Magazine letter for August 2022
We have been witness to a deal of dreaming recently, people dreaming of becoming Prime Minister, for instance. But we all dream, and there is nothing wrong with dreaming. Dreams carry ideas and hopes. Visions to guide our lives; aspirations, longings, and imaginings of a different future, of the way things might be.
Morning Service for Trinity 8 2022
‘Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.’
So wrote the author of the letter to the Hebrews – not St Paul as some say. At least that is the translation we have in the lectionary, which is quite well known and rolls off the tongue quite well. However, it isn’t what he wrote.
Magazine letter for July 2022
There seems to be an increasing appetite to concentrate power in the hands of a few individuals. The current desire from government to increase the numbers of city mayors, for instance; and the demise of cabinet government to one far more centred in the office of one person with a large politically appointed staff.
Morning Service for Trinity 5 2022
Poor old Martha – there she is working away, in her own home, trying to be the perfect hostess, and no one will lift a finger to help, not even her own sister. She makes a very reasonable appeal, ‘Lord don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’
Morning Service for Trinity 2 2022
The Christian faith, with its roots in Judaism, offers no easy answers to life’s problems. Psalm 77 which we heard this morning makes that very clear.
Morning Service for Trinity 1 2022
Our first readingg continued the story of Elijah, he has just defeated the prophets of Baal in a great show of the power of Israel’s God – proving that he is the one true God. He has brought about the slaughter of the priests of Baal and now flees into the desert, running for his life away from Queen Jezebel who intends to wreak terrible vengeance upon him.
Morning Service for Trinity Sunday 2022
Trinity Sunday is a challenge to preachers and congregations alike, for we are bidden to consider the incomprehensible, the utterly mysterious, the profoundly unknowable. For today is the Feast of the godhead, the very nature of God. Why do we bother, why do we strain to grasp with our all-too human minds something so completely unfathomable as God?
A Service for Pentecost 2022
So this is Pentecost, when the disciples experienced the tangible presence of the Spirit, and began their mission to create a people of the Spirit, seeking to be guided and taught by the revealing, disturbing, overwhelming Spirit of God.
Morning Service for the Seventh Sunday of Easter
The episode from the Acts of the Apostles we heard this morning is an interesting study of freedom and captivity.
Songs of Praise for the Jubilee
Sunday, 5th June 11am All Saints’, Hursley and 6pm St Matthew’s, Otterbourne
Morning Service for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
But at the heart of John’s meaning is an indefinable, but palpable sense of Jesus’ presence; a presence synonymous with the presence of God, the Father. Present after they see him no more but in Spirit, available as power and comfort, inspiration and encouragement.
Morning Service for the Fourth Sunday of Easter 2022
The image of Shepherd and sheep is a powerful one, it’s comforting and picturesque – it’s not particularly exciting, or, on the face of it, particularly emboldening, and it doesn’t say much for we who are the sheep, but when times are hard it’s nice to know that there is someone else in charge.
Morning Service for the Third Sunday of Easter 2022
I wonder if there is, like Paul, a new name we need to be considering, or like Simon Peter an old name we need to learn how to fill.
Morning Service for the Second Sunday of Easter 2022
This is the message of grace to a tired and sick world. Simply that in Jesus God could communicate who he is and that in following his way, believing in his truth, sharing his life, brings a more abundant live. A living relationship with God through him who described himself as ‘the way, the truth and the life’.
Holy Week Services
Maundy Thursday
7.30pm
Parish Communion and Washing of Feet – All Saints’, Compton
Good Friday
10am walk from Shawford Down Wayside Cross
to Compton church for 10.30am service
12 noon – 3pm St Matthew’s church words, images
and music for Good Friday
Easter Day
9.30am Family Communion – All Saints’, Hursley
9.30am Family Communion – St Matthew’s, Otterbourne
11.00am Family Communion – All Saints’, Compton
Morning Service for Palm Sunday 2022
In Mark’s account we hear that Jesus rode into Jerusalem after giving his disciples detailed instructions on where to find a colt for him to use. This arrival into Jerusalem is to be no casual affair, Jesus has been walking to Jerusalem ever since his transfiguration on the mountain to the north of Israel.
Choral Evensong
Sunday 3rd April at 6pm at St Matthew’s, Otterbourne
Morning Service for Lent 5 2022
Worship is an odd and puzzling concept, it just means to ‘give worth,’ but of course it’s much more than that. It is the start of relationship; it is the beginning of communication, it is the first “I am here”, that gives God a chance to in turn respond to us. Of course, that means that worship implies an openness of mind, a conscious vulnerability to God; and we know from our human relationships that it is only by making ourselves vulnerable that deep and significant relationships can be made.
MORNING Service for Mothering Sunday – 2022
In so many operas it’s the arias that we remember – those brilliant flashes of song and melody, moments of magic which stay in the mind for days and months and years afterwards. In the opera of the Gospels the parable of the prodigal son is an aria of the highest quality, and the greatest wisdom, we all know it so well that we could pretty well recite it completely. And we should know it that well, it has so much to teach us – and not just as children hearing it the first time it in Sunday school or at an assembly, it can and should inform every stage of our lives. For at different stages and on different occasions, we can see the story from each different point of view
A Morning Service for the Third Sunday of Lent 2022
Rarely have events in the world been so coincidently related to the Gospel reading appointed for the day – or so horrific.
Rather than the cruelty of a tyrant like Pilate or the random destructiveness of a tower of Siloam, we have the bombardment of cities full of children and the elderly. We have the work of evil, and just as they did 2,000 years ago, people ask ‘Why?’ ‘Why? What did they do to deserve this aggression?’