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