‘Christianity Explored’
As the New Year dawns upon us, and the festivities and joy of Christmas recedes into distant memory, it is good to take up a new challenge, and to do a new thing.
I came upon a new and exciting course, run by a Cornishman and a rugby man, Rico Tice, called ‘Christianity Explored’. The course will run for ten weeks, beginning on Friday 4 February (and Fridays following) at the Cutty Sark Pub in Marazion. The idea of the Course is to meet for mid-morning coffee or tea in the pleasant setting of the Cutty Sark Large Room at 10.45am, watch a lively and modern DVD together that will challenge many peoples’ assumptions or commonly-held views of Christianity, and over the next hour, until 12 noon, to engage with them.
Over the ten weeks, in Marazion, we will explore the questions that cut to the heart of Christianity: who was Jesus? Why did He come? What is involved in following Him? It is an opportunity to ask questions, however simple or difficult they are, and we will do it by looking at the shortest account of Jesus Life, the Gospel of Mark.
It is good to have the opportunity to come together, to discuss with others the nature of our faith, to better grasp what it is in our Christian faith we are following and believing in.
In Ludgvan and Perranuthnoe over the Autumn, and also finishing in February, we have been looking at the Mission of the Early Church and considering our own Mission as a Church Today, through studying ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, and, soon, look out for our Lent Courses there, beginning in March. But it will be good to have a Course, specifically based in Marazion (and we are hoping our friends from Marazion Chapel will join us), but open to everyone in the Benefice, and especially to those wanting an opportunity to explore and go a bit deeper into our faith, and an opportunity to question and engage with the doubts and unanswered questions we have about Christianity and the nature of Jesus in a clear and systematic way.
If you are free on Friday mornings, please come along (and if you can’t make every session come to the ones you can). Go on, do a new thing in 2011.
Happy February Exploring,
Revd Nigel Marns
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Jan 2011 Newsletter
January 2011 - Newsletter
The story of the wise men coming to Jesus and his parents is often part of the children's school nativity plays. In truth it represents something that happened well after his birth. It is recorded by Matthew in his very conservative Jewish Gospel. For he understands the messianic significance of these strange visitors from other nations. The prophetic tradition pointed to the time when the Gentile world would come to be part of the new world order that messiah would bring. The nations will become part of his rule of peace. These travelers from unknown lands in the East, no doubt following the spice route were magi, students of the stars, and through such study hoping to chart the fortunes of men, nations and the world order. They had spotted a fresh heavenly body, perhaps a comet, though we shall be unable to verify the details now. One thing is clear that whatever they saw spoke to them of a royal birth. Out there a new king was born. Their journey was made under the enthusiasm of finding a king. In doing so they stirred up a hornets' nest in Herod's court. For Herod was a paranoid dictator who faced continual threats on his life and was capable of horrific reprisals on any who sought to depose him. A possible rival to his legitimacy seemed a danger he could not ignore. There was a birth, but that of a child in ordinary circumstances, born to a local craftsman and his teenage wife. They brought strange gifts, we are told, to do with the life and death of a kingly personage. Afraid of Herod and maybe his interrogation techniques they made good their journey home. In later years they may have reflected on their quest and perhaps, as in TS Elliott's poem, questioned the real value of their journey and the significance of the ordinary family they found.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worse time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
The poem continues-
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
For Christian believers this story becomes the foundation for a great season in the church year as they reflect on the significant influence of the gospel on the world. We call this time of the year Epiphany, indicating that the child is no ordinary man but is shown to the world as its rescuer. His light shines out to a world of need, to people who walk in darkness and to dwellers in the sad land where the very shadow of death falls on all. He is the light to lighten the Gentiles. His light is the true light that lightens every man in the world .
It may well be that Holman Hunt's great painting, entitled ' the Light of the World', springs to mind. It shows Jesus holding a lantern in what is a very English orchard . The influence of the Christ child knows no boundaries so that this very English Victorian artist can, in another millennium, claim that he who is light of the world transforms his age and his contemporaries. This Jesus is our contemporary, too, and we begin the new year by recognizing that he is here for us and 2011 can be a journey with him for us ,our church and our society.
May God bless your New Year,
Noel Michell
The story of the wise men coming to Jesus and his parents is often part of the children's school nativity plays. In truth it represents something that happened well after his birth. It is recorded by Matthew in his very conservative Jewish Gospel. For he understands the messianic significance of these strange visitors from other nations. The prophetic tradition pointed to the time when the Gentile world would come to be part of the new world order that messiah would bring. The nations will become part of his rule of peace. These travelers from unknown lands in the East, no doubt following the spice route were magi, students of the stars, and through such study hoping to chart the fortunes of men, nations and the world order. They had spotted a fresh heavenly body, perhaps a comet, though we shall be unable to verify the details now. One thing is clear that whatever they saw spoke to them of a royal birth. Out there a new king was born. Their journey was made under the enthusiasm of finding a king. In doing so they stirred up a hornets' nest in Herod's court. For Herod was a paranoid dictator who faced continual threats on his life and was capable of horrific reprisals on any who sought to depose him. A possible rival to his legitimacy seemed a danger he could not ignore. There was a birth, but that of a child in ordinary circumstances, born to a local craftsman and his teenage wife. They brought strange gifts, we are told, to do with the life and death of a kingly personage. Afraid of Herod and maybe his interrogation techniques they made good their journey home. In later years they may have reflected on their quest and perhaps, as in TS Elliott's poem, questioned the real value of their journey and the significance of the ordinary family they found.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worse time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
The poem continues-
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
For Christian believers this story becomes the foundation for a great season in the church year as they reflect on the significant influence of the gospel on the world. We call this time of the year Epiphany, indicating that the child is no ordinary man but is shown to the world as its rescuer. His light shines out to a world of need, to people who walk in darkness and to dwellers in the sad land where the very shadow of death falls on all. He is the light to lighten the Gentiles. His light is the true light that lightens every man in the world .
It may well be that Holman Hunt's great painting, entitled ' the Light of the World', springs to mind. It shows Jesus holding a lantern in what is a very English orchard . The influence of the Christ child knows no boundaries so that this very English Victorian artist can, in another millennium, claim that he who is light of the world transforms his age and his contemporaries. This Jesus is our contemporary, too, and we begin the new year by recognizing that he is here for us and 2011 can be a journey with him for us ,our church and our society.
May God bless your New Year,
Noel Michell
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
December Newsletter
‘A New Star’
And Winter fell. All at once it was Winter. All of a sudden the nights seemed very dark. Suddenly we were caught in huge raging storms and floods and bitter cold came upon us. Our lives so often reflect the change in the seasons, don’t they? We can go along quite merrily and happily, and then darkness falls. When Winter comes, our mood turns to a more sombre timbre too. The troubles of our world seem as ‘dark portents’ and press more heavily upon us; life becomes more of a struggle to battle through each day.
However, the coming of the bleak mid-winter is not all ‘doom and gloom’! One of the joys of the encroaching darkness is gazing up at the night sky. Here in Cornwall, we can pick out many constellations and patterns, and, on a clear night, the sky seems completely full of so many bright and gleaming stars.
How amazing it must have been for those three astrologers, two thousand years ago, gazing through their telescopes, and studying and charting the planets and their movements, to suddenly come upon ‘a New Star’ in the night sky, a new light, unrecorded and unrecognised before, much like when we come upon a previously undiscovered mammal in a rainforest or an aerial photograph reveals a previously hidden archaeological settlement in a field. No wonder these first Wise Men hurriedly loaded up their goods and chattels and their camels and horses in such haste, and went on a journey to discover what this ‘New Star’ might mean.
The kings can lead us to discover what Advent is all about: Darkness may fall; Winter may come; but, yet, ‘a New Star’ appears in the sky to lead us and entice us on a journey of discovery. In Advent we can become modern day wise men and women, not shut away in the ‘doom and gloom’ of Winter days and nights, but Advent journeyers, waiting for ‘the Light’ to come to us, to follow ‘the New Star’ that comes to light up the darkness of the night sky and our world in a ‘New Way’ and offering us a bright future in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is coming into the world.
Advent has many themes: coloured reflective purple, candles in the darkness, watching and waiting, preparing. But what are we preparing ourselves for? December can be full of extreme busyness, but, if we are true travellers and wise men and women, we will also take time to watch and wait for Jesus to reveal himself to us in ‘a New Way’ this Advent-tide, just like he did in the appearance of ‘the New Star’ in the sky two thousand years ago. Whether it be in your own private prayer-times and meditations this Advent or whether you join us for ‘Advent Sacred Space’ at All Saints, Marazion from 4-4.30pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a time of quiet meditation and preparation, we pray that, in the depth of this dark Winter, we will also give time to preparing our hearts to receive ‘the New Thing’ that God wants to reveal to us. As the prophet Isaiah predicted: ‘I am doing ‘a new thing’. Do you not perceive it’?
Happy Advent travelling and best wishes in all your preparations,
Revd. Nigel Marns
Rector United Benefice of Mounts Bay
And Winter fell. All at once it was Winter. All of a sudden the nights seemed very dark. Suddenly we were caught in huge raging storms and floods and bitter cold came upon us. Our lives so often reflect the change in the seasons, don’t they? We can go along quite merrily and happily, and then darkness falls. When Winter comes, our mood turns to a more sombre timbre too. The troubles of our world seem as ‘dark portents’ and press more heavily upon us; life becomes more of a struggle to battle through each day.
However, the coming of the bleak mid-winter is not all ‘doom and gloom’! One of the joys of the encroaching darkness is gazing up at the night sky. Here in Cornwall, we can pick out many constellations and patterns, and, on a clear night, the sky seems completely full of so many bright and gleaming stars.
How amazing it must have been for those three astrologers, two thousand years ago, gazing through their telescopes, and studying and charting the planets and their movements, to suddenly come upon ‘a New Star’ in the night sky, a new light, unrecorded and unrecognised before, much like when we come upon a previously undiscovered mammal in a rainforest or an aerial photograph reveals a previously hidden archaeological settlement in a field. No wonder these first Wise Men hurriedly loaded up their goods and chattels and their camels and horses in such haste, and went on a journey to discover what this ‘New Star’ might mean.
The kings can lead us to discover what Advent is all about: Darkness may fall; Winter may come; but, yet, ‘a New Star’ appears in the sky to lead us and entice us on a journey of discovery. In Advent we can become modern day wise men and women, not shut away in the ‘doom and gloom’ of Winter days and nights, but Advent journeyers, waiting for ‘the Light’ to come to us, to follow ‘the New Star’ that comes to light up the darkness of the night sky and our world in a ‘New Way’ and offering us a bright future in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is coming into the world.
Advent has many themes: coloured reflective purple, candles in the darkness, watching and waiting, preparing. But what are we preparing ourselves for? December can be full of extreme busyness, but, if we are true travellers and wise men and women, we will also take time to watch and wait for Jesus to reveal himself to us in ‘a New Way’ this Advent-tide, just like he did in the appearance of ‘the New Star’ in the sky two thousand years ago. Whether it be in your own private prayer-times and meditations this Advent or whether you join us for ‘Advent Sacred Space’ at All Saints, Marazion from 4-4.30pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a time of quiet meditation and preparation, we pray that, in the depth of this dark Winter, we will also give time to preparing our hearts to receive ‘the New Thing’ that God wants to reveal to us. As the prophet Isaiah predicted: ‘I am doing ‘a new thing’. Do you not perceive it’?
Happy Advent travelling and best wishes in all your preparations,
Revd. Nigel Marns
Rector United Benefice of Mounts Bay
Sunday, 7 November 2010
November Newsletter
Dear Friends,
One of the many benefits of living in a place like this, is the awareness you have of the changing seasons. We once had to live for several years in the centre of a big city, where the only real signs of late Autumn were a build-up of soggy leaves in the gutters, the shop lights coming on early and an occasional glimpse of a magnificent sunset behind a tower block. Here though, the signs of the year’s turning are everywhere. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the glorious, low, slanting light; the lengthening shadows; and in the way the countryside reveals itself, showing its underlying structure and bare bones. Even the lights around the bay have a sharpness and a brightness on late October and November nights that they didn’t have a couple of months ago. Real country people seem to have an innate sense of all this. My Dad used to say that he could ‘feel backend coming on’, and there was, in that, a reassuring sense that the natural rhythm of the year was working itself out, as it always had. I think the turning of the Church’s year too, has more of a natural feeling in communities like ours. This year, we are celebrating the Feast of All Souls with a service in Ludgvan Church on the day the clocks go back, so dusk will already be gathering as the service gets underway. It seems a fitting start to our season of remembrance, beginning, as it does, with remembrance of our individual losses, and climaxing with the numerically far greater loss we mark on the 11th and on Remembrance Sunday itself. It’s a time of year I find overwhelmingly moving, and it takes us towards Advent in an appropriately reflective mood.
As Advent approaches, I love the sense you get of things drawing to a close and yet being filled with expectancy. These few weeks that are marked out by the Church as a time of inward renewal and preparation for Christmas, always seem like a gift – a precious opportunity to spiritually re-tune ourselves before getting swept up into the busyness of the festive season. It’s more than just recharging our batteries. There is a quietness and a stillness about this time of year that helps us to tap into the quietness and stillness that is at the very heart of prayer, and prayer of course, is at the heart of our relationship with God. So accept the gift of Advent. Make the most of the opportunity it offers to press the pause button, however briefly, and spend some quiet time with God. The poet RS Thomas describes how essential such time is:
‘…the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God…’
I hope that’s what this coming Advent will mean for you – a time when you learn to live more ‘within listening distance of the silence we call God’.
Yours with love, Lilian
One of the many benefits of living in a place like this, is the awareness you have of the changing seasons. We once had to live for several years in the centre of a big city, where the only real signs of late Autumn were a build-up of soggy leaves in the gutters, the shop lights coming on early and an occasional glimpse of a magnificent sunset behind a tower block. Here though, the signs of the year’s turning are everywhere. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the glorious, low, slanting light; the lengthening shadows; and in the way the countryside reveals itself, showing its underlying structure and bare bones. Even the lights around the bay have a sharpness and a brightness on late October and November nights that they didn’t have a couple of months ago. Real country people seem to have an innate sense of all this. My Dad used to say that he could ‘feel backend coming on’, and there was, in that, a reassuring sense that the natural rhythm of the year was working itself out, as it always had. I think the turning of the Church’s year too, has more of a natural feeling in communities like ours. This year, we are celebrating the Feast of All Souls with a service in Ludgvan Church on the day the clocks go back, so dusk will already be gathering as the service gets underway. It seems a fitting start to our season of remembrance, beginning, as it does, with remembrance of our individual losses, and climaxing with the numerically far greater loss we mark on the 11th and on Remembrance Sunday itself. It’s a time of year I find overwhelmingly moving, and it takes us towards Advent in an appropriately reflective mood.
As Advent approaches, I love the sense you get of things drawing to a close and yet being filled with expectancy. These few weeks that are marked out by the Church as a time of inward renewal and preparation for Christmas, always seem like a gift – a precious opportunity to spiritually re-tune ourselves before getting swept up into the busyness of the festive season. It’s more than just recharging our batteries. There is a quietness and a stillness about this time of year that helps us to tap into the quietness and stillness that is at the very heart of prayer, and prayer of course, is at the heart of our relationship with God. So accept the gift of Advent. Make the most of the opportunity it offers to press the pause button, however briefly, and spend some quiet time with God. The poet RS Thomas describes how essential such time is:
‘…the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God…’
I hope that’s what this coming Advent will mean for you – a time when you learn to live more ‘within listening distance of the silence we call God’.
Yours with love, Lilian
Friday, 1 October 2010
October Newsletter
All good gifts
The Schools have returned. The roads are much less busy. The days are shortening. The light is fading fast. The nights are noticeably cooler. The leaf fall is all around us. A last burst of warm sun, and the Indian Summer finally fades. Old routines are being revisited, new routines picked up and begun. New interests are taken up. A change of gear and a change of Season is upon us.
We mark this new season, this movement into Autumn, with a Celebration of ‘Life, and Health and Food’, of Creation, and of ‘all good gifts around us’. It is time for the Harvest Thanksgiving Season and, at Harvest, we come to God to thank Him for all his great provision for us, all the food we farm and ‘safely gather in’.
Our focus this Harvest-time is ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life’ (John 6:25-35). After Jesus has provided for his listeners on the hillside at the feeding of the five thousand (harking back to God’s provision of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) and pointing forward to the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom to come) Jesus then goes onto say that ‘we cannot live by bread alone’.
As we come to our Harvest Thanksgivings this year we might expand our thoughts to include not just carrots and cauliflowers but all of God’s provision that sustains us. We think of our homes and shelter, our clothes and fuel, our hobbies and employment. But it is not just food and practical things that can sustain us. Things perish. Food can go rotten and stale - as I’ve often found to my cost if I have left Harvest produce unsorted for too long in Church! - However, I always think we had one satisfied customer in the Church mouse who I think relishes this Season of Harvest feasting most of all!
Jesus says there is ‘more to life than food’. Other things sustain us: things like the nurture and love of our friends and family. ‘The bread of life’ also means living in God, living in Jesus, the true ‘bread of life’ can also sustain us and prepare us to live in the light of eternity. Jesus advises us ‘not to work for things that go bad, but for things that last for eternal life’. He says: ‘Those who come to me shall never go hungry. Those who believe in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35).
This Harvest Festival (as the Autumnal light gradually reduces our horizons and as we prepare to hunker down for the Winter ahead) may we also expand our horizons and our thinking to include the many things we can praise God for and his great provision for us in so many ways: certainly to thank Him for our food, but also for so many gifts around us: As Chisholm writes in his famous hymn:
‘Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.’
Happy Harvest Feasting and festivity,
Revd Nigel Marns
Team Rector
The Schools have returned. The roads are much less busy. The days are shortening. The light is fading fast. The nights are noticeably cooler. The leaf fall is all around us. A last burst of warm sun, and the Indian Summer finally fades. Old routines are being revisited, new routines picked up and begun. New interests are taken up. A change of gear and a change of Season is upon us.
We mark this new season, this movement into Autumn, with a Celebration of ‘Life, and Health and Food’, of Creation, and of ‘all good gifts around us’. It is time for the Harvest Thanksgiving Season and, at Harvest, we come to God to thank Him for all his great provision for us, all the food we farm and ‘safely gather in’.
Our focus this Harvest-time is ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life’ (John 6:25-35). After Jesus has provided for his listeners on the hillside at the feeding of the five thousand (harking back to God’s provision of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) and pointing forward to the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom to come) Jesus then goes onto say that ‘we cannot live by bread alone’.
As we come to our Harvest Thanksgivings this year we might expand our thoughts to include not just carrots and cauliflowers but all of God’s provision that sustains us. We think of our homes and shelter, our clothes and fuel, our hobbies and employment. But it is not just food and practical things that can sustain us. Things perish. Food can go rotten and stale - as I’ve often found to my cost if I have left Harvest produce unsorted for too long in Church! - However, I always think we had one satisfied customer in the Church mouse who I think relishes this Season of Harvest feasting most of all!
Jesus says there is ‘more to life than food’. Other things sustain us: things like the nurture and love of our friends and family. ‘The bread of life’ also means living in God, living in Jesus, the true ‘bread of life’ can also sustain us and prepare us to live in the light of eternity. Jesus advises us ‘not to work for things that go bad, but for things that last for eternal life’. He says: ‘Those who come to me shall never go hungry. Those who believe in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35).
This Harvest Festival (as the Autumnal light gradually reduces our horizons and as we prepare to hunker down for the Winter ahead) may we also expand our horizons and our thinking to include the many things we can praise God for and his great provision for us in so many ways: certainly to thank Him for our food, but also for so many gifts around us: As Chisholm writes in his famous hymn:
‘Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.’
Happy Harvest Feasting and festivity,
Revd Nigel Marns
Team Rector
Friday, 3 September 2010
September Newsletter
Dear Friends,
In the benefice we are taking part in the programme run by the Diocese entitled 'Back to Church Sunday.' We have decided to change the title to 'Welcome to Church Sunday' as it sounded more positive and inviting to people. Indeed we all need to recognise the failure of the church everywhere to take seriously the great commission that Our Lord left 'to make disciples' everywhere.The church has become a club where the faithful club members get their weekly inspiration without considering that the very inspiration that they find in church is what so many people in society are trying to find. There is a hunger for spiritual things in many people's lives. They feel empty and rudderless in their daily lives. They are looking for some deeper meaning to everything. The church is one place that they may want to look for answers to these real desires in their lives. We need to make the effort to make the place attractive to them. First we need to be friendly- welcoming them into church with a smile and that genuine hello that means we actually are excited to see them in church. Secondly when we have a cuppa after the service-do we make sure they are invited and, more importantly, drawn into conversation. I have seen strangers in church stranded in the coffee time because the whole body of regulars are intent on talking with their friends and ignoring them. We need to draw them into our friendship and that must mean a little effort from all of us.
Of course, thirdly the occasional services offer us a very promising opportunity to draw alongside younger family groups that we need for the future of our church. The problem is many of us don't like our cosy Sunday corner disturbed by their presence in our service. We often wish they might opt for some other time on the Sunday away from our normal service! What a pity that we feel like this for they are the very people our Lord wants in our midst and the command to baptise is part of the great commission to make disciples. We cannot afford to ignore those who want baptism for their children. They need to be integrated into the life of our churches and we need to work hard at involving their baptised children into a program for young people that will lead to confirmation in due course.
We need, fourthly, to integrate those being married in our churches into the life of our Christian communities. All this takes time and patience from all of us. Two generations have been allowed to drift from meaningful links with the church and bridging this gap will take much effort from all of us. We must expect that they will feel out of place in our world. We cannot simply,therefore, sit back and expect these new relationships to build themselves.
So we are preparing for Welcome back to church Sunday. Each of us has a part to play in this. We all need to think of someone we can invite to come with us to church. There must be people that we know that we could invite to come along with us. If we all found someone to bring we could double the number in church on that day. Perhaps more than double the number if we invite a young family with children!
Over this matter of making disciples 'doing nothing' is not an option unless we want to close the doors of our churches for good. As we begin our Autumn program of church events may we remember the great commission of Jesus and that includes our part in making disciples. Let us all see everything up to Christmas an opportunity for befriending and bringing new folk to God and to church.
Your friend and priest,
Noel Michell
In the benefice we are taking part in the programme run by the Diocese entitled 'Back to Church Sunday.' We have decided to change the title to 'Welcome to Church Sunday' as it sounded more positive and inviting to people. Indeed we all need to recognise the failure of the church everywhere to take seriously the great commission that Our Lord left 'to make disciples' everywhere.The church has become a club where the faithful club members get their weekly inspiration without considering that the very inspiration that they find in church is what so many people in society are trying to find. There is a hunger for spiritual things in many people's lives. They feel empty and rudderless in their daily lives. They are looking for some deeper meaning to everything. The church is one place that they may want to look for answers to these real desires in their lives. We need to make the effort to make the place attractive to them. First we need to be friendly- welcoming them into church with a smile and that genuine hello that means we actually are excited to see them in church. Secondly when we have a cuppa after the service-do we make sure they are invited and, more importantly, drawn into conversation. I have seen strangers in church stranded in the coffee time because the whole body of regulars are intent on talking with their friends and ignoring them. We need to draw them into our friendship and that must mean a little effort from all of us.
Of course, thirdly the occasional services offer us a very promising opportunity to draw alongside younger family groups that we need for the future of our church. The problem is many of us don't like our cosy Sunday corner disturbed by their presence in our service. We often wish they might opt for some other time on the Sunday away from our normal service! What a pity that we feel like this for they are the very people our Lord wants in our midst and the command to baptise is part of the great commission to make disciples. We cannot afford to ignore those who want baptism for their children. They need to be integrated into the life of our churches and we need to work hard at involving their baptised children into a program for young people that will lead to confirmation in due course.
We need, fourthly, to integrate those being married in our churches into the life of our Christian communities. All this takes time and patience from all of us. Two generations have been allowed to drift from meaningful links with the church and bridging this gap will take much effort from all of us. We must expect that they will feel out of place in our world. We cannot simply,therefore, sit back and expect these new relationships to build themselves.
So we are preparing for Welcome back to church Sunday. Each of us has a part to play in this. We all need to think of someone we can invite to come with us to church. There must be people that we know that we could invite to come along with us. If we all found someone to bring we could double the number in church on that day. Perhaps more than double the number if we invite a young family with children!
Over this matter of making disciples 'doing nothing' is not an option unless we want to close the doors of our churches for good. As we begin our Autumn program of church events may we remember the great commission of Jesus and that includes our part in making disciples. Let us all see everything up to Christmas an opportunity for befriending and bringing new folk to God and to church.
Your friend and priest,
Noel Michell
Thursday, 22 July 2010
August Newsletter
SACRED SPACE
‘Sacred Spaces’ can be many and varied. I wonder what would you name as your ‘sacred space’?
Recently, I asked a group of schoolchildren what was their ‘sacred space’. Many said their bedroom was a place of solace, some named a den they had made, or a shed they went to, some said when they visited their horses, some had special places on the beach which were places of sanctuary. The children also recognised the Church building as being an important ‘sacred space’ where generations of people had prayed, where special celebrations had taken place, a ‘hallowed’ and ‘blessed’ place. Many Churches in Cornwall were built near fresh water sources, useful for baptisms, but also founded close to water as a source of life. There are so many ‘holy wells’ around us.
I wonder if you would name your ‘sacred space’ as the Church, or a particular part of the Church, or whether some other place of sanctuary springs to mind. Here in Cornwall, we live in a truly blessed place with wonderful rugged and craggy coastline, hidden and secret coves, ever-changing colours and moods of the sea, a rich variety of sea creatures, animals and birdlife, there are many ‘sacred spaces’ here.
The Church has been too anthropocentric or human-centred in the past, by concentrating solely on one man, Jesus. Although Jesus is the ‘pioneer and perfecter of our faith’, ‘The Alpha and the Omega’, the only source of our salvation, God did not only create one man, even if he was the Divine Son of God. If our faith is too human-focused it can lead to travesty: Recently, I watched a harrowing theatrical adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ at the Hall for Cornwall. Steinbeck portrayed the pioneering Southern Baptist Community in America, fundamentally believing in Jesus Christ as their ‘Personal Saviour’, but paying scant regard for the agricultural land around them, and desecrating, despoiling, and so abusing and overworking the land, that it could no longer sustain life and was turned into a dustbowl.
As well as Jesus, we are each made in God’s image and God also created this beautiful world for us to enjoy. The great eighteenth-century poet and visionary, William Blake, declared that ‘everything that lives is holy’. That is why I enjoy so much taking Services outside into other ‘sacred spaces’ (and not confining our faith to a building, however much of a ‘sacred space’ it is). I have really enjoyed leading the Easter Sunday Morning Perranuthnoe Sunrise Service, the Rogation Sunday Field Blessing, the Songs of Praise Service in the Rectory Garden, and we are going to do two more outdoor Services in August too:
‘Sacred Spaces’ can be many and varied. I wonder what would you name as your ‘sacred space’?
Recently, I asked a group of schoolchildren what was their ‘sacred space’. Many said their bedroom was a place of solace, some named a den they had made, or a shed they went to, some said when they visited their horses, some had special places on the beach which were places of sanctuary. The children also recognised the Church building as being an important ‘sacred space’ where generations of people had prayed, where special celebrations had taken place, a ‘hallowed’ and ‘blessed’ place. Many Churches in Cornwall were built near fresh water sources, useful for baptisms, but also founded close to water as a source of life. There are so many ‘holy wells’ around us.
I wonder if you would name your ‘sacred space’ as the Church, or a particular part of the Church, or whether some other place of sanctuary springs to mind. Here in Cornwall, we live in a truly blessed place with wonderful rugged and craggy coastline, hidden and secret coves, ever-changing colours and moods of the sea, a rich variety of sea creatures, animals and birdlife, there are many ‘sacred spaces’ here.
The Church has been too anthropocentric or human-centred in the past, by concentrating solely on one man, Jesus. Although Jesus is the ‘pioneer and perfecter of our faith’, ‘The Alpha and the Omega’, the only source of our salvation, God did not only create one man, even if he was the Divine Son of God. If our faith is too human-focused it can lead to travesty: Recently, I watched a harrowing theatrical adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ at the Hall for Cornwall. Steinbeck portrayed the pioneering Southern Baptist Community in America, fundamentally believing in Jesus Christ as their ‘Personal Saviour’, but paying scant regard for the agricultural land around them, and desecrating, despoiling, and so abusing and overworking the land, that it could no longer sustain life and was turned into a dustbowl.
As well as Jesus, we are each made in God’s image and God also created this beautiful world for us to enjoy. The great eighteenth-century poet and visionary, William Blake, declared that ‘everything that lives is holy’. That is why I enjoy so much taking Services outside into other ‘sacred spaces’ (and not confining our faith to a building, however much of a ‘sacred space’ it is). I have really enjoyed leading the Easter Sunday Morning Perranuthnoe Sunrise Service, the Rogation Sunday Field Blessing, the Songs of Praise Service in the Rectory Garden, and we are going to do two more outdoor Services in August too:
a Family Service by the Red River on Marazion Beach on Sunday 8 August and
on Wednesday 11 August we are going to revive the tradition of the St Hilary Pilgrimage, taking in all four Churches in our Benefice, starting from Ludgvan at 2.30pm, Marazion at 4.30pm, Perranuthnoe at 6.00pm to join in the St Hilary Pilgrimage Service at 7.00pm. You are welcome to join us at any point along the route. The early Celtic saints who brought Christianity to Cornwall and the later Medieval saints on Pilgrimage to Compostela walked many of the paths and tracks of St Michael’s Way which we shall travel on, and we shall be travelling in their footsteps, in the land they have already blessed before us. If you don’t want to make a physical Pilgrimage or to go outside, you are very welcome to join in the spiritual pilgrimage, which is our new ‘Sacred Space’ Daily Prayer Tuesdays-Saturdays throughout August at Marazion Church.
There are many ‘sacred spaces’ and many sacred places all around us to be discovered in our Churches, and outside too. This Summer may we explore and discover them or renew our acquaintance with some holy and blessed places, some ‘sacred spaces’ once again.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
There are many ‘sacred spaces’ and many sacred places all around us to be discovered in our Churches, and outside too. This Summer may we explore and discover them or renew our acquaintance with some holy and blessed places, some ‘sacred spaces’ once again.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
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