July 2009
Thursday 2: 10.30am – Holy Communion
Saturday 4: 3.30pm – Cafe Worship at Steyning – new monthly service
Monday 6: 7.30pm – NOD Prayers at Ashington
Wednesday 8: 7.45pm – Ashington Wednesday Service – “A Lindisfarne Journey”
Saturday 11: 10am – Circuit Prayers at Offington Park
Sunday 12: 10.30am – Action for Children Sunday – Rev Jean Simmonds
Sunday 12: 6.30pm – Healing Service
Thursday 16: 7.30pm – 50th Anniversary Working Party
Sunday 19: 10.30am – All Age Worship with Baptism of Lexi Mai Francis
Tuesday 21: 7.30pm – Ian’s sabbatical presentation at Ashington
Friday 24: 7.30pm – Property Committee
August 2009
Sunday 2: Lunch after service for missions
Monday 3: 7.30pm – NOD Prayers at Trinity – this event will be reviewed at this meeting
Thursday 6: 10.30am - Holy Communion
Saturday 8: 10am – Circuit Prayers at Trinity
Saturday 8: 1pm – Wedding of Emily Tilzey and Jason Clarke
Sunday 9: 9am – Early Communion – note change of week!
Sunday 9: 10.30am – Confirmation Service
Sunday 9: 6pm – Section Songs of Praise at Ashington
September 2009
Thursday 3: 10.30am – Holy Communion
Saturday 5: 4.30pm – Ian’s sabbatical presentation at Trinity (Tea at 4.30pm; talk at 5.30pm)
Saturday 12: District Synod at Offington Park
Sunday 13: 6pm – Christians in Storrington United Service at Trinity
Tuesday 15: 2.30pm – Pastoral Committee
Friday 18: 7.30pm – Property Committee
Saturday 19: 10am – Circuit Prayers at Ashington
Sunday 20: 10.30am – Harvest Festival and Harvest Lunch
Saturday 26: 10am to 3pm – “Resources for Mission” Day – for everyone
Sunday 27: 10.30am – Network Sunday with Deacon Joan Cole & ‘Back to Church’ Sunday
October 2009
Thursday 1: 7.30pm – Holy Communion
Thursday 1: 7.30pm – Church Council
Sunday 4: 10.30am – Church Anniversary with Rev Trevor Rolls – lunch afterwards
Thursday 8: 10.30am – Monthly Drop In Quiet Days begin in Ashington
Sunday 11: 10.30am – World Church Sunday with Rev Warren Bardsley
Sunday 11: 6.30pm – Healing Service
Sunday 18: 10.30am – JMA and Toy Service
Thursday 22: 2.30pm – Short course “what on earth am I doing here?” begins (three weeks)
Friday 23: 7pm – Ian’s sabbatical presentation at Steyning
Saturday 31: 10am – Circuit Prayers at Steyning
Prayers and Reflections
I am reading a wonderful book at the moment, which other ministers have recommended to me and some local preachers meetings are even discussing it. If I chaired the local preachers’ meeting here we would do it! Anyway, it’s called ‘The Shack’. I’ve not finished it yet, but at the beginning of the book the main character in the story, Mack, finds a note in his mail box on a snowy night, which reads, “it’s been a while, I’ve missed you. I’ll be at the Shack next weekend if you want to get together, signed Papa.” Papa is the name his wife uses for God.
Then we flashback to a camping trip with his children, which ends tragically with the abduction by a serial killer of his youngest daughter, whose body they hid in an isolated shack.
Mack later re-reads that note about getting together with God there, in the place of deepest suffering imaginable. He goes back and in despair yells, “I’’m done God, I can’t do this anymore, I’m tired of trying to find you in all of this.” He was determined this was the last time he would go looking for God. If God wanted him, God would have to come and find him.
Well, in the next chapter, God comes, in the midst of pain, in the form of three people, the Holy Trinity and they begin this conversation from that point of tragedy. Now, I haven’t finished it yet, so I’ll have to preach another sermon on it, but we are told what he finds in the place of terrible memory, changes him forever. It is there he meets God, it is there God comes, it is from that point of real human pain and living, God keeps his covenant.
That is the sort of God our churches follow and offer, and will continue to do so! A God who keeps his promises, a God who comes into the dark days, a God who yearns for relationship. And let’s admit that’s what people want – relationship, someone to be with, to ease their loneliness.
He comes to us personally, he never takes what he has given back, he is here for ever, an abiding permanent gift. Surely all we can do is worship as a response to this.
In your prayers:
Pray for people who feel alone at this time, especially post redundancy or in illness or with grave money worries.
Pray for signs of life in the world, longed for hope in the midst of despair.
Pray for peace in the midst of trouble and turmoil.
Take time to be with God – he will be with you if you make the time.
Rev. Ian Pruden
