Did the early Christians have something like Ickenham Church News?

My wife and I took a day trip to Ephesus in Turkey from the Greek island of Samos, where we were spending a week’s holiday in October.  It was fascinating to see the remains of buildings and streets, shrines and temples, markets and meeting places, shops and baths, theatre and library, where Paul spent more than two years teaching and discussing the new faith and way of life.  The note about his time there, in Acts of the Apostles, indicates he had contact with people from all around the region of Ephesus, who would have come into the city. 

Paul wrote many of the letters that are now in the New Testament.  The letter that is called Ephesians is believed to have been a circular letter to the new churches in the Ephesus region.  It was probably written by Paul while he was in prison, and delivered by Tychicus, who is mentioned in the closing lines of the letter.

So there we have what seems like an equivalent of Ickenham Church News.  In ICN’s case, a dedicated team shares in the delivery of the newsletter, after other team members coordinated by the editor, have completed the tasks of writing, illustrating, and gathering advertisements, printing, distributing and handling the finances of the operation.  There are hints that Paul had others in his team besides Tychicus.

I suppose it is too early to say whether some issues of ICN will still be available as long as the letter to the Ephesians, and whether the buildings and streets of Ickenham will still be in use or traceable after 2000 years.  The audio and website versions might just prove more durable than the 12,000 scrolls in the library at Ephesus that burned down.  But the team of people involved are greatly appreciated now, and in God’s perspective I am sure their work is all part of the same enterprise, of sharing the good news of Jesus, alive in the community.

Bernie

 

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY Sunday 8th November	ARMISTICE DAY Wednesday 11th November
Please note that the URC service commences 10 minutes early, at 10.50am, on this day.  This means we can join with the Act of Remembrance from the Cenotaph in London for the two minutes’ silence at 11am.	There will be the usual short Act of Remembrance around the flag pole in St Giles’ Churchyard (or inside the church if the weather is too inclement).  Meet at 10.55am.  All are welcome.

 

FROM ST GILES’ CLERGY

Sunday 18th October was “Stand Up Sunday”.  Now this was a new one on me; it had certainly passed St. Giles’ by since its inception in 2006, but having learned about it this year, it seemed like something we should be supporting. 

The general idea was that at sometime during the services on that Sunday, congregations throughout the world should stand up and make a pledge to try to defeat extreme poverty and restore balance to the environment.  Each church congregation was then to send the number that stood to a central point and the total number supporting the action world-wide would be calculated.  Apparently in 2006 some 23 million people stood, in 2007 it was 47 million and last year it was 116 million. 

Since together with the URC and other parties in the Ickenham community, we are already working to ‘Make Poverty History’ in Rukiga in Uganda, it seemed only logical that we should join in this initiative and stand up and be counted.  At St Giles’, 143 people did just that, and it is good to think that we will be added to the global number.  At the time of writing, I don’t yet know how large that total is, but who knows, we might have been part of a world record breaking event!  Whether we were or not is not really that important.  What is important is that each of us recognises that extreme poverty does exist. 

Standing for just a moment can help to remind us that a billion people go to bed hungry every night, that 30,000 children die every day due to poverty, and that millions of people have no automatic access to healthcare, education, clean water and those things that we take for granted in our everyday lives. 

The Bible teaches us we must do something about this through purposeful action, not just standing for a few moments in church.  And, of course, our work for Rukiga is part of that action.  Since the CLICK Rukiga project began less than three years ago, some £18,000 has been channelled to Rukiga through World Vision.  The latest fund-raising activity was a photographic competition with the theme of ‘Water’ which raised £207.  (See our front page story.)  The judges had a very difficult time choosing the winners and our thanks go to all those who submitted entries. 

So on 18th October we recognised that God calls us to love our neighbour and to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).  And by the time you read this we might know we were part of the biggest gathering in the world, telling our leaders that poverty has no place on earth.

Ken