The Month April 2016

Christmas starts with Christingle

April 2016

N E E D TO K N OW

I S T O R I E S I A R E A U P D AT E S I E V E N T S N E A R Y O U

Adviser’s View

By CANON DR ROGER MATTHEWS, Dean of Mission and Ministry IT isn’t often that I shout at the radio, but that is what I did last Sunday morning.

I was listening to Sunday Worship from a Methodist Church in Wales. The service was introduced by Revd Dr Stephen Wigley, Chair of the Wales Synod of the Methodist Church. He ended by saying that after the opening hymn “the minister of this church will lead us in prayer”.

Nothing remarkable about that you might say! But think again! What offended me was the thought that any church has only one minister. Surely every Christian is a minister of the Gospel. And so I shouted “NO”!

Of course, I know that Stephen was using “the minister” to refer to the ordained clergy-person who had been appointed to serve that congregation. But it is all too easy for the words we use to shape reality. We probably all know clergy who do most of the ministry even if we may not know whether they want to be 'over-functioning' or do so because the congregation is 'under-functioning.'

Many years ago, Wesley Frensdorff, a former Bishop of Nevada in the United CONTINUED ON PAGE 5

Unwrapping God's gifts Bring the kids to light a candle for Christ’s birthday

Transforming Presence is on christmasstarts.com its way to every parish: Pages 6-7 www.chelmsford.anglican.org

Bishop Stephen brands UK's Trident missiles as 'weapons of mass deception'

Training initiative supports Jaywick residents seeking job opportunities

Page 4

Page 3

■ Wishing all our readers a Happy Easter ■ Insert: 2015 Annual Briefing for Parishes

2

THE MONTH April 2016

THE

month — East London's Faithul Friends group builds interfaith bridges

Marchers defy rain to join Forest Gate's Peace Walk PEOPLE from all walks of life marched together on Saturday, February 20 for the first Forest Gate Peace Walk (pictured above and right).

Undeterred by the rain, around 100 people took part, including local councillors, religious leaders and the neighbourhood police.

The walk was organised by Faithful Friends, an interfaith group based in Forest Gate, to give people an opportunity to deepen and celebrate their friendships across different faith communities in the area.

The short walk of around one and a half miles took in eight different places of worship, including Sunni and Shia Mosques, and Protestant and Catholic Churches, finishing at the Sikh Gurdwara.

Revd Dr Chigor Chike, Director of Faithful Friends, told marchers: ‘’It is important that we use every opportunity to show that we all share a common humanity.

"In every religion there are people committed to peace.

When we walk like we are doing today, we show such commitment to the community.’’

The idea for this event came from a newly formed women’s group of Faithful Friends.

Thinking about the acts of violence around the world prompted the women to tell the community a different story: that it is possible for people of different faiths to live alongside one another peacefully.

The cheerful band of damp

pilgrims enjoyed wonderful hospitality along the way, made new friends and some found it "a deeply spiritual experience".

People learnt some history about the places of worship, how faith groups work for the community and what things are important to different religions.

Rafiq Patel told walkers about the educational work that Minhaj Ul Quran is doing as part of the Mosque’s wider effort to fight extremism.

Others who spoke to the group during the walk included Sheikh Abdul Karim of Green Street Mosque, Revd Bruce Stokes of Woodgrange Baptist Church, Israr Shah of Imamia Mission Mosque, Imam Khalil Laher of Upton Lane Mosque and Father John Moloney of St Antony’s Roman Catholic Church.

The walk finished with a special meal The Hornchurch Passion Play Committee together at the Sikh Presents Gurdwara where they were welcomed by the President of the Gurdwara, Baldev Singh Sehmbi.

Tarlok Singh Sura, a member of the Gurdwara, commended the walkers, noting that the promotion of peace is a worthy cause and the numbers that turned up showed the high level of commitment.

The police were struck by how relaxed and friendly the event was and Councillor Shah of Newham Council remarked on the great community Monologues written and performed by Kevin Walsh spirit and said how with popular hymns for all to sing. privileged she was to be part of the walk. rd Faithful Friends Wednesday 23 March 2016 hope this walk will 8:00p.m. become an annual community event.

In the North St. Halls, Hornchurch, RM11 1QX ● Faithful Friends meets regularly. If you Tickets: £6.00 would like to find out including complimentary wine and hot-cross-bun! more contact Revd Dr Chigor Chike on Tickets available on the door 07905155494 or chigor.chike@sky.

All profits toward Hornchurch Passion 2020. com or visit www. faithfulfriends. org.uk

Voices for EASTER

The Month, incorporating NB and East Window, is the free circulation newspaper of Church of England in Essex and East London (Diocese of Chelmsford). www.chelmsford. anglican.org/themonth ● Find Chelmsford Diocese on Twitter @chelmsdio ● Find Bishop Stephen on Twitter @cottrellstephen ● Subscribe to our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/ChelmsfordDiocese ● Like us on Facebook: www. facebook.com/chelmsdio ● Like our Ask an Archdeacon Facebook www.facebook.com/ askanarchdeacon ● View our photostream on Flickr www. flickr.com/photos/chelmsford-diocese

editorial Editor: Jon Longman Editorial and photographs for The Month should be sent to: themonth@chelmsford.anglican.org or Jon Longman, The Month, 1 Bouchiers Place, Messing, Colchester CO5 9TY. Tel: 01621 810530. Mobile: 07860 769906 ● Digital photographs for publication: Please take pictures at largest size,

resolution and compression. Hi-res JPGs or Tiffs should be re-sized to min 7x5in at 300dpi with no layers or sharpening.

Captions, your name and contact details should be embedded in the 'File Info' section if possible. If e-mailing many shots, send only 72dpi initially at max size of 8x6in. When submitting photos please confirm that written consent has been obtained from parents / guardians of children under age 16 for publication of photos publicising church activities in The Month. ● The inclusion of an advertisement should not be taken as implying endorsement of the objects of the advertiser by the diocese.

advertising Please contact: Glenda Charitos, Cornerstone Vision, 28 Old Park Road, Peverell,Plymouth, Devon PL3 4PY. Tel: 01752 225623. Fax: 01752 673441. e-mail: glenda@cornerstonevision.com

distribution For distribution contact: internalcomms@chelmsford.anglican.org Tel: 01245 294443.

Your newspaper will normally be available from the third Sunday in the month. Any further changes will be advised to distributors.

3

THE MONTH April 2016

THE

month — Supporting jobless at a challenging time

Jaywick training project paints a brighter picture

SHIP AHOY: Jaywick champions Pete Hope (left), Enterprises Director of GO4 Enterprises, and Fellowship Afloat Director David Hillyer with LV15, the boat a team of volunteers recruited and directed by GO4 will refurbish in Jaywick

AN innovative training partnership supported by Bishop Roger Morris, the Bishop of Colchester, will help to give unemployed Jaywick residents the skills and practical experience they need to find a job.

GO4 Enterprises, a Colchester social enterprise and the Tollesburybased floating activity centre Fellowship Afloat are the other partners.

Jaywick’s unemployed are being trained in woodworking, painting and decorating skills.

They will be practising their skills by refurbishing a Fellowship Afloat boat inside a garage rented by the Bishop.

Pete Hope, Enterprises Director with GO4 who is linked to DNA Networks church in Colchester, explains: “The majority of our directors are Christians, but we work with anyone irrespective of their background and seek to support anyone who is unemployed and wanting to develop personally, improve their skills and overcome the disadvantages they experience.

“We now have a storage facility at Jaywick where a 20ft boat in need of restoration will be refurbished by a team of volunteer trainees.” ● GO4 Enterprises, which also runs catering training courses based in Jaywick and Colchester, welcomes financial support through grant funding, donations and investment.

Log on to www.go4enterprises.org to find out more.

BE SEEN

EASTER MESSAGE

of Christ’s death. So, in my view, it is much better to think of the Resurrection as a new beginning rather than a happy ending.

When Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on that first Easter morning she went to anoint the dead body of Jesus. She was not expecting to find anything else. When the tomb was empty, she assumed it was because people had stolen the body away. The last thing

Ex 15:11

To advertise in this newspaper, 01752 225623

Getting Easter right

THERE are two things about Easter that I think are really important, and if we don't get them right we don't get Easter right.

First, the resurrection is not a happy ending tagged onto a sad story; and second, the church is not the Jesus Christ Appreciation Society.

Let me explain. Because those of us who are in the Church know the Easter story so well, we tend to think of the cross as the ‘sad bit of the story’ and the resurrection as the ‘happy ending’. Because we know what is coming, we are always seeing Good Friday through the lens of Easter Sunday.

In many ways there is nothing wrong with this, but it can mean we are prevented from being shocked and surprised by the Resurrection. It can also mean that we leap frog over the cross and fail to stop and see the beautiful and painful reality

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

she was expecting was Resurrection.

In other words the Resurrection was a surprise: as much of a surprise for people then as it is for people now. It was unimaginable and inexplicable then. It is unimaginable and inexplicable now. It is outside our experience. It is beyond our imagining.

But it is the beginning of Christian faith: Jesus really died on the cross, and God really raised Jesus to life on Easter day. Without this the Christian faith is nothing, and Jesus just another good person, and the Church, therefore, just the Jesus Christ Appreciation Society, remembering the good deeds and wise words of our long dead and much loved founder.

But the real story is different. What ended in

defeat and death begins afresh with Resurrection.

Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus in the garden not as a resuscitated corpse, brought back to resume the life he lost, but as the first piece of the new creation. And this is a new story that we are invited to be part of.

In the risen Jesus we see our destiny and are enlisted to share this with others.

Jesus is present to us today as he was present to Mary Magdalene yesterday. We, the Church, are formed by the impact of God raising him from the dead and of his gift of the spirit. More than this, the Bible says that the church is Christ's body.

We are his presence in and for the world today, a new people with a new beginning and a new identity.

Happy Easter!

Bishop Stephen

EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE John Kenway BRAND NEW

NISSAN JUKE 1.5 DCi ACENTA 5DR

£165

.99 PER MONTH* 48 MONTHS (9+47)

62 REG CITROEN C1 1.0i VTR 3DR RED 20K

10 REG NISSAN NOTE 1.6 TEKNA AUTO 5DR BLACK 55K

12 REG VAUXHALL ZAFIRA 1.7 CDTi ECOFLEX (110) 5DR BLUE 41K

ONLY £4299 ONLY £5318 ONLY £6799 PART EXCHANGE WELCOME

FULL HISTORY CHECK

FLEXIBLE FINANCE AVAILABLE

NATIONWIDE DELIVERY TO YOUR DOOR

BRAND NEW CARS AVAILABLE ALL MAKES

UP TO 4,000 USED CARS PRICE CHECKED DAILY, COMPREHENSIVELY CHECKED & FULLY GUARANTEED

AUTOSAVE... SERVING THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOR OVER 35 YEARS

CALL 0845 122 6910 AUTOSAVE.CO.UK

*Based on personal Contract Hire (PCH) payment profile 9+47. Finance subject to status. Terms and conditions apply. Applicants must be 18 or over. Guarantee/indemnity may be required. We can introduce you to a limited number of carefully selected finance providers. We may receive a commission from them for the introduction.

4

THE MONTH April 2016

THE

month — Bishop Stephen addresses the Stop Trident rally in London

'Weapons of mass deception'

THE renewal of Trident is an affront to God and to all that is decent, Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford, told a London rally in February.

Addressing the Stop Trident rally in Trafalgar Square, Bishop Stephen said nuclear weapons are weapons of "mass deception" and "mass distraction".

The Bishop stressed: "The renewal of Trident is an affront to God and to all that is decent. Why pat ourselves on the

back about banning cluster bombs and chemical weapons if we still allow ourselves the useless and lethal extravagance of a Trident missile? All are indiscriminate. All are deadly. All are morally indefensible.

"These weapons of mass destruction are also weapons of mass deception. They provide the illusion of security, while actually making the world less secure than ever. North Korea now joins the nuclear club.

Who will be next?

"Some nations need to take a stand, and as many Christian churches and people of faith, most notably the Pope himself have implored, start decommissioning the weapons they have, not purchasing new ones.

"Do we really think that Donald Trump’s finger on the button makes the world a safer place? And will we ever be told the truth about their cost, their un-usability, their increasing detectability,

and the many near misses and accidents that have happened over the years.

"They are also weapons of mass distraction. We could and should be spending this money on schools and hospitals and the refugee crisis engulfing Europe. Even the military would rather the money be spent on conventional weapons that we would be of much greater use in the conflicts and peace making that our armed

forces are actually involved in, rather than the fantasy wargames of a bygone cold war age.

"We need to show the world another way. We – people of faith and people of peace – must become a movement of mass disruption.

"We must patiently, peacefully and doggedly remind the world of the legal, moral, financial and military reasons why nuclear weapons – along with cluster bombs and chemical weapons – must be consigned to

the dustbin of history.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers” said Jesus. 'Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'

As the prophet Isaiah dreamed of swords being turned into ploughshares, let us turn nuclear weapons into hospitals and schools.

"Why even the General Synod of the Church of England passed this motion in 2007 saying to the Government that the proposed upgrading of

Trident was 'contrary to the spirit of our obligations in international law and the ethical principles underlining them'.

"Other churches and individual Christian leaders have said more.

But let me give the last word to scripture.

"Isaiah 52.7 says: 'How beautiful on the mountains' – on the streets of London, and up and down our land – 'are the feet of the messenger who announces peace'.”

Cleaning For The Queen

ST Peter’s church at Aldborough Hatch was the scene for a Clean For The Queen work morning in the churchyard, in the fields adjacent to the church and on the bridleways, footpaths and roads in Aldborough Hatch on February 27.

Two hours’ work by 25 people produced 60 bags of rubbish – in purple Clean For The Queen special sacks (right). Debbie Lee and daughter Eric were among the volunteers cleaning up the churchyard (left).

Pictures: RON JEFFRIES

ST. MARY’S CONVENT

Have a life-changing experience with Us.

WANTAGE

St Mary’s Convent offers a variety of facilities and flexible accommodation for Group Quiet Days and Group Retreats. Also, Conference facilities and private stays.

Theological Library may be available on request.

Our Journey with Us programme is an opportunity to experience the life and mission of the church in another culture.

We arrange short-term placements, of up to one year, for self-funding volunteers aged 18 to 80.

For further details please contact: St Mary’s Convent, Wantage, Oxfordshire, OX12 9DJ Tel: 01235 763141 Email: guestwing@csmv.co.uk www.csmv.co.uk

For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

De 4:31

Contact Habib Nader on 020 7921 2215 habibn@weareUs.org.uk www.weareUs.org.uk/journey Us. The new name for USPG Registered charity number 234518

THE MONTH April 2016

THE

month — 'Be the people who take a sideways look'

ADDRESSING the curates at their training weekend in January on the theme of Nurturing an Entrepreneurial Culture, Roger Morris, the Bishop of Colchester encouraged them to “be the people who ask the questions, the people who know what it is to take a sideways look at things and the people who regularly step outside their comfort zone.”

“Refuse to accept the current reality and develop ‘holy discontent’ as a prerequisite to lasting change,” the Bishop encouraged.

The point was illustrated by the showing of the film, 'Made in Dagenham', a dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination.

The curates were urged to invite outsiders to ask questions and give their opinions, give others the power, make a best friend of their worst critic and perceive the world, as Jesus taught, with child-like eyes.

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell reminded the curates of their massive opportunity to be a transforming presence in their parishes, in their networks and in the world.

Three social entrepreneurs demonstrated the need to have a big vision for the world as well as the Church: Dan Thompson, the social artist and writer who organized #riotcleanup after the 2011 London riots; Sarah Corbett, founder of the Craftivist Collective which uses craft as a tool for activism; and Richard Reynolds, who started Guerilla Gardening, the movement for reclaiming public space for growing plants and vegetables.

“Clergy need to have a bigger vision than just next week’s sermon,” said Dan. Revd Edd Stock from Eastwood St Laurence and All Saints found the weekend “unexpected, enjoyable and refreshing.”

“We heard from people with different insights and experiences.

Dan went on a journey and

50% OFF 50% OFF OF WE POWER BEAT OTHER POWER OF

ATTORNEY QUOTES WITH...

ATTORNEY AND UPTO AND UPTO

50% OFF 30% OFF POWER OF 30% OFF ATTORNEY WILLS WILLS AND UPTO

30% OFF WILLS

NEED A LASTING NEED A LASTING POWER OF ATTORNEY? POWER OF ATTORNEY? NEED A LASTING

A LOCAL COMPANY YOU YOU NEEDNEED A LOCAL COMPANY THAT IS THAT IS FAST, EFFICIENT, COMES YOU POWER OF ATTORNEY? FAST, EFFICIENT, COMES TO YOUTO AND IS AND IS COMMITTED TO DRIVING DOWN YOU NEED ATO LOCAL COMPANY IS COSTS COMMITTED DRIVING DOWNTHAT COSTS FAST, EFFICIENT, COMES TO YOUareAND IS The&Will Trust Company professional, The Will Trust&Company are professional, COMMITTED TO DRIVING DOWN COSTS accredited certificate providers and will accredited certificate providers and will send the finished documents to the Office The Will &finished Trust Company are professional, send the documents to the Office ofPublic The Public Guardian forand registration accredited certificate providers will of The Guardian for registration after after signing and witnessing. send thesigning finished documents to the Office and witnessing. of The Public Guardian for registration after We provide avisiting home visiting We provide a home service toservice to signing and witnessing.

take instructions andback bring back all the take and visiting bring all the Weinstructions provide a home service to documents for signing and witnessing. documents for signing and witnessing. take instructions and bring back all the So, don’t delay, contact us today forcontact signingusand witnessing.

So,documents don’t delay, today and giveand give yourself peace that we yourself peace mindofthat we will So, don’t delay,of contact usmind today andassist givewill assist youyour andfamily’s your family’s wealth and health. yourself peace of mind that we willhealth. assist you and wealth and you and your family’s wealth and health.

01268 0800 112 3417 01268 55 1155 2211– 22 0800– 112 3417 01268 55 11 22 – 0800 112 3417 enquiries@willandtrustcompany.com enquiries@willandtrustcompany.com enquiries@willandtrustcompany.com www.willandtrustcompany.com www.willandtrustcompany.com www.willandtrustcompany.com

INSPIRATION: left to right Bishop Roger, Sarah Corbett, Dan Thompson and Richard Reynolds.

Picture: PHILIP KING

Think laterally curates told brought people together. I came away from the Curates' Weekend with new ideas for connecting with the people we are called to serve.”

Co-chaplain for the weekend Revd Rhiannon King, Director of Mission with Birmingham Diocese reflected: “We should all take the opportunities in front of us and seize the day, which is exactly what Dan did when the riots happened, acting speedily as the

events unfolded and grabbing the opportunities as they flew into his in-box and twitter feed.

“But we are not to stay in the present. We need to travel to the future and imagine what this or that will look like in ten years’ time.

"We have to behave with the audacity to believe that the way forward does not have to be an extrapolation from the past and a simple continuation of the present.

“Sarah talked about winning the

battle for hearts and minds in a hundred creative and gorgeous ways and Richard talked about the importance of sowing seeds in people’s minds as well as the ground.”

She told the curates: “As far as I can tell, you have been given official permission by both Bishops to worry the socks off them with your crazy ideas. They are looking for disruptive people who will change things. Have fun!”

Thank you from Archdeacon David

THE retiring Archdeacon of Chelmsford, David Lowman (right) said "Thank you" for the many kind words following his retirement service in Chelmsford Cathedral.

Archdeacon David said: "I have been overwhelmed by so many messages and gifts on my retirement and

WE BEAT OTHER WEQUOTES BEAT OTHER WITH...

QUOTES WITH...

5

wish to thank everyone for your kindness and generosity. The whole experience of retiring has been made much more tolerable by the support that I have received from across the diocese.

"The beautiful El Greco picture with hundreds of photos will be a constant

reminder of all of you whilst the cheque will enable me to do some exciting things!

"Ministry for 30 years in the Diocese of Chelmsford, at Wickford and Runwell, as DDO and then as Archdeacon, has been an incredible experience and I hope

that, under God and with fine colleagues, I have been able to sustain and grow the Church in Essex and East London.

"Now I can look forward to a slightly calmer life which will be sustained by the wonderful memories which I have of you all."

'Getting the words right . . . '

FROM FRONT PAGE

States, and a pioneer in the development of collaborative ministry, wrote his ‘Dream’ for the church. It is too long to reproduce here (but try Googling ‘Frensdorff’s Dream’ if you want to read it all). Part of his dream is that the church would be: A ministering community rather than a community gathered around a minister.

Where ordained people, professional or not, employed or not, are present for the sake of ordering and signing the church’s life and mission, not as signs of authority or dependency, nor of spiritual or intellectual superiority, but with Pauline patterns of “ministry supporting church” instead of the

IN MY VIEW

common pattern of “church supporting ministry.”

How is this expressed in your church?

Oh dear, now I’m getting the words wrong!

It isn’t ‘your’ church.

The group you worship and serve with are part of the church of Jesus Christ. As soon as we claim ownership as ‘my’ or even as ‘our’ church, we may unintentionally squeeze Jesus out.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Each of us has a particular role to play and a distinctive vocation to fulfil.

Jesus was the only one able to offer “a full,

perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world” but he was rarely alone. He both drew on the support of others and shared his ministry with many.

In this season of Easter as we celebrate new life in Christ and anticipate the Spirit’s empowering at Pentecost, we can know that all are included and gifted. There are to be no solo ministers or disciples. Together we are to build up the Body of Christ and minister his love to a fragmented world.

Let’s say what we mean and mean what we say. Happy Easter!

CANON DR ROGER MATTHEWS Dean of Mission and Ministry

B.F. MULLEY & SON FUNERAL DIRECTORS OF

254 ST MARY’S LANE, UPMINSTER ESSEX RM14 3DH

01708 220 330 24 HOUR SERVICE INCORPORATING HORACE FRY 28 HIGH STREET, HORNCHURCH, ESSEX RM12 4UN 01708 442 145

6

THE MONTH April 2016

THE MONTH April 2016

month — Bishop Stephen launched the Bishops’ Lent lecture series on ‘Transforming Presence – What does it mean to me?’

Inhabiting God's world distinctively THE

STEPHEN Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford got the Bishops’ Lent lecture series on ‘Transforming Presence – What does it mean to me?’ off to a great start with a lecture about the diocesan-wide strategic priority of ‘Inhabiting the world distinctively’.

In his lecture (below), Bishop Stephen used a gift box as a visual aid. The same visual aid has been sent with sermon ideas to all parish clergy in the diocese, with a folding cross for each church member, in response to congregations' wishes to know more about Transforming Presence. Congregations are being invited to join in a conversation on social media with the hashtag #MyGiftToGod. 'I APPEAL to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern the will of God – what is good, acceptable and perfect.' – Romans 12. vv1-2 These verses from Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome have become very important for our diocese and for that agenda for renewal which goes under the heading Transforming Presence.

Transforming Presence has four priorities: inviting the church in this diocese to inhabit the world distinctively, to evangelise effectively, to serve with accountability and to reimagine its ministry. The first of these, to inhabit the world distinctively concerns what is often referred to as discipleship, namely what does it mean to follow Christ and live the Christian life in and for the world today?

COVER STORY

In these Lent lectures we will look at each of our four priorities in turn, and this is itself part of a process of refocusing our attention on these priorities following our consultations across the diocese last year.

Romans 12 is a good place to start. Under the theme of transformation, Paul describes the church as being Christ’s body where we each have a part to play. He then lists the marks of an authentic Christian life. In particular he says: “Let love be genuine.”

This is what discipleship means: ● To know God as he is made known to us in Christ. ● To be transformed by Christ; and then, discerning God’s will. ● Live a life patterned on Christ and seeking to build his kingdom in the world by sharing his love.

Our holding crosses were a first step in encouraging every Christian in the diocese to think about how their life is patterned on the great commandments of Jesus to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself.

We will return to this central theme of love as the authentic mark of discipleship, but in order to get there let us look at some other texts from Christian history that will help us make sense of our vocation to follow Christ, and learn from those who have gone before us.

And as you may know, in Lent we are sending out some new information on Transforming Presence to all the parishes. This includes some simple leaflets about our four priorities, but also a visual aid to help us teach about these things – a gift box, containing things that illustrate the life of a disciple. So the first gift out of my box is a hazelnut (pictured). And we therefore begin with the 14th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich. In what must be the most famous passage of her much loved and moving account of the revelations of God’s love that she received when struck down with fever and thought to be dying, she says: “And he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, on the palm of my hand, round like a ball. I looked at it thoughtfully

and wondered, ‘What is this?’ And the answer came, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled that it continued to exist and did not suddenly disintegrate; it was so small. And again my mind supplied the answer, ‘It exists, both now and for ever, because God loves it.”

Our starting point is God’s love and God’s faithfulness. God who is the source of everything, for in this hazelnut Julian saw that God made the world and everything in it; that God loves the world and everything in it; and that God sustains the world and everything in it; and that the basic Christian vocation – this is what missionary discipleship means – is to express, embody and communicate the faithfulness of God as we have seen and received it in Jesus Christ. We are those who are formed by him and sent out by him – we are his disciples; but we are also those who by the outpouring and the indwelling of the Spirit bear his likeness – we are Christians.

Julian was an anchoress, that is she lived a solitary and enclosed life, in a cell that was built onto the side of a church. You can see a reconstruction of Julian’s cell in the church that bears her name (or does she bear its name?) in Norwich today. In the century before her birth a rule of life called the Ancrene Riwle, was written for three enclosed sisters near Salisbury, possibly by their bishop. It is very likely that this Rule is very similar to the one Julian lived by.

What is interesting and relevant for our discussion of discipleship today is the description of an anchoress’s cell. It had three windows.

One would open onto the church so that the anchoress could participate in the worship of the church; hear the Mass and receive the sacrament. The second opened onto an inner room, so that a servant or some other person could bring food and clothes. And the third, which was curtained by a black cloth with a white cross at the centre, opened onto the street, so that the anchoress could look out into the world and speak with people who came in need of her counsel and help. It also meant that she saw the world through the pattern of the cross which was cut into the curtain.

Three things seem to me to be helpful headings for addressing the challenges of discipleship today, for, on the one hand, discipleship is often measured by our participation in the church: ● Participation in the worship of God. ● The attentive consideration of daily needs so that we inhabit the world in a way that is sufficient, equitable and sustainable. ● Service to a world that is always seen through the lens of Christ.

Sometimes our service to the world is cut off from the worship of God, becoming an end in itself. Or, neglecting the ministries of worship, spiritual direction and evangelism we end up like a General without an army, and with it the service we are able to offer – the number of people actually available to do the things God wants us to do – declines.

'People see our faith in Christ as a leisure activity' We have neglected the inner window altogether. Even if we pay them scant attention, we at least recognise the conjugate foci of the spiritual and the missiological. We even speak about them as belonging together, flowing from each other, two sides of the same coin, forgetting that this vision of discipleship isn’t a coin at all, but a three-legged stool. Alongside the nurture of a spiritual life – and let me make this plain: I do believe that the most urgent priority facing the church in this land is simply that we teach people to pray (but I will return to this) – and alongside this the nurture for an outward focused life, where each individual Christian discerns how they can best participate in the mission of God through their own acts of service, kindness, witness and generosity, we need to pay careful attention to the way we inhabit life itself.

The Ancrene Riwle speaks about contentment, sufficiency, and ‘enough-ness’. These are alien and difficult concepts for our world today, and perhaps provide the biggest challenge to our discipleship: not just how we say our prayers; not even how we witness to others; not just the good deeds we do, but our carbon footprint, the car we choose to drive, the coffee we choose to drink, the clothing labels we choose to wear. Learning to inhabit this life in this culture in this particular time in a way that is joyfully and distinctively Christian and models a contented simplicity is probably the biggest challenge and also – whether we like it or not – the acid test of our spirituality and witness.

So let me name my biggest fear for our C of E. It is that people see our faith in Christ as a leisure activity. We do Church. We love it. It is our hobby. We are very committed to it. But it doesn’t seem to have any impact on the lives we lead Monday to Saturday. Yes, we go to church a lot; and, yes, some of us seem interested in persuading others to come along as well. But when it comes to observing whether being a Christian and attending church makes any discernible difference to life, the answer seems to be ‘not much’.

It is this that has to change. Of course it will mean a greater waiting upon God. After all that was the root of the anchoresses’ life. It will certainly overflow into greater witness and a more effective and fruitful evangelisation. It might also mean that we will worry less about these things and lose some of our gruesome earnestness. But most of all it will be apparent in the lives we lead each day. It will start shaping the decisions we make and the choices we

make, so that, slowly, our lives will reflect more evidently, the life of Christ.

So my second gift is a window with a cross in it – an invitation to see the whole of life, and especially the world, through the lens of following and knowing Jesus. But let us explore this idea of the distinctive Christian life a little further, and also go further back into the literature about

Christian discipleship. The Second Century letter of Mathetes – not a person, but just the Greek word for disciple – to Diognetus – we do not know who he was – is a defence of Christianity at a time of spasmodic persecution and is one of the earliest surviving pieces of Christian literature outside of the Bible (The Epistle to Diognetus, Manchester University Press, 1949, pp79-81).

This remarkable passage describes the Christian life not just as a good and moral life, but as the life of what you might call a ‘resident alien’, living fully in and for the world, but knowing that true belonging lies elsewhere and that this life is best understood as a journey home. But with a purpose and a mission in the world – to be the conscience and its compass of the world as the soul is for the body. Of course, this way of living is not only the heart of the Christian life, following Jesus was ‘in the world, but not of the world’; it is also the gift we share, the knowledge that because of Jesus we have a homeland in heaven.

So my third gift is a passport. But not my current one, one that has run out. I do live in the world, but my belonging to the world will expire.

My real life is hid with God in Christ, and my destiny belongs in Christ in the new creation that will be the fulfilment of all things, and while I am

in the world I love it and live it to the full, but also point beyond myself to Christ.

In order for us to learn and share this way of life – and here we might usefully remember that the very first Christians were called neither ‘Christian’ nor ‘disciple’ but ‘follower of the way’ – the work of Christian instruction and formation must take a central place in the life and priorities of every church. Here in the Chelmsford diocese we are looking at this in a particular way under the heading of ‘formed in order to be sent’.

Last year the senior team went on a pilgrimage to Holy Island, tracing, as it were, the steps of St Cedd back to the place where he was formed and sent. We were struck by the idea that Holy Island, and places like it, and for that matter Bradwell itself where Christianity began in Essex, are not best understood as places of arrival, but places of departure; not places to which we travel on pilgrimage, but places from which we are sent on mission. What Cedd experienced on Holy Island and then replicated in Bradwell, Tilbury, Southminster and Upminster; what then happened at Barking Abbey and Waltham Abbey, was ‘being formed in order to be sent’. It is the very pattern Jesus speaks about in St John’s gospel on the night before he dies: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (John 15.9), that is ‘I have formed you as a community

by the love that I receive from the Father and share with you’; and then on the first night of Easter: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20.21): the community that is shaped and formed by love is now sent out to share that love in the world as representatives of Christ.

Like the different windows that the anchoress looked through to sustain her life in Christ, so the life of those who follow Jesus is as both disciple and apostle - one who follows and at the same time one who is sent. We therefore want every church in this diocese to be a school for missionary disciples, places where we follow Jesus and places where we are sent out by Jesus to express, embody, and communicate God’s faithfulness. Thereby we continue the ministry of Christ by being his transforming presence in the world, his gift of life.

Next year I will be visiting every deanery in the diocese to teach about how we can up our game in this ministry, and help every Christian to work out what it means to be a disciple of Christ. We will need resources for this ministry. We need to teach people to pray and in encourage them in the life of prayer each day. We need to help people feel more comfortable with the scriptures, improving levels of biblical literacy and helping all of us to read the bible prayerfully.

We need to know more about our faith, and be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us.

'We need to give a reason for the hope that is in us' And as I have already mentioned, we need to think about what you might call Christian lifestyle, the way we love our lives each day, the way we inhabit the earth, the values we live by, the way in which the faith we celebrate on Sunday shapes our lives for the rest of the week.

Our greatest resource is not a book, a blog, course, a three minute video or a degree in theology, but God himself who made the world and sustains it by his love.

So we are led to the scriptures themselves: the Holy Spirit is the greatest resource for our discipleship; and the aim of our discipleship is not good church membership or even specific ministry, but holiness, the sanctification of our whole life before God. “There are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit,” says St Paul. This Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to know that Jesus is Lord, and it is in the power of the Holy Spirt that we are born again and cleansed from sin and become part of Christ’s body, the Church. Within the Church says St Paul, there are all sorts of gifts and ministries, just as a body has many different parts no one is better than the other. All belong to each other. All are precious.

This not only describes our Christian life, it is also a radical message of hope to a world which is usually looking to divide, conquer and exclude, all too willing to put people in boxes or place them outside altogether. Look at the way we squabble over how many refugees we might take. We act as if we were the owners of the world, not its stewards; as if nation mattered more than humanity. And yet the revelation of God in Christ is that we belong to each other; that we are one humanity inhabiting one world, and that in Christ we are a new creation, made to enjoy God, here in this life and for ever.

The greatest gift of the Spirit, says St Paul, is love. His great description of the church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12, is followed by the great description of the nature of love – its kindness and forbearance - in chapter 13; and is preceded in Chapter 11 by his description of the Eucharist, the feast of love, whereby we remember Christ’s love for us on the cross and are fed by his risen life. Jesus also says that love will be the great authenticating mark of discipleship; and he says this to his friends around the table on the night before he dies, having just washed their feet: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love on another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Whenever we see and experience this love, and whenever others see it, so they will see and experience the presence of Christ. Therefore we

must love each other more, and we must love the world. Neither is it too fanciful to see that it is this self-forgetful love, that we see in Christ and that we are called to embody, that is the reason the Christian faith has triumphed, even against the savage persecution of the past and can triumph over self-absorbed indifference.

Let me give you one very famous example from the past. You probably know that Constantine was the first Christian emperor of Rome, though how much of a Christian he was himself – to keep power he had most of his family murdered! – is another matter.

His nephew, Julian, became emperor after him, and though he was raised in a Christian family, his education was steeped in Greek philosophy. When he became emperor, he set about trying to stamp out Christianity. But it was far too late. Christianity would not go away.

What made the Church so successful among the masses? he asked himself. It couldn't be Christian doctrine, he thought, for he was sure that his own philosophical arguments had disproved Christianity conclusively. So it had to be the way Christians actually lived their lives.

And centuries later, another Julian, the one we began with, wrote this at the end of her book and as a summing up of all that she had learned from looking on the passion of Christ: “Love was his meaning.” The whole meaning of the Christin life and the Christian response and the Christian vocation summed up in a single word.

But love isn’t easy. It doesn’t always come naturally, and if even loving those who are close to us is hard, how much harder to follow the way of Christ and love your enemy, and offer those who smite you the other cheek, and share your possession and your wealth, and walk the second mile of love. But in Jesus we see what perfect love looks like, the love that lays down its life for its friends. And in the gospels Jesus says that if you want to be his follower you must take up your cross.

So I have two final gifts. The first is quite an obvious one: a holding cross, though I hope you will go on giving and receiving these crosses in your parish at baptisms and confirmations and at other times when we can invite people to follow Christ, for the cross is the badge and mark of

Christian discipleship, the sign that is made on us at our baptism and confirmation, the banner under which we march, the only thing we have that is really worth sharing and that which we hold onto as Christ, in his dying, holds onto us.

As Julian of Norwich put it: “He has restored us by his passion.”

The second is less obvious. I have a shoe and a pebble. I invite you to put the pebble in your shoe and walk home. It will be uncomfortable, but it won’t stop you walking. Hopefully, it might remind you both of your vocation to follow Christ, and that following Christ isn’t easy. We return to Romans 12. We are called to live a different life marked by “mutual affection and perseverance in prayer” by readiness to forgive. “If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat.” Love one another, “for love is the fulfilling of the law.” And if your step is a little more painful, remember the way of suffering that Christ walked for you. ● Readers can download this lecture at www. transformingpresence.org.uk/resources-anddownloads which is where the lectures given by the other bishops will be posted. It is also available as an audio file – www. transformingpresence.org.uk/pdf/Bishops_ Lectures_Lent_Week_1.mp3. ● Bishop Stephen gave this lecture in Chelmsford Cathedral, Colchester St John’s and Stratford St John’s. The Area Bishops gave their lectures on the other strategic themes of Transforming Presence at the same locations.

Gilead Foundations is a Therapeutic Community, offering a residential rehabilitation programme, called KEY, for people with life-controlling addictions, such as drug or alcohol abuse, homelessness, gambling, eating disorders, self harm, and other addictive behaviours.

Based on a 300 acre dairy farm in rural Devon, Gilead uses the Genesis Process Relapse Prevention programme with our clients.

If you, or someone you know would like more information about Gilead or would like to make an application, please contact:

Laura Alm

Tel: 01837 851240 Fax: 01837 851520

laura.alm@gilead.org.uk

www.gilead.org.uk

7

6

THE MONTH April 2016

THE MONTH April 2016

month — Bishop Stephen launched the Bishops’ Lent lecture series on ‘Transforming Presence – What does it mean to me?’

Inhabiting God's world distinctively THE

STEPHEN Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford got the Bishops’ Lent lecture series on ‘Transforming Presence – What does it mean to me?’ off to a great start with a lecture about the diocesan-wide strategic priority of ‘Inhabiting the world distinctively’.

In his lecture (below), Bishop Stephen used a gift box as a visual aid. The same visual aid has been sent with sermon ideas to all parish clergy in the diocese, with a folding cross for each church member, in response to congregations' wishes to know more about Transforming Presence. Congregations are being invited to join in a conversation on social media with the hashtag #MyGiftToGod. 'I APPEAL to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern the will of God – what is good, acceptable and perfect.' – Romans 12. vv1-2 These verses from Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome have become very important for our diocese and for that agenda for renewal which goes under the heading Transforming Presence.

Transforming Presence has four priorities: inviting the church in this diocese to inhabit the world distinctively, to evangelise effectively, to serve with accountability and to reimagine its ministry. The first of these, to inhabit the world distinctively concerns what is often referred to as discipleship, namely what does it mean to follow Christ and live the Christian life in and for the world today?

COVER STORY

In these Lent lectures we will look at each of our four priorities in turn, and this is itself part of a process of refocusing our attention on these priorities following our consultations across the diocese last year.

Romans 12 is a good place to start. Under the theme of transformation, Paul describes the church as being Christ’s body where we each have a part to play. He then lists the marks of an authentic Christian life. In particular he says: “Let love be genuine.”

This is what discipleship means: ● To know God as he is made known to us in Christ. ● To be transformed by Christ; and then, discerning God’s will. ● Live a life patterned on Christ and seeking to build his kingdom in the world by sharing his love.

Our holding crosses were a first step in encouraging every Christian in the diocese to think about how their life is patterned on the great commandments of Jesus to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself.

We will return to this central theme of love as the authentic mark of discipleship, but in order to get there let us look at some other texts from Christian history that will help us make sense of our vocation to follow Christ, and learn from those who have gone before us.

And as you may know, in Lent we are sending out some new information on Transforming Presence to all the parishes. This includes some simple leaflets about our four priorities, but also a visual aid to help us teach about these things – a gift box, containing things that illustrate the life of a disciple. So the first gift out of my box is a hazelnut (pictured). And we therefore begin with the 14th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich. In what must be the most famous passage of her much loved and moving account of the revelations of God’s love that she received when struck down with fever and thought to be dying, she says: “And he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, on the palm of my hand, round like a ball. I looked at it thoughtfully

and wondered, ‘What is this?’ And the answer came, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled that it continued to exist and did not suddenly disintegrate; it was so small. And again my mind supplied the answer, ‘It exists, both now and for ever, because God loves it.”

Our starting point is God’s love and God’s faithfulness. God who is the source of everything, for in this hazelnut Julian saw that God made the world and everything in it; that God loves the world and everything in it; and that God sustains the world and everything in it; and that the basic Christian vocation – this is what missionary discipleship means – is to express, embody and communicate the faithfulness of God as we have seen and received it in Jesus Christ. We are those who are formed by him and sent out by him – we are his disciples; but we are also those who by the outpouring and the indwelling of the Spirit bear his likeness – we are Christians.

Julian was an anchoress, that is she lived a solitary and enclosed life, in a cell that was built onto the side of a church. You can see a reconstruction of Julian’s cell in the church that bears her name (or does she bear its name?) in Norwich today. In the century before her birth a rule of life called the Ancrene Riwle, was written for three enclosed sisters near Salisbury, possibly by their bishop. It is very likely that this Rule is very similar to the one Julian lived by.

What is interesting and relevant for our discussion of discipleship today is the description of an anchoress’s cell. It had three windows.

One would open onto the church so that the anchoress could participate in the worship of the church; hear the Mass and receive the sacrament. The second opened onto an inner room, so that a servant or some other person could bring food and clothes. And the third, which was curtained by a black cloth with a white cross at the centre, opened onto the street, so that the anchoress could look out into the world and speak with people who came in need of her counsel and help. It also meant that she saw the world through the pattern of the cross which was cut into the curtain.

Three things seem to me to be helpful headings for addressing the challenges of discipleship today, for, on the one hand, discipleship is often measured by our participation in the church: ● Participation in the worship of God. ● The attentive consideration of daily needs so that we inhabit the world in a way that is sufficient, equitable and sustainable. ● Service to a world that is always seen through the lens of Christ.

Sometimes our service to the world is cut off from the worship of God, becoming an end in itself. Or, neglecting the ministries of worship, spiritual direction and evangelism we end up like a General without an army, and with it the service we are able to offer – the number of people actually available to do the things God wants us to do – declines.

'People see our faith in Christ as a leisure activity' We have neglected the inner window altogether. Even if we pay them scant attention, we at least recognise the conjugate foci of the spiritual and the missiological. We even speak about them as belonging together, flowing from each other, two sides of the same coin, forgetting that this vision of discipleship isn’t a coin at all, but a three-legged stool. Alongside the nurture of a spiritual life – and let me make this plain: I do believe that the most urgent priority facing the church in this land is simply that we teach people to pray (but I will return to this) – and alongside this the nurture for an outward focused life, where each individual Christian discerns how they can best participate in the mission of God through their own acts of service, kindness, witness and generosity, we need to pay careful attention to the way we inhabit life itself.

The Ancrene Riwle speaks about contentment, sufficiency, and ‘enough-ness’. These are alien and difficult concepts for our world today, and perhaps provide the biggest challenge to our discipleship: not just how we say our prayers; not even how we witness to others; not just the good deeds we do, but our carbon footprint, the car we choose to drive, the coffee we choose to drink, the clothing labels we choose to wear. Learning to inhabit this life in this culture in this particular time in a way that is joyfully and distinctively Christian and models a contented simplicity is probably the biggest challenge and also – whether we like it or not – the acid test of our spirituality and witness.

So let me name my biggest fear for our C of E. It is that people see our faith in Christ as a leisure activity. We do Church. We love it. It is our hobby. We are very committed to it. But it doesn’t seem to have any impact on the lives we lead Monday to Saturday. Yes, we go to church a lot; and, yes, some of us seem interested in persuading others to come along as well. But when it comes to observing whether being a Christian and attending church makes any discernible difference to life, the answer seems to be ‘not much’.

It is this that has to change. Of course it will mean a greater waiting upon God. After all that was the root of the anchoresses’ life. It will certainly overflow into greater witness and a more effective and fruitful evangelisation. It might also mean that we will worry less about these things and lose some of our gruesome earnestness. But most of all it will be apparent in the lives we lead each day. It will start shaping the decisions we make and the choices we

make, so that, slowly, our lives will reflect more evidently, the life of Christ.

So my second gift is a window with a cross in it – an invitation to see the whole of life, and especially the world, through the lens of following and knowing Jesus. But let us explore this idea of the distinctive Christian life a little further, and also go further back into the literature about

Christian discipleship. The Second Century letter of Mathetes – not a person, but just the Greek word for disciple – to Diognetus – we do not know who he was – is a defence of Christianity at a time of spasmodic persecution and is one of the earliest surviving pieces of Christian literature outside of the Bible (The Epistle to Diognetus, Manchester University Press, 1949, pp79-81).

This remarkable passage describes the Christian life not just as a good and moral life, but as the life of what you might call a ‘resident alien’, living fully in and for the world, but knowing that true belonging lies elsewhere and that this life is best understood as a journey home. But with a purpose and a mission in the world – to be the conscience and its compass of the world as the soul is for the body. Of course, this way of living is not only the heart of the Christian life, following Jesus was ‘in the world, but not of the world’; it is also the gift we share, the knowledge that because of Jesus we have a homeland in heaven.

So my third gift is a passport. But not my current one, one that has run out. I do live in the world, but my belonging to the world will expire.

My real life is hid with God in Christ, and my destiny belongs in Christ in the new creation that will be the fulfilment of all things, and while I am

in the world I love it and live it to the full, but also point beyond myself to Christ.

In order for us to learn and share this way of life – and here we might usefully remember that the very first Christians were called neither ‘Christian’ nor ‘disciple’ but ‘follower of the way’ – the work of Christian instruction and formation must take a central place in the life and priorities of every church. Here in the Chelmsford diocese we are looking at this in a particular way under the heading of ‘formed in order to be sent’.

Last year the senior team went on a pilgrimage to Holy Island, tracing, as it were, the steps of St Cedd back to the place where he was formed and sent. We were struck by the idea that Holy Island, and places like it, and for that matter Bradwell itself where Christianity began in Essex, are not best understood as places of arrival, but places of departure; not places to which we travel on pilgrimage, but places from which we are sent on mission. What Cedd experienced on Holy Island and then replicated in Bradwell, Tilbury, Southminster and Upminster; what then happened at Barking Abbey and Waltham Abbey, was ‘being formed in order to be sent’. It is the very pattern Jesus speaks about in St John’s gospel on the night before he dies: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (John 15.9), that is ‘I have formed you as a community

by the love that I receive from the Father and share with you’; and then on the first night of Easter: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20.21): the community that is shaped and formed by love is now sent out to share that love in the world as representatives of Christ.

Like the different windows that the anchoress looked through to sustain her life in Christ, so the life of those who follow Jesus is as both disciple and apostle - one who follows and at the same time one who is sent. We therefore want every church in this diocese to be a school for missionary disciples, places where we follow Jesus and places where we are sent out by Jesus to express, embody, and communicate God’s faithfulness. Thereby we continue the ministry of Christ by being his transforming presence in the world, his gift of life.

Next year I will be visiting every deanery in the diocese to teach about how we can up our game in this ministry, and help every Christian to work out what it means to be a disciple of Christ. We will need resources for this ministry. We need to teach people to pray and in encourage them in the life of prayer each day. We need to help people feel more comfortable with the scriptures, improving levels of biblical literacy and helping all of us to read the bible prayerfully.

We need to know more about our faith, and be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us.

'We need to give a reason for the hope that is in us' And as I have already mentioned, we need to think about what you might call Christian lifestyle, the way we love our lives each day, the way we inhabit the earth, the values we live by, the way in which the faith we celebrate on Sunday shapes our lives for the rest of the week.

Our greatest resource is not a book, a blog, course, a three minute video or a degree in theology, but God himself who made the world and sustains it by his love.

So we are led to the scriptures themselves: the Holy Spirit is the greatest resource for our discipleship; and the aim of our discipleship is not good church membership or even specific ministry, but holiness, the sanctification of our whole life before God. “There are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit,” says St Paul. This Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to know that Jesus is Lord, and it is in the power of the Holy Spirt that we are born again and cleansed from sin and become part of Christ’s body, the Church. Within the Church says St Paul, there are all sorts of gifts and ministries, just as a body has many different parts no one is better than the other. All belong to each other. All are precious.

This not only describes our Christian life, it is also a radical message of hope to a world which is usually looking to divide, conquer and exclude, all too willing to put people in boxes or place them outside altogether. Look at the way we squabble over how many refugees we might take. We act as if we were the owners of the world, not its stewards; as if nation mattered more than humanity. And yet the revelation of God in Christ is that we belong to each other; that we are one humanity inhabiting one world, and that in Christ we are a new creation, made to enjoy God, here in this life and for ever.

The greatest gift of the Spirit, says St Paul, is love. His great description of the church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12, is followed by the great description of the nature of love – its kindness and forbearance - in chapter 13; and is preceded in Chapter 11 by his description of the Eucharist, the feast of love, whereby we remember Christ’s love for us on the cross and are fed by his risen life. Jesus also says that love will be the great authenticating mark of discipleship; and he says this to his friends around the table on the night before he dies, having just washed their feet: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love on another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Whenever we see and experience this love, and whenever others see it, so they will see and experience the presence of Christ. Therefore we

must love each other more, and we must love the world. Neither is it too fanciful to see that it is this self-forgetful love, that we see in Christ and that we are called to embody, that is the reason the Christian faith has triumphed, even against the savage persecution of the past and can triumph over self-absorbed indifference.

Let me give you one very famous example from the past. You probably know that Constantine was the first Christian emperor of Rome, though how much of a Christian he was himself – to keep power he had most of his family murdered! – is another matter.

His nephew, Julian, became emperor after him, and though he was raised in a Christian family, his education was steeped in Greek philosophy. When he became emperor, he set about trying to stamp out Christianity. But it was far too late. Christianity would not go away.

What made the Church so successful among the masses? he asked himself. It couldn't be Christian doctrine, he thought, for he was sure that his own philosophical arguments had disproved Christianity conclusively. So it had to be the way Christians actually lived their lives.

And centuries later, another Julian, the one we began with, wrote this at the end of her book and as a summing up of all that she had learned from looking on the passion of Christ: “Love was his meaning.” The whole meaning of the Christin life and the Christian response and the Christian vocation summed up in a single word.

But love isn’t easy. It doesn’t always come naturally, and if even loving those who are close to us is hard, how much harder to follow the way of Christ and love your enemy, and offer those who smite you the other cheek, and share your possession and your wealth, and walk the second mile of love. But in Jesus we see what perfect love looks like, the love that lays down its life for its friends. And in the gospels Jesus says that if you want to be his follower you must take up your cross.

So I have two final gifts. The first is quite an obvious one: a holding cross, though I hope you will go on giving and receiving these crosses in your parish at baptisms and confirmations and at other times when we can invite people to follow Christ, for the cross is the badge and mark of

Christian discipleship, the sign that is made on us at our baptism and confirmation, the banner under which we march, the only thing we have that is really worth sharing and that which we hold onto as Christ, in his dying, holds onto us.

As Julian of Norwich put it: “He has restored us by his passion.”

The second is less obvious. I have a shoe and a pebble. I invite you to put the pebble in your shoe and walk home. It will be uncomfortable, but it won’t stop you walking. Hopefully, it might remind you both of your vocation to follow Christ, and that following Christ isn’t easy. We return to Romans 12. We are called to live a different life marked by “mutual affection and perseverance in prayer” by readiness to forgive. “If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat.” Love one another, “for love is the fulfilling of the law.” And if your step is a little more painful, remember the way of suffering that Christ walked for you. ● Readers can download this lecture at www. transformingpresence.org.uk/resources-anddownloads which is where the lectures given by the other bishops will be posted. It is also available as an audio file – www. transformingpresence.org.uk/pdf/Bishops_ Lectures_Lent_Week_1.mp3. ● Bishop Stephen gave this lecture in Chelmsford Cathedral, Colchester St John’s and Stratford St John’s. The Area Bishops gave their lectures on the other strategic themes of Transforming Presence at the same locations.

Gilead Foundations is a Therapeutic Community, offering a residential rehabilitation programme, called KEY, for people with life-controlling addictions, such as drug or alcohol abuse, homelessness, gambling, eating disorders, self harm, and other addictive behaviours.

Based on a 300 acre dairy farm in rural Devon, Gilead uses the Genesis Process Relapse Prevention programme with our clients.

If you, or someone you know would like more information about Gilead or would like to make an application, please contact:

Laura Alm

Tel: 01837 851240 Fax: 01837 851520

laura.alm@gilead.org.uk

www.gilead.org.uk

7

8

THE MONTH April 2016

Advertising Feature

Giving Hope and Freedom for 25 years Over the last 25 years at Gilead we have established a strong family environment for our residential rehab community, at the same time developing professionally through ongoing training and the inclusion of qualified, skilled team members.

Love, faith, and hope are outworked through practical expertise every day of the year - this is a demanding and rewarding ministry with 25 years of fruitfulness.

Relapse prevention and long term recovery is Gilead’s goal Our relapse prevention course, ‘Genesis Process’ deals with the root causes of addictive behaviour, healing wounds from early life experience and enabling people to take responsibility for their choices and behaviour. FORGIVING AND BEING FORGIVEN IS OFTEN A KEY TO RECOVERY.

Developing a sustainable rehab Our working farm has 25,000 free range egg-

PARTNER WITH US

Grace Lodge laying chickens, a dairy herd, and all the usual farm machinery and administration – a healthy, productive environment for people to find hope and meaning in life again.

The free-range egg production contributes quite well to our financial needs, but there is more therapeutic value than profit in our dairy farm.

A growing need for more purpose built accommodation

The first bungalow, Grace Lodge, has had a huge impact on the wellbeing and rehabilitation of our male students, so we want to complete Faith Lodge as soon as possible.

“

We are now building the second of our three purpose-designed bungalows, Faith Lodge. It will become home for up to 8 female students at a time, as well as house-parents and a support worker.

The work therapy and training helped to stabilise and train me for life outside. I never thought I would be happy living a ‘normal’ life – but I am!

– Pam, former Student, free from drug addiciton

PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING GILEAD WITH A DONATION OR REGULAR MONTHLY GIVING.

Any gift you give will be used for the work of Gilead Foundations. If you wish to restrict this for the building fund, please tick this box

If you have any questions about our work, please contact Lois Samuel on 01837 851240. If you have questions about making a larger donation or interest free loan to the ministry, please contact Chris Cole (Trustee) on 07957 433973.

You can also visit www.gilead.org.uk to find out more about us and donate online.

I enclose a one-off gift of £

Please make cheques payble to Gilead Foundations

I would like to become a Partner Please fill in this form

Name Name of your bank

I am a UK taxpayer and I agree to Gilead Foundations Charity (GFC) claiming tax on all past, present and future donations I make to the charity. Please treat my donations as Gift Aid donations. I confirm that I am paying or will pay an amount of Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax to cover the amount GFC and any other charities or Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) will reclaim for the tax year (6 April one year to 5 April the next year). Council Tax and VAT do not qualify towards Gift Aid. GFC will reclaim 25 pence of tax for every £1 that has been given.

Signed

Date

Please add my details to the Gilead mailing list

Title (Mr, Mrs, Rev, other)

Bank address Postcode Account No.

Sort Code

Instruction to your bank: Please deduct £ from my account on (dd/mm/yy) / / Then monthly until further notice. Pay this sum to Gilead Foundations Account No: 05651441 Sort Code: 54-21-14 Nat West Bank, 40 Fore Street, Okehampton, EX20 1EY Signed

Date

Surname

First Name Address Postcode Organisation / company (if applicable) Telephone Number

Email Please return this form to Gilead Foundations, Risdon Farm, Jacobstowe, Okehampton, EX20 3AJ Tel: 01837 851240 Fax: 01837 851520 Email: admin@gilead.org.uk www.gilead.org.uk Registered in England No: 2608644 Limited by Guarantee Registered Charity No: 1002909

DIO0416

01837 851240 www.gilead.org.uk

Our founders, Ian and Bron Samuel, are still involved on a daily basis, as are their adult children.

“Sometimes people say to us ‘Taking drugs is their own fault, why should we help?’” says Ian. “But the reality of nearly every person we see, is that the drugs or alcohol are used as an anaesthetic to numb pain caused by deeper root issues, such as a family or relationship breakdown.

At Gilead we get them to take responsibility for their choices, but we also help them find healing

for the pain which led to their addictions. That’s what people support. If we showed a picture of those people as children, going through hardship, we’d have no problem raising funds. But that’s the ‘invisible’ reality of what’s going on inside them.”

Please consider partnerting with Gilead:

• To become a regular monthly financial Partner, or to donate towards building Faith Lodge, please use the reply form or contact us.

Laura’s Story

• To become a prayer partner, please contact admin@gilead.org.uk, or 01837 851240.

• To arrange a visit, to find out about becoming a volunteer or worker, or to talk with someone about the work of Gilead, please contact lois. samuel@gilead.org.uk, or 01837 851240.

You can also donate and sign up as a prayer partner at www.gilead. org.uk – Thank you!

fresh, and I was able to give loads into my work.”

However, the reality of living and working in community brought pressures that revealed weaknesses in her own character. “Within a month I found myself in tears in Ian Samuel’s office, and I knew I had issues after all.

“You cannot pretend everything is OK and put on a smile at Gilead. The Students are really hard-core, they’ll spot that a mile away so there’s no pretending, you either get real or leave. You have to be very real about Jesus too, Christian jargon “I think everyone has issues,” says just doesn’t work with them.”

Laura, “it just takes the right pressure to Laura has learned a lot about herself bring them out.” For Laura, that pressure as well as her role in caring for people in came when she took on responsibility at recovery during the last twenty years. She Gilead, but let’s backtrack a little first. has completed a second degree (in Social Laura grew up in a very stable, loving Work); and she now works 3 days a week home. Her parents were involved in for Social Services as well as two days at residential social care, working with young Gilead. people.

So, why has Laura stayed with Gilead “I was a very happy child, enjoyed for so long? “It’s God’s plan for me,” is her school, loved by my family,” says Laura. simplest answer. “Also it’s really fulfilling.

“I had no big problems as far as I was I can give really holistic help, including concerned, and certainly no intention of becoming a Christian when I went to a talk spiritual help, to people – I cannot do that fully in Social Work, even though I know in Dundee Town Hall with my sister. that’s where I’m meant to be, too.”

“The man speaking was Nicky Cruz, Asked what advice she would give who was one of the founding team of to anyone thinking of volunteering Teen Challenge Christian rehab work. or considering a job at Gilead, she is I remember feeling ‘I don’t need to be encouraging and very realistic. “It’s great, saved from anything’. I had no dilemmas rewarding and a safe haven, a place where or anything, and certainly no addictions. you can be yourself with no pretence,” she “Then he made an altar call for anyone says. “But pray – if you’re not called to it, wanting to get right with God, and it was don’t come, because you’ll leave at the like a big finger pointed at me from on first chance you get.” high, ‘come in number four, your time is If you want to find out more about up’. It felt like my seat was burning and before I knew it I was up at the front giving volunteering and work opportunities at Gilead please email Lois.Samuel@gilead. my life to Jesus.” org.uk.

Laura went on to complete her BA in Psychology and Sociology. After this, she spent a few years working with young people and residential care.

“I never quite felt I could do all I was able to do for them. I prayed ‘God, I want to work with people who want to change and who want to hear what I have to say about You.’ I guess He answered that prayer!”

In July 1996, Laura stayed at Gilead ‘just for a few days’ as a volunteer. She had long conversations about getting involved in the rehab; she went home to pray and think very carefully about it.

She did so, and in September 1996 she began life at Gilead on a 6 month stay as a volunteer. Her plans to travel the world after the 6 months went by the wayside.

Laura and her dog Zack “I found my niche,” says Laura, “it was so

9

THE MONTH April 2016

month — Research points way to better relationships

THE Revd Dr Elizabeth Jordan (pictured), the Lay Development Adviser to the Diocese of Chelmsford, has been awarded a Professional Doctorate for her research into the ways in which good relationships can be fostered between lay leaders and the newlyappointed ordained leaders of Anglican congregations.

As part of this ground-breaking research she facilitated many conversations between lay leaders and newlyappointed clergy.

The Month interviewed Elizabeth about her research findings and what they might mean for the parishes of the diocese.

TM - What were the conversations you facilitated as part of your research like?

EJ - I talked to lay and ordained leaders at the end of a vacancy, when a new priest had been appointed. The conversations could be quite heated at times but they were also robust and enjoyable. The lay and ordained people were open about their experiences and expectations.

The lay people generally talked about what they were looking for in a new ordained person and the ordained person talked about being led by God to serve the parish.

TM - What were the major learning points of your research?

EJ - My main conclusion was that relationships benefit from facilitated conversations about the nature of the priestly role and the local church at the outset of a new period of ministry. Instead of everyone diving straight into the nitty-gritty of the next emergency fix, it helps to see the bigger picture of the missionary task ahead, having fostered mutual understanding and respect.

Lay and ordained – friends, family or foe?

'Leaders cannot be leaders on their own' A marked contrast emerged between those who had received no training in theology and those who had. There was nothing wrong with the lay theology I encountered but there was a difference in perspectives and priorities. This indicated a need for more joint training between ordained and lay people.

TM - Do you now have a guaranteed recipe for a successful lay-ordained relationship?

EJ - No, but I do think it helps to encourage open and honest dialogue!

TM - How difficult do ordained and lay people find adapting to having a stipendiary priest with oversight of a team of lay and ordained ministers who are mostly unpaid?

EJ - Some approaches to training and formation emphasise those differences, which makes it hard to adapt to working in a team. More opportunities should be created for lay and ordained people to talk as equals without the straitjacket of a structure and an agenda. Then the differences can become a way of complimenting each other's ministry, rather than competing.

TM - Is the driving force and rationale for the development of

PROFILE lay Church leadership simply the accelerated decline in the number of stipendiary clergy?

EJ - The last 100 years have largely rejected the idea that each parish must be run by a different priest. This idea had existed only for the previous 200 years or so Believe it or not, that is a relatively short time in the history of the Church. But the retirement of the baby boomer generation of stipendiary clergy has certainly jolted people into having a discussion about how important it is to be a Church with everyone taking part.

TM - Why do discussions about the leadership of churches and the deployment of people in churches generate such strong feelings?

EJ - People feel more passionately about Church than any other organisation because nothing else matters as much.

Church touches people’s emotional lives in a way that only close relationships can just as families do. Change can feel as threatening in a church as it does in a family.

TM - Your research revealed a strong preference for - or

exists where there is mutually appreciative relationships that enable all people to exercise the ministry that God calls them to. In any church there will be several people with leadership roles; the Churchwardens and the priest form the most basic team. And they need to be able to trust and value each other.

TM - If Church leadership is tied into followership, can you explain what good Church followership looks like?

EJ - Leaders can't be leaders on their own, there must be good communication with those who have other ministries. Being a good follower means actively helping the leader to do their job, neither following the leader passively, nor quietly opposing them! This will help the leader in reaction against - using the their task of bring out the best in language of family relationships others. for describing the congregation.

TM - Why does your Was there a lay-ordained split research highlight equally the here? importance of the Holy Trinity EJ - Yes. Most lay people I and Family Systems Theory to talked to described Church understanding the nature of the relationships as being like family Church? relationships, mostly because they EJ - It's important to remember were supportive, but sometimes that our understanding of how we because it hurt so much when act towards each other stems they went wrong. Clergy were from the nature of God. If we especially sensitive to the possible understand God as Trinity, in implications of this for outreach loving and mutually supportive towards non-nuclear families and communion, we will see the the wider community.

Church, formed by God, as a place where relationship with God and with each other is supremely 'We won't have an So we won't have an image of 'the leader' as important. image of 'the leader' as an an isolated, solo figure' isolated, solo figure, but want churches to be places which are also excellent collaboration and TM - Did your research go loving relationships. into the rationale for people Family Systems is a sociological being categorised as lay or perspective that teaches that no ordained? one exists in isolation but in EJ - No. That's a huge inter-dependent relationships. It theological discussion! My examines the health or otherwise research looked into and confirmed the benefits of facilitated of the relationships between conversations between lay leaders people rather than their individual faults or abilities. As the and ordained leaders to enable congregation was described as a them to talk about some of the family by so many people I found expectations of their roles it a useful theory to study to themselves.

TM - How would you describe reflect on. So theological and good Church leadership? sociological perspectives were EJ - Good Church leadership both helpful in this study.

CHURCH PEWS UNCOMFORTABLE?

WHY NOT TRY SAFEFOAM’S TOP QUALITY UPHOLSTERED FOAM PEW CUSHIONS? Safefoam, Green Lane, Riley Green, Hoghton, Preston PR5 0SN

www.safefoam.co.uk Freephone 0800 015 44 33

Free Sample Pack of foam & fabrics sent by first class mail When phoning please quote TM0416

Money makes the world go round ...does it?

Listen to Share Radio to help you decide shareradio.co.uk Retune your DAB digital radio to Share Radio or download the Share Radio App

radio

sharing ideas about money

St Mary, Beaminster, Dorset

THE

enhancing church interiors

Ronald Emett fine furniture www.ronaldemettfurniture.com

01308 868025

ALGARVE Luxury 3 bed villa (all ensuite) Sleeps 6/8, near Carvoeiro.

Own pool, all mod cons Situated on Pestana Golf Resort.

Golf, Tennis, Free Wifi.

Also on Trip Advisor Full details and brochure: Brian Chambers

Tel: 02380 265 683 bripat@brialdon.freeserve.co.uk www.casa-oleander.co.uk

SHERBORNE

Short breaks in Dorset Elegant, spacious, 2 bed, apartment in listed building close to Abbey Church.

Open all year.

Please ring for brochure:

01404 841367

Travel Insurance Arranged for The Month readers

Real and friendly people... not machines!

Our insurance has a customer 24-hour helpline, full medical cover with most pre-existing medical conditions accepted and, most importantly, an air ambulance get you home service.

LONG STAY AND CRUISE COVER AVAILABLE Call now for our special offers Annual multi-trip cover (max. age 85) Single trip cover (NO max. age)

UK BASED

for UK, Europe and worldwide holidays Single trip cover for all departures up to 31/12/17 Conditions apply

Please call for details ~

0116 272 0500

FT TRAVEL INSURANCE

Authorised & regulated by the FCA

There is none like you, O Lord, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

1Ch 17:20 (ESV)

10

THE MONTH April 2016

GenesisCars.org.uk Creating the ultimate car buying experience

The 100% bespoke car buying service for the Christian community.

Just tell us what you are looking for, an idea of your budget, then sit back, relax and let us do the rest

2013 / 13 Reg Vauxhall Insignia 2.0 CDTi Exclusive Nav Estate 6Speed White 69k miles

ONLY

£7995

2011 / 11 Reg Vauxhall Astra 2.0 CDTi SRi 5Dr Silver 62k miles

10 juLy 2016

ONLY

£6995

aRers as We mArK 160 yeArs Of cElebRatiNg sEaf to BrinG all oveR thE woRld, who worK tiReleSsly us GoodS we relY on eveRy dAy 2011 / 11 Reg Ford Focus 1.6 TDCi Zetec 5Dr Blue 69k miles

ONLY

£5495

2009 / 59 Reg Peugeot 207 CC 1.6 VTi Sport Automatic Red 23k miles

ONLY

£4995

Our team is ready to help you...

Call 0800 230 0238

www.missiontoseafarers.org |

e-mail sales@genesiscars.org.uk or visit us online at genesiscars.org.uk

@FlyingAngelNews |

www.justgiving.com/themissiontoseafarers Registered charity no: 1123613

A unique opportunity for a Christian with Residential Care Management Experience – Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex Luff House (formerly the Ernest Luff Home) is a Christian-run Residential Care/Retirement Home situated in a pleasant residential setting in Walton-on-the Naze, just over a mile from the Frinton sea front. The Home provides residential care for 28 older people, including specialist dementia care units, and there are Retirement & Retirement Plus accommodation in flats and bungalows on site.

Luff House is noted for its Christian ethos and family atmosphere, and our residents and their relatives express great satisfaction with our services.

We need a Manager who is not only able to maintain and take forward the high standards of care and service residents and staff currently enjoy, but • Is a committed Christian who is able to lead devotional times and give spiritual guidance; • has substantial management experience in a residential setting, and • has excellent communication and people management skills.

If you feel this is your calling and you would like to find out more, contact us now: Email: hr@pilgrimsfriend.org.uk Tel: 0300 303 1400 Web: http://www.pilgrimsfriend.org.uk/work-for-us

themissiontoseafarers

THE MONTH April 2016

MORSHEDA NEEDS YOU t o p a s s ALLa bTOucket around

home again Floods have destroyed Morsheda’s e. Once, as and again, forcing the family to fle to put one of the rushing waters rose, she had cling to it as it her children in a cooking pot and floated down the river.

Change the story at caweek.org

UK registered charity no. 1105851 company no. 5171525 Scot charity no. SC039150 Christian Aid Ireland: NI charity no. NIC101631 company no. NI059154 and ROI charity no. 20014162 company no. 426928.

The Christian Aid name and logo are trademarks of Christian Aid. Christian Aid is a key member of ACT Alliance. Š Christian Aid February 2016 J4862 Photo: Christian Aid / G M B Akash / Panos Pictures

11

12

THE MONTH April 2016

THE

month — Project helps Kenyan farmers cope with climate changes

Green grams crop joy for self-help groups

BY REVD LEE BATSON

Land’s End to John O’Groats training

TO help fund a big project to improve St Mary’s Saffron Walden and make it more welcoming, the Team Rector, David Tomlinson (left) and Steve Hasler, a Churchwarden (right), will cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats in May. Said David: “This is a tough challenge, riding 60-70 miles per day for 15 days but Steve and I are putting in a lot of training and we’re both really looking forward to the ride. Any support that you can give would help us towards our target to raise £20,000.

We’ve made a great start and have sponsorship of nearly £2,000 already.”

More than £500,000 needs to be raised towards the improvement project. New heating has already been installed. Further improvements will include a servery, toilet, designated wheelchair spaces, better access to the building and the relocation and restoration of the tomb of Thomas Audley making this historical feature more accessible to visitors. l To sponsor David or Steve log in to https://mydonate.bt.com/teams/davidstevelejog2016. Follow their blog at http://davidandstevelejog2016.blogspot. co.uk.

CHELMSFORD Diocese's Dean of Mission and Ministry, Canon Roger Matthews, holds a bag of green gram beans (right) which have been produced by the farmers involved in Sustainable Agricultural Livelihoods Initiative (SALI) project supported by the Lent Appeal.

This year the diocese is working again with Anglican Development Services in Mount Kenya East (ADSMKE) and Christian Aid to raise funds for the SALI project.

One member of the self-help groups, Agnes Ngui, says the project is a success story.

Agnes says: "I have been in SALI project since 2011, and have benefited in many ways including the provision of climate information and the trainings on climate information.

"This helped me to select the correct certified seed that suits my region in terms of rainfall requirements.

"Secondly I was trained in appropriate agricultural practices on crop husbandry. This covered recommended spacing, seed variety, seed rate, soil fertility, water harvesting and pest control among others.

"I have been trained on agribusiness and record keeping.

I am currently managing my farm

BISHOP'S LENT APPEAL 2016

in a business oriented way. From the sale of green grams in the last season through the Marketing Association, I have started a small scale business of buying and selling clothes in the village.

"This initiative was made possible by the collective marketing of green grams which enabled me to access capital to start."

Roger added: "Climate change and unseasonable weather affects us all. But it has a disproportionate impact upon subsistence farmers who depend upon reliable weather patterns to know when to plant so that they

Palm Sunday 20 March

Tuesday 22 March 8.00pm Holy Week Concert Free entry

Wednesday 23 March

3.30pm Choral Evensong (Please be seated by 3.15pm)

Maundy Thursday 24 March

7.45pm The Eucharist of the Last Supper followed by the Watch

Good Friday 25 March

Noon Preaching of the Cross 2.00pm The Good Friday Liturgy

Holy Saturday 26 March

7.00pm Diocesan Service with the Bishop of Chelmsford

Easter Day 27 March

8.00am Holy Communion 9.30am Parish Eucharist 11.15am Choral Eucharist

3.30pm Choral Evensong Friday evenings in Lent and on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week, 7.00 pm Compline 20 minutes of meditation with beautiful choral music.

For more information visit www.chelmsfordcathedral.org.uk

Study resources l This year we are also pleased to offer a study resource to accompany the appeal that will help us pray and reflect more

deeply upon the challenges being faced by the farmers of Kenya.

This can be downloaded from the Diocesan website at www. chelmsford.anglican.org/ lentappeal2016.

Further information l Please do contact Revd Lee Batson on 01245 451087 or lbatson@chelmsford. anglican.org if you would have any questions or would like further information.

How to Give l Chelmsford diocese is very pleased to be partnering with Christian Aid who will oversee the use of the money on our behalf as they are already working with ADSMKE on other projects.

Donations can be made online, by text and by cheque. For full details of how to give online and by text please visit the appeal’s dedicated web page www. chelmsford.anglican.org/ lentappeal2016.

Church donations can be made payable to Chelmsford DBF and sent to Liz Watson, Diocesan Office, 53 New Street, Chelmsford CM1 1AT. Thank you very much for your support. It will make a big difference to the lives of subsistence farmers in Kenya.

Friends pitch in to repair roof

HOLY WEEK EASTER 2016 8.00am Holy Communion 10.30am Sung Eucharist with procession of palms 3.30pm Music and Readings

can produce the food they need to survive.

"The Sustainable Agricultural Livelihoods Initiative project sends accurate, localised weather and climate information to local farmers so that they know when to expect rain, and when they should plant their seeds.

"It trains them in the best farming techniques, and is also working with groups of farmers to help them gain better access to the markets so that the food they produce gets the best price.

"Your support this year will help our friends in Kenya to become less dependent on outside aid, and more resilient against climate change so that they can look to a future where they can become self-reliant."

Please give whatever you can to support this project: l £194 will pay for a meeting between farmers and buyers so that farmers will be able to make their voices heard. l £23 will provide seeds for a community tree nursery. l £3.90 will provide a watering can for a subsistence farmer.

Churches in switch to greener energy

By DAVE KEMP ASH Wednesday saw churches across the United Kingdom from many denominations come together to start acting against climate change, in the launch of the ‘Big Church Switch’ campaign.

The Church of England’s buying service, Parish Buying, has teamed up with Christian Aid and Tearfund to tackle climate change.

Bishop Nicholas Holtam, who leads on environmental issues for the Church of England, has said: “The Big Church Switch is a simple, practical, good idea.

"It supports the move to renewable energy.

"If Lent is about renewing our lives in response to the love of God here is a way to follow. You can do it, and so will I.” l You can get more information, and register your interest, on the Big Church Switch website at www.bigchurchswitch. org.uk. l What is Parish Buying?

Parish Buying is a service set up and run by the Church of England to assist parishes in their buying saving time and money to release back into mission and ministry.

A GRANT of £10,000 from the Friends of Essex Churches Trust has helped to get the roof and rainwater goods fixed at St Mary's church in Great Bardfield (pictured left).

The Listed Places of Worship (LPOW) Roof Repair Fund also helped out together with other smaller but much appreciated donations.

Julia Collins from St Mary's said: "The LPOW scheme

required a very swift response and so we had to work from estimates that our architects could supply quickly, and when we actually started the project the funds were insufficient and so the Friends of Essex Churches grant plus a couple of other smaller donations allowed us to undertake the project."