by Admin | Oct 29, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
There are practical issues which are proving a challenge for us at St Luke’s Church, as we play our part in helping people remember during the month of November.
On Remembrance Sunday 12th November, we welcome hundreds of local people to the Churchyard as we remember the sacrifice of so many servicemen and women, and also of our forebears, whose resilience has carried our community through world wars, terrorism and other threats of danger. In the last 18 months, the Churchyard has also been a good focus for village Jubilee and Coronation celebrations………..
by Admin | Sep 29, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
Over the last two years our village has become moderately well known for two things which ten years ago would have seemed very unlikely. These are first: Harry Styles heritage tours, and second: celebrations involving lots of knitting…….
From 2nd to 13th October, St Luke’s Church will be transformed, as it hosts the Knitted Bible Experience. Thirty-five scenes from the Bible are reimagined using knitted characters. Favourites from the Old Testament and New, including Noah’s Ark and Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep. And you may have already noticed the impressive bunting in the churchyard…….
by Admin | Sep 1, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
There are two initiatives for children and their parents, COMING SOON at St Luke’s.
In early October (2nd-13th) we have the return of the Knitted Bible Experience. Thirty-five scenes from the Bible are reimagined using knitted characters. Favourites from the Old Testament and New, including Noah’s Ark and Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep……
On 14th September, we launch a Toddler Group for parents/grandparents and their pre-school children. It will be named Early Birds, because the group will meet in the first part of Thursday mornings, from 9am to 10am, at St Luke’s Church Hall at the far end of the Tesco Car Park.
by Admin | Jun 17, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
Do you want to know who chooses the Bible readings for our services at St Luke’s? And how are they chosen?
It’s worth knowing. It matters. The Bible is the Word of God, and contains all things necessary for salvation. And the weekly Bible Reading is the largest influence on the sermon. If you care about what the church is preaching, you will care about how its Bible readings are chosen …………..
by Admin | May 30, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
This month we are starting our Summer sermon series from the Book of Daniel. It is from the Old Testament, and it is a book for our times.
Daniel was one of the young men who was taken from Jerusalem to Babylon, when the Babylonian Empire invaded and sought to dominate the Kingdom of Judah………
Very quickly, Daniel had to move from a society where worshipping the one true God was normal, to a society where normal was ‘competing worldviews and many gods’. In Babylon, the only god that all of the people had to worship was ‘whatever the Government says’.
If you have lived through the last 80 years in Britain, you have experienced a similar transition, albeit more gradual than Daniel’s………
by Admin | Apr 30, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
King Charles III still doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. I’m getting used to it as I pray for him by name every Sunday. But I’m taking a while to get used to it, as I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Elizabeth II in September. Her death was a shock. That’s one of the reasons why we have a delay between the accession of a new monarch and their coronation.
This month, the time has come for the coronation. In our Sunday morning services on 7th May, we shall be praying for the new king and queen, and praying for our nation, and singing the National Anthem. It is an important time. We want Charles’ leadership to be as good as it can be. We want our nation to pull together……..
by Admin | Apr 1, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
One of the difficult things about living on earth, I find, is that we are surrounded by groups and individuals competing against one another, but we don’t know who will win……..
The season of Easter is the time when it became clearer whose is the victory in the conflict between God and the evil one, Satan. The big issues were resolved in the human struggle with sin and death. The winner became obvious……….
by Admin | Feb 25, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
I’m writing about donkeys. This Palm Sunday we hope to have a donkey with us. It’s a good way to help us take to heart what happened with Jesus on the first Palm Sunday. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. But why?
This was not a very cool thing to do…..unless you knew your Old Testament. But Jesus is not interested in military conquest and he had a non-violent approach to changing the world. So he rode into the city on a donkey.
by Admin | Jan 30, 2023 | Vicar's Letters
We are people living in a culture which is hampered by the over-influence of feelings…….
Making decisions based on feelings usually ends up with us choosing the easy way out. In these ways, following our present feelings is often not good for our long term welfare……
The Apostle Paul said: ‘For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do…’ (Romans 7:18,19). He framed this in the middle of a clear analysis that we humans are too influenced by our sinful nature. And even when we know the right thing we ought to do, we end up being influenced away from that, and towards the bad thing we know we ought to avoid. We have a bias: our sinful nature tends to compromise our good intentions, and indulge our worse side.
That is one of the reasons we need Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday 22nd February. We use the 7 weeks of Lent to train ourselves in this important thing: not letting our feelings win the day!
by Admin | Dec 30, 2022 | Vicar's Letters
Happy new year!
It helps us to split up time. We have a new month and a new year because it helps us to mark the passing of time. Our memories are helped by the framework of months and years. And our appreciation of longer history is helped by markers as well.
Our knowledge of English history is helped if we have a memory of the Kings and Queens which name the eras of history…….
The same is true of the Bible. The Old Testament is largely a narrative which covers events over the two thousand years before Christ was born…….
