A Morning Service for the Second Sunday of Lent 2023
Our first reading today marks a turning point in the story of how God relates to his world. Within the book of Genesis it links the traditions of God’s providential care for the world and God’s electing call of Israel. With these verses the writer leaves behind the history of humanity and begins the history of the people of God, God’s witness to the world.
A Morning Service for the First Sunday of Lent 2023
So here we are already at the first Sunday of Lent, just 6 weeks to Easter. And that’s the whole point of Lent, Easter. If you ask lots of people in the street what they thought that Lent was all about you’d hear a few ‘don’t knows’, but I guess the majority of people would say that it was about giving something up, usually chocolate or sugar in your tea – I’m not sure how many people could tell you to what purpose.
Second Saturday Lunch
Our next Benefice Second Saturday lunch will be held on Saturday 11th March in the Reeves Scout Hall, Compton. We meet at 12.30pm and enjoy good food and company. Everyone is welcome to join us. Why not come along?
Vocations Day
A Vocations Day is being held on Saturday 11th March at St. Mary’s Church, Andover. This is a great opportunity for those discerning a call to lay
or ordained ministry to find out more.
A Morning Service for the Sunday before Lent 2023
In the 40 years since I started training as a (then) Lay Reader, I have never been asked to preach on the Transfiguration, although I have heard sermons on it in French Protestant churches. It seems to there are two questions that need looking at with regard to the Transfiguration: is it true and what does it mean. I will take these in order, starting with the difficult one.
A Morning Service for the 2nd Sunday before Lent 2023
Some of the most well known words in the English language – “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..” But of course, it wasn’t written in English, it wasn’t the product of an English mind, nor for that matter a North European one – it was written in Hebrew for Hebrew people by Hebrew people.
Breysheyt barar elohim yet Harshamaeem veyt hararrets
Morning Service for Candlemas 2023
To look at life in all its fierceness, its anger and its pain, all its sorrow and bewildering suffering – and yet then to see also the salvation of our God. To see the incredible paradox of life – the world as we know it, and the God that we come to know as its creator, the journey of accepting, even embracing such a paradox, is the journey of seeing the Christ of God. The Christ born to heal, to forgive, to teach, to pray, and to be tortured, scourged, lashed and crucified.
Morning Service for Epiphany 4 2023
Metaphors, what would our language be without them? Every day we use metaphor to explain what we mean – to talk about one thing we talk about another. For example, we say that something is as quick as lightning – and that it’s raining cats and dogs. Most metaphors are fairly easy to understand, some however need a lot of unravelling, not only do they explain the sense of what we mean but they might also take it further and develop the point.
Morning Service for Epiphany 3 2023
We are all different; our brains and our emotions work differently. Some want to think everything out in a logical manner, some overflow with emotion. Some see God’s actions in their every day life; others do not. There is a woman in this diocese who fits the first category. She strikes me as a good, kind, helpful person, but I cannot agree with her, because God intervening in my every day life, putting right trivial problems for me, is not part of my experience.
Fifth Sunday Benefice Service
January 29th is the fifth Sunday of the month. This means that there is one service across the Benefice and provides the opportunity for us to gather to worship together. This month the service will be held at St. Matthew’s, Otterbourne. The service will begin at 9.30 am.
Mayor’s Chrity Quiz Night
Trinity Winchester are holding a special evening on Thursday 9th February for the Mayor’s Charity Quiz Night. Test your knowledge against Egghead Kevin Ashman.
Get a team of up to 6 together and take on this challenge at the Winchester Rugby Club and enjoy a delicious curry.
7.30pm start
Don’t forget to take part in our raffle on the night to win some fantastic prizes.
Tickets can be booked using the link below:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mayor-of-winchester-charity-quiz-host-kevin-ashman-winchester-rugby-club-tickets-506076116287?aff=odeimcmailchimp&mc_cid=468989ab68&mc_eid=de0fd3d0a6
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.