With school exams finished, and the holiday season about to get underway, there’s scope for slowing down and finding time to take stock. Amongst the uncertainty of economic recession, the turbulence of parliament, and growing concerns about what we are doing to the environment, life can appear very gloomy without faith that the God who started things hasn’t abandoned our world, but is still active today.
The bi-centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin (and 150 years since he published On the Origin of Species) has spawned a number of TV programmes, books, magazine articles and leaflets examining the debate about creation and evolution, and whether Darwin’s work disproves the existence of God, anyway. I have been struck by the number of eminent scientists who find that their research work draws them closer to God, rather than further away. Professor Donald MacKay, quoted in the Church Times review of the book Real Scientists Real Faith, writes, “the continuing existence of our world….hangs moment by moment on the continuance of the upholding word of its Creator, as dependent on this as the picture on a TV screen is on the maintaining programme of signals.”
Faith in God not only makes sense to many people from all walks of life, it provides hope when faced with personal, national or international difficulties. When on holiday, we always like to worship with the local community on a Sunday. Two years ago, we attended Fowey Parish Church in Cornwall, who because of their location by the sea, use an anchor as part of their logo. A relationship with the God who not only created us and our world, but also sustains all things, is a sure anchor in turbulent times.
Finding out how to get started in the Christian faith is the aim of the Start! course that I will be running again in September. (Contact St Giles’ church office for further details.) This would also act as an excellent refresher for those who already have faith. For those who want help to keep going in the faith, I would also recommend reading A Second Adam by Ickenham author Garth Ratcliff. In this excellent and readable short book, Garth looks at 2 Peter 1.3-11 as a way of answering the question, “How can we begin to become like Christ?” The book examines a whole batch of qualities that the Apostle Peter believes are necessary for us to add to our faith in Christ, in order to become like Christ. This is a kind of evolution towards the originator of our species - Jesus Christ!
God bless
Adrian
St Giles’ congregation welcomed a new preacher in May when the Revd Sue Woodcock paid us a visit from her church in north-east Spain. Some senior members will remember Sue’s family arriving in Ickenham when Sue was only four years old. She attended St Giles’ Sunday school and was confirmed there, lived in Ickenham and was educated at Ickenham High School and Vyners before going to university.
After university, in 1971 Sue went to Iran, teaching and helping to set up a secondary boarding school for girls. Two years later she was in Uganda, coincidently very close to Rukiga. It was back to Oxford for a couple of years and then, in 1981, to Barcelona where she was assistant to the Episcopal Church Chaplain. Time to return ‘home’ again, this time to Bristol. Then she spent twelve years in Bolivia, doing pastoral work and helping to develop SAMS – the South American Mission Society. And finally, after another year in Oxford, where she was ordained, she took up the post of Rector of the church in Sabadell, near Barcelona.
Sue’s visit to St Giles’ was accompanied by brief stops at churches in Bristol and Jersey, all three of which help to support her mission in Spain. Invited to preach at each church, she took for her theme: “Grace for all – the need to know love of God in Jesus”.
She said, “I’m very grateful for the interest, support and prayers I’ve received over so many years. Attending the service in St Giles’ is like coming back to my roots.” Asked about her ultimate ambition, she said that would be, “When the time comes, the Lord shall say, ‘Good and faithful servant.’
ST GILES’ CHURCH MONTHLY STREET PRAYER LIST
Each Sunday at St Giles’ Church we pray for all the people who live or work in a particular road in the Parish. During July and August we will pray for the following roads:
July 5th Ashbury Drive
July 12th Austins Lane
July 19th Aylesham Drive
July 26th Bellamy Close
Aug 2nd Boniface Road
Aug 9th Breakspear Road South
Aug 16th Bridge Way
Aug 23rd Broadacre Close
Aug 30th Burford Close
If you live in one of these roads why not join us at our 8am or 9.45am services? You will be most welcome.
FROM THE CHURCHES’ REGISTERS
Thanksgiving for birth and Blessing at the URC
May 31st Benjamin Keith Walker
Baptism at St Giles’
June 14th Taylor Luke Kerswill
Cremations at Breakspear Crematorium
May 29th Margaret Anne Bew, aged 77
June 10th Kenneth Lloyd, aged 68
June 12th Kenneth Ball, aged 83
