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?’
Morning Service for the Second Sunday of Lent 2022
What a metaphor to choose, a mother hen! Where’s the biblical precedent for that? Wouldn’t the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea’s stealthy leopard been far more appropriate, or how about the proud Lion of Judah? Compared to any of those a mother hen that does not inspire much confidence. But a hen is how Jesus chose to describe the way that he would relate to the people of Jerusalem. They longed for a champion, they longed for somebody who would take matters in hand, lead them to death or glory. How disappointing to be offered a hen.
Lent course
We will once again be running a Lent course this year. The subject is Paradise Lost by John Milton. Before you think I’ve gone mad or hopelessly descended into intellectual irrelevance let me tell you that we have the aid of a very helpful BBC abridgement with Sir Ian McKellen taking the part of Milton […]
St Matthew’s, Otterbourne Coffee Morning
Monday 7th March in the church room from 10am-11.30am. Everyone welcome.
A Morning Service for the First Sunday of Lent 2022
Shrove Tuesday was St David’s day. St David was born around 520 AD and his lifetime’s work was the establishment of some 12 monastic communities, including Glastonbury and Menevia, now known as St David’s. His regime was specially strict, based on the Egyptian monastic model. The life of his monks consisted of hard manual labour – they kept no oxen to help them plough, a frugal diet of bread and water and vegetables, and much prayer and study.