisp and beautifully clean.

Although it was cold, none-the-less there was a hint of spring in the air, and this sense of new beginning was behind the optimism expressed in the service. One of the parts of the day that was an unexpected delight was a web-cam recording of a greeting from Per Edler (the previous Rector) and his wife Gannek which was played at the reception after the service. Our custom is that, once gone, the previous parish priest steers well clear for at least a couple of years, but I felt that the Swedish way had much to commend it.

It demonstrated to me that the new Rector was beginning his work as a continuum from the work of his predecessor, but not as a replica of him. Per was a very popular rector, but things need to change and move on and the parish as it applauded both Sverker and Per was recognising and embracing this truth. This, it seems to me, is the sentiment expressed in our happiness when we see spring bulbs blooming and the birth of lambs etc.

It is also at the core of Holy Week and Easter. We celebrate the new birth beyond death that was first made visible in Jesus and is now a promise to each of us. I wish you Easter Joy, especially at Easter but for always.

Your friend and priest Graham.

March 2009

Dear Reader

Lent is the forty-day-long liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where according to the Bible he endured temptation by Satan. Different churches calculate the forty days differently. For us, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Saturday. The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter" - a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, and our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Historically the preparation of the believer was not only for the church members generally but also particularly for those who were about to be re-admitted to the Sacrament of Holy Communion after a period of excommunication and those who were to be Baptised, Confirmed and admitted to Holy Communion. For both of these it was also a period of intensive preparation and study.

So, although the focus is often on the answer to the question, "What are you giving up for Lent?", actually our preparation for Holy Week and Easter needs to reflect five aspects not just the one - prayer, penitence, almsgiving and study as well as self-denial.

I do not intend here to go through each of the five, giving a mini-sermon on each. We've set up the Lent Groups, there's a Lent book available, and a sermon series at the 10.30am Sunday Eucharist. There are opportunities for the practice of almsgiving, through the Charity of the Month and many other ways advertised in the media, prayer and penitence are matters of personal and private practice, although there are opportunities in the public services of the Church, and self-denial as an act of fasting is something most of are familiar with and often link to our acts of almsgiving. So now its up to each of us to sort out what this Lent will mean for us.

But there is an unanswered question here, "Why bother?". In days gone by the answer, "Because the Church says so!" sufficed, but that will not do, today. We live in what has been called a "pick and mix" society which could also be called a "cherry tree" society in which we can cherry pick the bits and values of society that we like and ignore those that we do not find so acceptable. Words like "discipline", "obedience" and "humility" are out of fashion. It is generally assumed that, "I always know what's best for me!" The disciplines of Lent help us to focus on the truth that the best for me is what God wants for me. After a Lent of purposeful attention to the needs of our souls we are ready to enter into the full emotional and liturgical roller coaster that is Holy Week that leads us to the profoundest and deepest joy that comes with the dawn of Easter.

I do hope that what I have said may stimulate you into a fresh appraisal of how you are going to observe Lent this year.

Best wishes

Graham
(The Rector)

November 2008

Dear Reader

I really had hoped for some hot autumn weather in September to 'cook' St. Nicholas stone work so that we would be able to defer difficulties caused by our lack of heating for this autumn. Sadly our miserable summer has continued into a rotten autumn too. We are experimenting at the moment with halogen heaters to see how much difference they can make. Meanwhile plans are being made, tender documents produced and authorisations for the work sought. Being realistic, even if everything is done as expeditiously as possible most of the heating season will be over before the work is done and heating restored.

I suspect that many people's morale has suffered from a second consecutive summer without much sunshine. I know that there is SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but it seems to me that far more people than those with SAD have been left feeling low this autumn.

Of course things have hardly been helped by what has been happening in the national and international financial world. For me, and I suspect many others, the whole thing is almost totally incomprehensible - there are so many inter-related bits of global finance that I have never heard of, and the amounts of money so huge - yet it sounds as though we ought to be concerned about it all. The other very difficult issue for us is, how do we pray about it? We can and should pray for those individuals caught up in it all - those whose jobs have or are soon to disappear, those whose homes are at risk of repossession, those whose pensions are under threat.

It is important too that we pray for those charities that are threatened with the loss of their funds and those that are finding it becoming more difficult to bring a response from the people who normally give to them. We must ever hold in prayer the most vulnerable in our world who are always the first to suffer when money becomes tight and for them our prayers should be a spur to action, to support charities with maybe a bit more preparedness to dig that bit deeper into our pockets or purses.

But how do we pray about the systems - which bits of the systems are benevolent to our world order and which malevolent? Is all that has happened merely the result of human mistakes and foolishness or is there wickedness and the disruptive power of evil at work in it - or indeed is all this happening because there is an evil there that the forces of goodness and love are contending with and the pain now is the pain of surgery but the blessings of healing will follow? These for me are the complicated areas where it is far from clear how we should be praying. At the end of the day, we can do no better than echo the words of Jesus, 'Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done' and remind ourselves that we are not called to sort these matters out - that is for others to do who do understand them and they too need to be prayed for.

Best wishes
Graham Newton - Rector

October 2008

Dear Reader,

Angela and I have just returned from a visit to Linkoping in Sweden, staying at the home of the Vicar in our link parish at Vreta Kloster. The main purpose of the trip was for me to share in the leadership of a seminar at a diocesan conference called 'Hello World' at which the Swedish Church was looking at what it means to be a church that engages with the issues that confront us in today's world.

There were presentations about the Church of Sweden's work overseas, principally on this occasion, in the South Africa, and a very powerful lecture (so I am told because it was in Swedish) by Jan Eliasson Who was President of the United Nations General Assembly from 2005 to 2006 and is currently the United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy to Dafur, Sudan. Then the 600 conference attendees divided into seminar groups. I was there because of our parish-to-parish link, an idea that is being promoted in this and Linkoping dioceses. It is good to know that we, here, are at the forefront of things! The parish of Vreta Kloster has three parish links. As well as with us, they have them with parishes in Tanzania and Namibia. Also visiting for the occasion was a choir from their Tanzanian link parish, whose singing and dancing enlivened the worship both at the conference and on the Sunday in All Saints' Church, one of those in our link parish.

Once again the welcomed offered by the Vreta Klosterans was amazingly warm and generous and it was lovely to hear that that was their remembered experience from coming here in 2007. Once again, we were able to note and reflect on our different ways of doing and being church. Theirs is a church that relies on its paid servants for almost every aspect of church life and work, whereas, of course, we are almost wholly dependant on a pool of loyal and dedicated volunteers. Their system ensues that the church is well funded, but this funding takes the urgency out of the need for active mission and ministry. Ours is a system in which the efforts and time of our volunteers have to be concentrated on fundraising and care and maintenance of buildings and systems, so that that there is little left for mission and ministry. From our very different starting positions, the end result is remarkably similar - a struggle to give ministry and mission, outreach etc the priority that they deserve.

At the seminar I was asked why our link to Vreta Kloster was important to me. I said I thought there were two main reasons. First our link reminded us that the Church of England was not the centre of Christendom and that our churches in Barton-le-Clay, Hexton and Higham Gobion were part of something so much bigger and more varied than we often remember. And second our link offers us the chance to see that there are different ways for us to do and be the church and looking at other models helps us to look afresh at our own and maybe make changes to improve on what we do.

In Vreta Kloster they are preparing to say 'goodbye' to their vicar Per Edler. He is leaving in October to take on a new ministry in Puket, Thailand for three years. He and his wife Genet are having to put almost all of their worldly goods in store - what a brave thing to do for the gospel, I thought. What an adventure, was their reply. This means that the parish is going through the process for appointing a new vicar. He or she will be appointed in October and start work in the New Year. I hope we will all try to keep Per and Genet, the parish and the new rector, when appointed, in our prayers.

Your friend and priest
Graham

August 2008

I am writing this on the day after the vote at General Synod, approving the move to the next stage in the process that will allow women to be consecrated as bishops. I, for one, am so relieved that the vote has happened and gone the way it has. These last few weeks have seen a seemingly never ending stream of bad news stories about the Church of England - and all this at a time when we are gearing up to telling people that the Church is good news (on Back to Church Sunday). Of course the process is nowhere near over - I'm led to believe through the media that the first consecration will not be until 2015 - but perhaps now we can start to talk about things that matter to the ordinary folk in the pews and more importantly the things that matter to those who might one day decide to look to the Church for the feeding of their spiritual side.

So, here at least, I am going to turn my attention away from the threat of schism and the inter-play between the different factions in the Church. They have always been there, and probably always will - unless they decide to go off and do their own thing. History is littered with the memories of those who have gone off to live a purer way without compromise, but who in a very short time fizzle out as an entity.

So, what's the good news? Yesterday I picked up a few bits that I will share with you. Did you know that on an ordinary Sunday in this country 1,000,000 people go to Church? And in St Albans diocese alone 27,300 people do it? The best bit about these statistics is that, in this Diocese, the numbers are steadily rising. Over the ordination weekend 23 men and women were made Deacon or ordained Priest in our Cathedral adding to the 240 stipendiary and 100 Non-stipendiary clergy and over 200 in Reader ministry. So don't be taken in by the constant cry in the papers that the Church is in terminal decline.

Of course the Church is changing and for some that is a threat. They want the Church to be a bastion of stability in a world that is always in a state of flux. For me the fact that it is changing is good news. We live in a changing world, anything that is not changing is probably dead. Change for change sake will, more often than not, take one into a cul-de-sac. But responding to the needs of its community in ways that reflect both its changing situation and the continuing revelation of God and His will for us is the essence of the Church's mission. So, for me, more of the good news is that the Church is changing. Its services have changed and are changing, Women in the priesthood have changed the church and will continue to do so. The roles of lay people are changing and being recognised and validated in new and exciting ways.

Despite the gloominess that the media headlines can evoke, I feel excited and optimistic as I reflect on the Church as God's instrument for healing and wholeness in our society. Of course things will happen that might dampen my enthusiasm from time to time, but nowhere in scripture or in the holy writings and teachings of the Church are we told that the path of discipleship will be easy or smooth. So I look forward to the planning and presentation of Back to Church Sunday with real optimism. We do have good news and a good story to tell and there are lots of lovely people in our village who might welcome the opportunity to test the going to church experience again after a period away. I extend to them and to all who want to think a bit about the spiritual side of life the warmest of invitations at any time, but especially on the 28th September - Back to Church Sunday.

Best wishes

Graham Newton
Rector

July 2008

I am often prompted to reflect on the purpose that God might have for the existence of His church, as well as reflecting on the reasons He might have for the continuance of the three churches in this Benefice (or group of churches). It is not as obvious as it might appear on first consideration, because it is not enough to believe that the church exists for my, or our, spiritual comfort. That's not to say that giving spiritual comfort, and guidance and support to its members is not an important function for the Church and task for its clergy, because it is. Hence the amount of time I devote to sermon preparation and to the less visible ministry of individual spiritual direction.

When we look at Jesus' ministry we do not see him moving from synagogue to synagogue ministering to and mingling with the 'churchy' people of his day. We see him out on the hills or down by the lake and he is dealing with the ordinary folk and often the outcasts of society, those who the community at large would really prefer to be somewhere - anywhere - else. Jesus spent most of his time with those who were 'out there' not 'in here'.

He is the model and example that the Church, as a community, and the Christian individual should emulate and be inspired by. It's this truth that makes reflection on why we are here not always very comfortable. If we are good at looking after each other, we are most certainly in need of movement before we can begin to believe we are reaching out to our communities.

It was this sort of thinking and reflection that caused me to label this year as our year of outreach in my report to the APCM at St. Nicholas. There are two sorts of reaching out. There is the reaching out that the person on the side of the swimming pool offers to the person in the water to help them out of it, and there is the reaching out done by the person in the house solely designed to bring someone else into the house. It is the former model that I find to be more important and most difficult. Going back to the example of Our Lord we find him to be engaging with people not to make them all His disciples but just because they were there, and had a need that he would respond to.

I'm not sure where this sort of thinking will lead us in practical terms, but I hope it might provoke those who are part of the church to, like me, reflection, thinking and maybe imagination about what it might mean for us here. I hope too that those who are part of the local community might also be encouraged to view the church not as an organisation that is only interested in the outsiders to try to make them insiders, but as one that is interested because we are part of the same community with a desire to enhance that community and to offer love and support where it is needed and welcome.

Graham Newton, Rector

May 2008

Dear Reader,

The killings continue in so may places in our world - places like Afghanistan and Iraq, which are still in the news, but also in those that appear for a while and then disappear Darfur, the Holy Land, and Sri-Lanka. Despots continue to rule by oppression and repression, some regularly in the news like Zimbabwe, and others occasionally like Burma. But we continue to live in a beautiful corner of England, with the Barton Hills as a timeless backdrop, and the Bedford plain spreading out like a carpet beyond our village.

It is so easy to put a mental wall around ourselves and to worry and care about whether spring is early or late, to notice that now is the time to plant our seeds - or whatever the current gardening task might be. It is such a temptation to parochialise our compassion, and worse our praying to that which is around us and that which we feel we are involved with.

Thankfully, (and I do say thankfully) there are issues that are beginning to breakdown the barriers between our local and our global concerns, and which challenge us to face up to the world as it really does exist beyond our parish boundaries. Global warming is not 'their' problem it is ours too. The price climb for basic commodities like wheat and rice hits our pockets and reminds us that food shortages do seem to be coming back to kill and destroy.

Whilst I do not welcome the pain and suffering that come with conflicts in our world or global warming etc I do believe that if these issues inspire us to prayer, they can, in spite of the evil and suffering that come with them, be agents for good. I hope that we will increasingly see that, to live in comfort and beauty, as we do, without paying attention to the suffering of our planet and the majority of its people, is demeaning to our humanity and an affront to God. I hope too that more and more of us will feel the call of God to go beyond praying for our world's healing, and beyond simply giving to charity so we can forget, and come to that moment when we say, 'Lord what can I do?'

Your friend and priest,
Graham Newton