Vicar's letter for the month

My dear Sisters and Brothers,

In my last letter I asked you to consider inviting someone to church on Easter Sunday, and perhaps providing lunch afterwards. In a recent church survey it was found that 82% of new attendance came to church as a result of a personal invitation from a member of the congregation.

What does Easter mean to you? For me it is a time of renewal and refreshment. To remember Jesus died for our sins and we are forgiven Children of God. Perhaps a time to refresh and renew our relationship with God. I commend our services in all three churches over the Easter period. As I said, please consider inviting someone. What more can be done? We can be ambassadors for God. Please engage with anyone new and invite them to stay for refreshment after the service.

We have a wonderful benefice magazine and the Triangle Team are to be commended. The Team are now short of members and last month struggled to get the magazine out. I am sure we all want it to continue. Please consider if you can help. If so, please contact a member of the Team either in church or using the contact details in the magazine.

A short reflection for Easter Eve: This was the day when no one knew whether the cross was “successful” or not when Jesus lay in the tomb. Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is a day of failure. It is known as Holy Saturday or Easter Eve. We are living in Holy Saturday times. For example: We do not know what the failure holds - in relation to the war in Ukraine and its global repercussions; the current pressures of personal and public finances; the impact of the environment crisis already being seen now.

It is this sense of non-comprehension that speaks most clearly into our experience of failure, or the fear of it at least. It’s the place where we don’t know what is going to happen, but we fear the worst. It is the pause that we do not yet know is a pause rather than the end. There is a sadness in that place, uncertainty, the reality of possible failure, and yet in that place God remains.

It is said that the church is in trouble. They have been saying that since Jesus’ time. But we are still here. So is God. So is Jesus in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Let us never give up.

May Fiona and I wish you a blessed Easter.

Your brother in Christ,

Rev. Bob