Update from the Vicar 

18th November 2021

Here's the link for the update 

This week I’ve been thinking about being connected with others and how God gives us opportunities to make new connections. Often it’s through our need and the needs of others. I’ve been finding recently that it’s been surprisingly easy to chat to new people at the park. I’ve been grateful for that connection and a couple of weeks ago we offered a balance bike to someone who had a younger child, it came up just by chatting about our children. It’s been lovely to get to know them a bit and it was interesting to chat very naturally about faith the day we met up to give them the bike. When someone asks me ‘what do you do?’ faith comes up in conversation very easily but it’s not always the first opener. Sometimes it’s in the sharing of other things about life, like hearing a story about a religious relative, or in chatting about what we’ve been doing, or one of the kids mentions something they learnt about faith at school. I wonder if you find encouragement from these kinds of conversations and connections too? Please do share your stories of connection.
 
Still on the theme of connection - this Sunday coincides with Ability Sunday – Livability is a charity that supports churches who value connecting well with people, bringing together people of all abilities and ensuring they remain connected with their communities, no matter what challenges they face. They’re committed to enabling people with disabilities to live the life they want to lead. They’ve recently coined a phrase ‘connectability’ – so important for avoiding isolation. It’s about recognising the abilities in one another. They offer good practice to help us connect with people who live or work in social care settings in our community. Recently I connected with the staff at Turning Point in our parish and thinking through what we could offer they said they’d see if any residents might be interested in coming to Outlook for connection over cups of tea. We want to offer warm welcome. A simple phonecall to someone who can’t get out can make all the difference as we’ve really seen through this pandemic, we can also offer to pray over the phone if that’s what they would like. We can find connection over seasonal things like carolling (singing carols for people) too. Sometimes we go to people, sometimes we invite, welcome and involve people here. If you’d like to give a donation to the charity their website is here: https://www.livability.org.uk/contact-us/forms/ability-sunday-2021-thank-you/
 
This Sunday we continue in our preaching series on Transforming Lives looking at Jesus’ authority and being a blessing in the world, what does it mean that He gives us His authority?
 
At First Priority (our monthly prayer meeting) this week a word was shared that was about our posture in prayer, often we’re a bit slumped down and hunched over and it was felt that God was encouraging us to sit up a bit more. It was about a spiritual posture not only a physical posture in prayer. Sometimes when we’re pressured we can become rather inward focussed and he was encouraging us to look outward, to hope.
 
Many of us are in need of comfort at the moment. I wonder where you are on a scale of 1-5 in terms of needing comfort? How about on a scale of 1-5 in needing challenge? It’d be worth thinking about those numbers. We  need both in different amounts, and that blend changes. I wonder also what your natural tendency is, do you instinctively comfort others (like strengthening faith in others and being compassionate) or offer challenge that stretches others? It’s worth thinking about what we need right now and being curious about what others need when we encounter them. Some would say they have little capacity for more challenges but I’ve also noticed some people are in a place of welcoming fresh challenges recently. We can’t assume we know.
 
I wonder what we might plan to do in sharing our faith in the Advent/Christmas season – last week we were thinking about strengthening our faith though Advent resources. I hope you’ve been having a good look around to see what there is before we hit December. Another way to strengthen our faith is to spend time on our frontlines sharing faith, our faith grows and is strengthened by the joy that comes in those little moments.
 
We also need to make sure we are being gentle with one another, the Bible says “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near (Phil 4:5)” Let’s be extra careful we’re being really gracious and showing loving care and kindness.
 
We are exploring planning for Alpha next year. I wonder if there could be someone you pray for who you could invite to church over Christmas. I remember doing this for a member of my family at Christmas time, we went to a carol service in a church near where they lived and there was an Alpha course advertised as coming up in the new year. I said that sounds a good idea to them, and they thought they would go and then their faith really took off. The simple first step was finding a service to visit at Christmas time in a church that would be good. Could you do something so simple for your friends, give them a personal invite to join you?
 
Many of us will have a story of how God changed our lives in different ways through Alpha. If you have a story like that then please share it over the coming weeks, you could email it, put it in the Facebook group, and share it in church. Let’s be building one another up in our faith.