January Second Saturday lunch
The January Second Saturday lunch will be held on Saturday 14th January at The Reeves Scout Hall, Compton.
Lunch will be served at 12. 30pm. Come along you will receive a warm, friendly welcome.
Morning Service for Epiphany 2 2023
We are apt to think that our religion is the very apotheoses of western thought and integrity, the very model of all that defines the flowering of North European thought and moral teaching. We know we are wrong, but we cannot help but see Christianity in terms of our race, language and culture. We have to remind ourselves constantly that the Christ we profess was not of our race, and knew nothing of our language or our culture. His language was vastly different from our own, just listen to an Arabic speaker if you want to know how different.
Morning Service for Epiphany 2023
That remarkable piece from Isaiah is worth pausing to notice. It is easily overlooked on a day so full of obvious sermons about Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, Wise Men, Stars and the like. They are stirring words of hope to a people reluctant to hope – a people whose hope has been squeezed from them by poverty, by homelessness – by being strangers on a foreign land. They are words maybe for our own time, when although we have so much we are very aware of the fragility of our world. We are prone to thinking that almost any catastrophe maybe just over the horizon.
Morning Service for Christmas 2 2023
As is the case with anything that happened in the past, it is difficult to be certain. Yes, the score was 3-3 say, but who played well and why they did so is a matter of judgement. When we think about the Biblical stories of Jesus’ birth, we cannot be sure; we were not there at the time and even if we had been, between us, we could come to different conclusions.
Morning Service for Christmas 2022
God meets us in the ordinary and we celebrate the fact in the extraordinary. In this extraordinary place, at this extraordinary time.
Mary gave birth like countless millions of women have done before and since, and every birth, every single birth that has been, and will be – full of fear and agony, deepest joy or deepest sadness. In the extraordinary and surreal moment of new life, as it hangs in the balance, all the risk and glory, pain and intensity of life meets. It was the same for Mary as it has been and will be for every human mother across the world and across time.
Christmas Services
We will be holding Crib services, Carols for All, Midnight Mass and Family Communion services across the Benefice over the Christmas period.
For details of our services for Christmas, please take a look at the ‘Sunday’ page.
May God bless your Christmas season with joy and love.
Morning Service for Advent 4 2022
The fascinating thing is not what the differences are, but what each author meant by the difference. Why they wrote what they wrote, what lies behind their thinking, is much more interesting than trying to make their accounts fit into some mythic unified historical whole, like a children’s nativity play. There is no stable in any gospel, or innkeeper for that matter!
Morning Service for Advent 3 2022
In the wonderful story of Alice And Wonderland one of the characters is a lock. The Lock is very restless and can not be still for a single moment. It is obviously hunting for something as it looks behind every rock and tree. As Alice watches the lock, her curiosity is aroused and she asks, “What is the matter?” The lock replies, “I am looking for something to unlock me.”
Morning Service for Advent 2 2022
I have a favourite analogy, it comes to me often when trying to fit conflicting ideas and imperfectly understood concepts into my oh so small brain. It copes particularly well with paradox – that favourite standby of theologians when they try to tell you that black is both black and white.
Christingle
Christingle services will take place in All Saints’ Church, Compton and St. Matthew’s Church, Otterbourne on Sunday 11th December at 4pm and 4.30 pm respectively.
This is a joyful family and community celebration where we will be making Christingles. Everyone is welcome to join us.
Second Saturday Lunch
The December Second Saturday lunch will be held on Saturday 10th December at The Reeves Scout Hall, Compton.
Christmas lunch will be served at 12. 30pm and, afterwards, we will sing some carols to live accompaniment.
Please let the Rector know if you would like to come along although you will receive a warm, friendly welcome if you just pop in.
Christmas Tree Festival
The annual Christmas tree festival will be held at Hursley on Saturday 10th December from 10 am.
Do come along to take a look and support the village.
Morning Service for Advent Sunday 2022
Advent is all about waiting. But there is more than one sort of waiting – there is the kind of waiting when you know something’s going to happen and you know when it’s going to happen. Like Christmas, we all know when it is so we know how long we have to wait.
Quiz night
The quiz will be held on Saturday 26th November at 7 pm. in Otterbourne Village Hall. Fish and chip supper included.
For tickets, contact wardens@chobenefice.co.uk,
Otterbourne Christmas Fair
The Christmas Fair will be held on Saturday 26th November between 12 noon -3.15 pm at the Otterbourne Village Hall.
Come to buy some unique Christmas gifts, hand-made with care. Light lunch and lots of tea and cake will be available as well as Father Christmas in his grotto.
Morning Service for 3rd before Advent 2022
The whole account to me is a cautionary tale to those tempted to take scripture literally, outside of context, authorship, or common sense. It is a lesson many Christian preachers would do well to revisit! The very preaching of Jesus went beyond his own people’s understanding of the nature of God which they found in their scriptures, to a point which shocked and disturbed them – especially the religious professionals.
We should be prepared for the same shock and disturbance when new science and new understanding of how human beings function lead us to question old certainties and old judgements of right and wrong – clean and unclean (to use an old term but a notion still embedded in our reactions). The question of why Church of England clergy, unlike those of the Methodist church and the Church of Scotland, are still prevented by law from marrying same-sex couples is for me just such an issue of new science and new understanding challenging old certainties and old judgements.
Morning Service for All Saints’ Sunday 2022
So today we think about sanctity. We celebrate the heroes of the faith who have ‘made it’, who have run the race and won the prize; who have lived lives of sanctity and holiness, who have inspired others by their acts of self-forgetful generosity, or who have refused to recant their confession of Christ, even though it meant torture and death. These men and women have allowed their faith in God and his Christ to turn their human priorities and instincts upside down.
Second Saturday Lunch
The Second Saturday Lunch is held in the Reeves Scout hall in Compton. The lunch is open to anyone who would like to join us. A home cooked main course, pudding and a soft drink are provided. Donations are welcomed but not essential. The most enjoyable part of the lunches is always the company and […]
Benefice Memorial Service
Our annual Memorial service for All Souls will be held at St. Matthew’s church, Otterboure on Sunday 30th October at 6.00 pm. The service wiil include time for reflection and prayer for the lives of loved ones who are no longer with us.
Morning Service for Trinity 18 2022
At first sight this parable from Luke’s gospel is rather uninteresting, being merely an exhortation to be continuous and persistent in prayer – wise teaching for sure, but it is odd that the parable seems to compare God to an unjust judge. However, Luke wraps it in a context irresistibly focussed on the need to pray. As he does so often, he feels bounden to help his reader and put the parable within an interpretive framework, in other words, he has to try and explain it. But if the parable is cut from this surround then perhaps, left to itself, it may say something wholly different, and perhaps more interesting.