One Parish: Two Churches

Just under two weeks ago Bishop Richard re-dedicated St Mark's Church and we are starting the journey of getting used again to being one parish with two operating churches. It's good for me to make the walk into Surbiton and up the hill to St Mark's. I feel I am re-connecting with a part of the parish that I don't so regularly walk in and I think that is a very good thing. St Mark's end of the parish has a very different feel to St Andrew's; it's easy to forget when you are in the idyllic Maple Road setting that there is a busy Surbiton with a stream of commuters flooding to and from the train station every day. Just spending a little time in St Mark's I remember that it has a large footfall, people really do drop into pray there and that is a challenge for us as a community to consider whether we can keep the church open for that purpose.

I remember the first time that I went to Greenbelt and a parish priest from Liverpool was talking about his commitment to the physical reality of his parish: walking the streets, knowing the place, was essential to his understanding of parochial ministry. I implicitly agreed with him, and the re-opening of St Mark's has reminded me of the importance of being connected to place and space: St Mark's is a different place from St Andrew's and it provides different opportunities for our parish ministry. Of course, St Mark's has changed and we as a community have changed; no longer are we two separate worshipping communities, we have truly become one and that is the wonderful fruit of the parish vision project. As we learn to re-tred the ground of St Mark's both inside and outside the building I pray that we will honour its distinctiveness and the accompanying particularity of its surroundings. I pray that we will listen to the voice of God as we discern how to live in and between two worship centres and open ourselves to the voice of those who will re-appear on our doorsteps. It will inevitably take some time, some trying things out, some getting it wrong, some trying again, but if we maintain a vision of unity in valuing difference, then operating two churches will really be a blessing and not just an impossible dilemma!

Comments

Radical Story-telling?

Public Domain The Flight into Egypt File: Adam Elsheimer - Die Flucht nach Ägypten (Alte Pinakothek) 2.jpg Created: 31 December 1608 Which of the Gospel writers include an account of the birth of Jesus? When were they writing, for what audience? Mark’s Gospel is almost universally considered to be the earliest Gospel and it’s understood that both Matthew and Luke used it as a source text. But Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus, he begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Only Matthew and Luke have birth narratives and they are different whilst sharing some common features: Mary and Joseph are to be married and there’s a miraculous virgin birth in Bethlehem. But that’s about it. Jesus is born in a house in Matthew’s account whilst he is placed in a manger in Luke’s because there’s ‘no room at the inn’. Mary’s thoughts and feelings are not mentioned in Matthew at all, whilst from Luke we get the story of the Visitation, Annunciation and the wonderfu...

Silence

Lent Study Group One of my top 10 books of the last 10 years has to be: 'A Book of Silence' by Sara Maitland. I first heard Sara talk at Greenbelt many years ago and I was fascinated then by who she was - an eccentric woman, speaking with intensity and insight, offering an alternative and captivating viewpoint on the human experience. In this book she explores silence in all sorts of ways: by living on her own; by visiting the desert; through analysing the desert traditions within early Christianity; and through attending to what happens to the body and the mind in and through extended silence and isolation. Her book begins: I am sitting on the front doorstep of my little house with a cup of coffee, looking down the valley at my extraordinary view of nothing. It is wonderful. Virginia Woolf famously taught us that every woman writer needs a room of her own. She didn't know the half of it, in my opinion. I need a moor of my own. Or, as an exasperated but obvious...

Christmas Video Message

Text version- Hello from St Andrew’s Church in Rugby , where once again I’m surrounded by Christmas trees. This year there are a couple that pick up the WW1 remembrance theme using poppies as decorations. 2014 has been a significant year for the UK and for Europe as we’ve reflected on the significance of the first and the second world wars. The not uncontroversial Sainsbury’s advert reminded the nation that the story of Christmas can do extraordinary things; even in war it can unite enemies, as in the famous Christmas Day truce in 1914. At Christmas we do enter a mystical moment, a moment of opportunity, where the message of God’s love and care for each one of us comes really close. The vulnerable child, the nativity scenes, the bringing of gifts, they tell us that we can still believe in the power of love to transform human experience. At Christmas 1914 on the Western front, some soldiers dared to look their enemies in the face and wish them happy Christmas. In our soci...

Rev elations

Search This Blog