Church Church services Shaftesbury Team Ministry Sunday 30th May 10am: St James’’ - Team Communion Sunday 6th June 9.30am: St Peter’s - Family Service 9.30am: St James’ - Parish Communion 11.15am: Margaret Marsh – Matins 11.15am: Enmore Green – Family service 6pm Motcombe – evening communion Team Office: 01747 853060 facebook.com/ShaftesburyCofE Church of England services in Gillingham & Milton on Stour Sunday 30 May 10am Holy Communion at St
Mary’s, Gillingham Sunday 6 June 10am Holy Communion at St Mary’s, Gillingham Sunday 13 June 10am Holy Communion at St Mary’s, Gillingham 10.30am Holy Communion at St Simon & St Jude, Milton on Stour Sunday 20 June 10am Holy Communion at St Mary’s, Gillingham Sunday 27 June 10am Holy Communion at St Mary’s, Gillingham 10.30am Holy Communion at St Simon & St Jude, Milton on Stour St Mary’s Church remains open for private prayer every
day of the week 10am-4pm. Blandford Methodist Church You are warmly invited to our Sunday services that start at 10.45 am with covid restrictions in place. Please pre-book your seat(s) by phoning 01258 577 030. We will return you call to confirm whether your seat(s) have been reserved. Please wear a face-mask and stay 2-metres apart from those not in your bubble. No singing for the time being. If you need our help then please leave your message on our answerphone 01258 577 030 and we will return your call.
n Mass times for Catholic churches in Marnhull on Sundays and Thursdays, 9.30am; in Gillingham on Sundays at 11am and Wednesdays at 10am St Mary’s, Stalbridge A Benefice service will be held in our church on 30th May at 10am. Our regular services are as follows: 1st Sunday - Holy Communion at 10am, 2nd Sunday - Evensong at 4pm, 3rd Sunday - Morning Worship at 10am. Everyone is most welcome to attend any service in the church. facebook.com/StalbridgeChurch
We will move mountains as long as we have a little faith with the Rev Richard Priest, of Stour Vale Benefice
Vicar in the Vale We pray that we may have faith, but what is faith? Imagine this scene. It is the 17th c, snow is falling all around that will last for up to six months, there are no modern machines, no central heating, no cars, no electricity and you are living in a foreign land. Almost unthinkable to us but this is exactly what one my ancestors, Henri Leblanc, went through in the 1600s when he emigrated from France to Canada. He also committed the unthinkable for those times by marrying a native Indian girl from the Mikmac tribe rather than keeping to someone from his own background. The one thing that kept him going was his faith and just like Abraham in the Bible he was to see his faith fulfilled by having his descendants flourish. The Leblanc family is now one of the leading groups in Canada and to my knowledge there are 68
descendants in Australia, USA, France and of course with my family here in the UK. Abraham was 100 years old when God told him his wife Sarah would bear him a son and that he would father many nations. His wife was barren and also over 80. But he had faith and we know what happened. His life was changed, because although he believed it was impossible for him to father a child, a son was born. If he lived today the Government would think he should have just retired and faded away because he is over 65 and therefore of little use, but what do they know? In the Bible we hear Jesus saying that he is to die. So that’s the end of all the dreams for the disciples. But Jesus tells them that they must have faith. They must not turn away from him and all he has taught them. They must have the faith to establish his church and preach his Gospel throughout the world. So the word is faith. If we have faith then anything is possible, Jesus tells us that faith can move mountains. The impossible can become possible. The dreams that we have can become reality
and much, much more. Fifty years ago Martin Luther King began one of his most famous speeches by saying that he had a dream. He dreamt of equality and freedom. Today we have had a black president in the White House and although the dream of total freedom and equality is not yet there we pray it soon will be. It needed faith, and certainly King and his contemporaries had that faith. In our lifetimes we have seen marvellous advances in the treatment of illness. TB, smallpox and diphtheria are mostly eradicated and yet not so long ago they were killers. Of course there are many more complaints that have to be overcome, covid-19, cancer, diabetes, alzheimer’s and ebola to name but a few, but if we have faith then I believe that one day these too will be eradicated. One day there will be equality across the whole world, poverty will be wiped out, people of whatever race will live side by side without any problems, we will think of each other as children of God and not worry about where our ancestors were born, or what colour we are or
even what religion we follow, if any. We will only see another human being who is to be cherished. One day it will come. If only we have faith, one day the mountains will be laid low and the rough places made plain to quote from Isaiah. We have to be prepared to take that first step and have faith. If Henri Leblanc had failed to have faith in Canada I would not be here, if Abraham had not had faith then a dynasty would not have been born and the Jewish race would have been destroyed. If that had happened then we would not be able to know Christ. If Martin Luther King had not had faith then we would still see slavery and oppression across the world. So many things have been changed by people having faith. If we can have that faith then what can we change in our world today? Can we help eradicate poverty, could we stop wars and are we able to bring back prosperity not only to our own country but to all countries of this troubled world? The answer is of course yes, but to do it we must have faith. Let us pray for that faith and the courage to use it.
