“You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this,
You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandments greater than these“.
Mark 12:30-31

I love our God, and I have put my trust in him as he has in me.

Two years ago God called me into reader ministry. I am not some academic person, and I often doubt my abilities, but who was I to argue with God. The path he had chosen for me filled me with dread, but I was not about to go against his wishes.

Mission Impossible or so I thought. I started my reader ministry course not really knowing what to expect, and then I learnt the requirements. Well where to start, there were numerous books to read, assignments to complete and on top of that I had to work with a group of people I had never met before. Everything I had to do was taking me out of my comfort zone, from standing up to deliver presentations or to discuss various topics in large groups. To my surprise I scraped through the assignments and achieved my initial goal.

Two years ago I set out on a journey, a journey which I thought would be impossible and yet here I am looking forward to the 29th September 2018 when I will be licenced as a reader, the impossible task that I thought lay ahead was challenging but totally fulfilling. The people I worked with where in the same position as me and yet we worked together growing as individuals and a group.

Life puts so many challenges in front of us, the small things to you maybe major to someone else. With a little faith and determination we can conquer these challenges and with the help and love of the people around us we can strive to reach our goals.

To love your neighbour as yourself is one of the greatest commandments. I have had so much support from friends and family. People I hardly know have shown encouragement and I have seen the love and goodness within these people. They have all helped me fulfil this calling into this ministry, just as there are people you hardly know waiting to help you.

Just look at yourselves and the people around you and see what they have achieved. Yes lots of it is through hard work and determination, however there is also faith on your side and a God full of love for God loves all his people.

What I am trying to say is no Mission is Impossible if you have people around you sharing in your goals and beliefs. If you just spend a couple of minutes each day praying to God, he will listen and guide you. Let God into your lives, open your hearts so you can see the goodness in people, and help others. There is always a light at the end of a tunnel.

I have always had faith, and over the years that has grown. Although I knew God was guiding me and answering my prayers I never expected him to call me into ministry. Never did I believe that I would be able to stand up in Church and preach a sermon, or that I would be able to help make decisions on the future of our ministry or be able to help other people see their faith develop and shine. We meet all kinds of people in our life and God is waiting for them to open their, hearts, soul and minds.

It doesn’t matter how old or young you are what gender, disability or sexual orientation. Everyone is welcome in to a life with Christ. St David’s is striving to be an Inclusive Church and part of my ministry is to welcome you all into this life. There is so much on offer, and we would love to see you and join in with this beautiful life, a life with Christ.

This Impossible Mission that God called me to do; is not impossible but a life changing experience which is just the beginning of my ministry. Put your trust in God, and you will achieve your ultimate goals with God showing you the way.

When I get licenced in September in the Cathedral I will be with many of my friends who have been on this journey with me. It would be amazing to see lots of new people wanting to join in with our faith, or to join us at St David’s whether that is in one of our services, Friday Café or Messy Church or other events we hold.

Blessings, Wendy

(This article by Wendy was originally published as part of St David’s Messenger in September 2018)

So here I am sat at the kitchen table at the vicarage on a beautifully warm & sunny Tuesday Morning and I have been scratching my head wondering what may be the right thing to put into our mid-summer messenger; then inspiration hit me, why not ‘Inclusive Church’?

I wonder if you have ever speculated about how inclusive church really is in our society today, furthermore who is ‘included’ and who isn’t. The reasonable folk among us may assume that church is inclusive of all people, whatever age, gender, background, sexual orientation, ability or disability, faith or none faith, this assumption is a very natural one to make, and yet it is not always correct.

I have just read a very sad story about a young lady in Manchester who took her own life, and why? Well because she could not reconcile her Deep Christian Faith with being gay, Lizzie Lowe was just 14 years old when she decided that she could not live with the dilemma. Her vicar later spoke of a ‘conspiracy of silence’ which existed at the time at Lizzie’s church around the specific issue of human sexuality wherein this young girl felt she could not engage in any meaningful way with her faith family regarding her own sexuality, she could not believe that the God who created her through love could love her and her sexuality; this belief was purely because of the attitude and conservative views of some Christians she had encountered in her journey of faith.

This awful, painful situation triggered something in this church congregation which although painful for some has led to a much healthier environment where most people were willing to engage in a process of listening and growth toward becoming a much more interactive, inclusive and welcoming community for everybody. It is still a work in progress, yet it is at least in progress.

As a caring human being, also a committed ‘professional’ Christian I never, ever want this situation to happen here, nor anywhere else for that matter. Our diocese takes LGBT+ issues very seriously indeed, in fact our diocesan Bishop has instigated a LGBT+ advisory committee of which I am very proud to be part. I am also very proud to be your vicar, wherever you stand with faith, if you are receiving this monthly Messenger I am your vicar and I want you to be quite aware that St David’s is your church, we are here for you or for anyone you know who may be thinking about faith, who may be exploring what God may be calling you to, for anyone of any background, gender, ability, orientation, faith or none, we/ I am here for you! Part of my job is to ensure you are being listened to both by God, hence I pray for you and with you, and also by the community in which we live & work. Even though at times some of us may feel isolation surrounding us we are never really alone.

St David’s PCC will be doing some work over the coming months to look at how inclusive we already are and how we can improve on this: at my last parish we went through a similar process, a process which led to us registering as an ‘Inclusive Church’ …yes there really is such an organisation and here is their mission statement; “We believe in inclusive Church – church which does not discriminate, on any level, on grounds of economic power, gender, mental health, physical ability, race or sexuality. We believe in Church which welcomes and serves all people in the name of Jesus Christ; which is scripturally faithful; which seeks to proclaim the Gospel afresh for each generation; and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, allows all people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus Christ.”

This is what I, your vicar also believe in, I also believe in having frank and open discussions about anything that we may feel comes between us and God and indeed us and our community; the good news of Jesus is, I believe, that there are no divisions, in fact St Paul tells us in his letter to the people of Galatia; “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Jesus.” My message for you this summer, and throughout the years is that we are all one and all loved & wanted by Jesus and by His church, come & talk to me about anything, you will find me to be a good listener. A Happy & Blessed summer to us all.

(This article by Rev Peter F Smyth, Vicar @ St David’s was originally published as part of St David’s Messenger in July 2018)

Mr Wrigley was a no-nonsense Lancastrian. He was a sidesman in our church when I was young and gave out the hymn books with a face that rarely smiled. He didn’t say much, and he didn’t stay around for coffee, but once a year he came into his own. On Easter Day he would walk from the back of our large church all the way to the vicar’s vestry, he would stand in the doorway and say to the vicar ‘Christ is risen, vicar’, and the vicar would reply ‘He is risen indeed, Mr Wrigley’. Mr Wrigley would nod, satisfied with the answer, and then walk all the way to the back of the church for the rest of the year.

I used to love that exchange: here was this undemonstrative Christian man bearing witness to the core belief that kept him going in life. He would continue giving out hymn books, and doing his job, and loving his wife, and paying his taxes, because Christ was risen and so everything else would be alright.

However, whilst Christ’s Resurrection is a joy – not only for Mr Wrigley and the whole Church around the world – it is, I believe, also a challenge to us: a challenge to our understanding of the Laws of Nature, the very cycle of life as we live and experience it.

We are born: we live life as best we can: and then we die, and remain so. But Christ’s Resurrection is an event that shatters that understanding of ‘Life’, confronts us, and turns our oh-so-comfortable world upside-down. It can turn us into doubters, where everything concerning The Resurrection is put on the dissecting table to be analysed, scrutinised, and debated in order to arrive at a provable scientific fact.

God, however, isn’t about “provable scientific facts”: rather he is about all the things that make life worth living. When people say to me – as they often do – “How can you prove that Jesus did the things that He did, and said the things that He said?”, my reply is always “How can you prove love, how can you prove forgiveness, or tenderness, or joy?” These are not provable scientific facts: we have to experience them; accept them; and live them in faith every day.

Faith is a real, living, experience and one that surrounds us all the time. We have faith that timetables are correct, and that buses and trains will arrive on time: faith that the shops will open when they say they will: faith that our children will come home at a certain time. I think that a life that is lived only by scientific fact is, indeed, a poor one.

On the other hand, if we are prepared to have faith – even if it is only as small as a seed – we will find that God is a great and wonderful mystery to be entered into, one that we will enter in joy. I recently took a service in a small church that I know quite well on Easter Sunday morning. There was normally a small congregation: some older people, a few Mums, and about five children – I had persuaded one of the Mums beforehand to take the children out of the church to do some activities during the service – but I didn’t know what happened after that.

I arrived from home and found the church filling up: in the end there were about 20 children, with their parents, brothers, sisters, and grandparents, and the church was full. One of the Mums organising the Sunday School had become so excited by the project that she had spread the word – end result, we had a wonderful Service. The children (or, at least, the girls) wore their Easter bonnets, and they ate their Easter eggs, and we sang and prayed with everyone, all caught up in the joy of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. It is one of my most-cherished memories.

We will soon be moving to another season of the Church year, but Easter – with its message of joy and hope – will remain in my heart. It gives us hope that the bad times in life – which will inevitably happen – can be overcome and that our fragile, broken, world will one day be renewed, re-imagined, and resurrected.
 
(This article was originally published as part of St David’s Messenger in June 2018)

There are some things more solid than even mountains

When we think of mountains, we think of vast, immovable places which are unchanging. Moving a mountain is (apparently) an impossible feat. But the truth is that mountains do move and change. I have heard that Exmoor used to be the height of the Himalayas many millions of years ago.

There have been to date (18/04/18) 38 earthquakes in UK this year, possibly like me you don’t think of earthquakes happening in these islands. The closest earthquake to Liverpool in 2018 was in fact on 15/3/2018 at 22.09 in Wybunbury in Cheshire East, the magnitude of the earthquakes was 1.1. The strongest earthquake was felt in Cockermouth, Cumbria on 28/02/2018 at 07:33 and that was a magnitude of 3.4. Although there were no reports of damage or injury there is no doubting that this event caused concern for those living in the area. One resident described the earthquake as ‘a very heavy rumbling’. In contrast the dreadful earthquakes e.g.in Nepal over recent years have proved with devastation the fact that mountains and valleys move, rocks shatter, villages are destroyed and lives forever changed in the process.

For some, the church is one of those places which seem unchanged from year to year. The ancient buildings give the sense that time has left them untouched. Yet we know that through the years there have been dramatic changes in our society some that because rumblings like earthquakes here in the UK, localised and the affects short lived. But societal changes have also brought challenges in the lives of people which can be equated to those shattering experiences of the earthquakes in places like Nepal, the aftermath of which continues for many years affecting not only the physical environment but the lives of many people.

Our lives too can encounter ‘earthquakes’ of different magnitudes.I wonder what in our own lives feel like mountains which we feel are immovable and solid? What are the things we rely on? Who are the people who are always there?

How about this for a challenging thought… that there are some things more solid than even mountains. Some things which go on and on, despite the physical changes in our world. Things like community, faith, hope, love.

Many years ago when I was experiencing a very stressful time in my life (my earthquake time) I was given a copy of a modern version of the 23rd Psalm.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my pace setter, I shall not rush.
He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals.
He provides me with images of stillness which restore my serenity.
He leads me in ways of efficiency through calmness of mind, and his guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for his presence is here.
His timelessness, His all-importance will keep me in balance.
He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity, by anointing my mind with his oils of tranquility.
My cup of joyous energy overflows; surely harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruits of my hours.
For I shall walk in the pace of my Lord, and dwell in His house forever.

Toki Miyashina – Japanese version of the 23 Psalm

Our mission statement says: “St David’s is an active parish church that seeks to offer a warm, welcoming, and safe environment, where all are valued and nurtured in faith and life.”

The important thing we want all enquirers to know is that you are all very welcome. We are available for you to get married, have your children christened and have your funeral here at St. David’s. With baptisms and weddings residence of attendance, requirements usually apply. Please do ask. You may not require any of these things, but you feel that there is more to life than the things we all seem to need to do in the 24/7 society in which we find ourselves.

Vestry Hour – Wedding & Baptism Bookings will be taken between 12pm-1pm each Sunday after the main service which is 10.30am, you are very welcome to come along to both. Clergy are also available for private and confidential meetings.

(This article by Rev Sally was originally published as part of St David’s Messenger in May 2018)

As a child (1960’s) I attended my first football match, outside the ground I noticed an old man with a sandwich-board declaring “The End of the World is nigh”; was I fearful – yes, I was worried we’d lose, Ignorance was bliss.

Today the old man has been replaced by world leaders, with the help of an oppressive 24/7 media coverage, am I worried – No, Knowledge is bliss.

The truth is we have been in a war on terror since the time of Adam, The war I refer to is a spiritual war. Paul tells us, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

In the past I have wondered like many people, why God allows things to happen, why has he not answered my prayers, or when faced with a crisis, you have heard the expression, “we’ve done and tried everything, now all we can do is pray” or “It’s in God hand now”. I confess I found my answers in scripture.

God does not control everything!

Does God control you when you get bitter, angry, do and say hurtful things-No, so if he doesn’t control us in those circumstances he doesn’t control everything?

God gives us a choice; he will not violate his authority, he will not force his will on people.

Yes, Bad things do happen through no fault of our own (problems with-Marriage, relationships, finance, security, work, health, addictions, fears ad infinitum), but we have been forewarned; “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy”.

However, God through his grace tells us: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly,” He warned there will be struggles but he is there for us: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

There is a well-known saying, knowledge is power; and in scripture, I read “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”, do not let the world destroy you; we are Gods heirs.

Gods plan is to give us good things, he has bequeathed everything to us in his last will and testament, he has given us the powers of attorney, all we have to do is to take authority and exercise his will.

However Circumstances can conspire to make us doubt Gods Will. God gave Adam & Eve Dominion over the entire world, but the thief came; through doubt and temptation Adam surrendered all his authority to Satan.

Jesus, like Eve was tempted by Satan. Satan’s timing was perfect, the opportune moment, Jesus was alone, tired, hungry and physically weak; don’t forget Jesus was the word made flesh; Jesus become Man just like us.

Satan quoted scripture chapter and verse to Jesus; same tactics, to question his belief and trust in the word of God.

Jesus defeated Satan as a man, not as God, he said “It is written”.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and Jesus exercised his God given authority, it was God’s word that defeated Satan, and Jesus’s faith and belief in the word.

It is hard to have faith; did you know Jesus could do no mighty works due to their unbelief.

I must stress the reason bad things happen, is not a result of one’s lack of faith.

The disciples struggled with their faith and they had Jesus with them.

In Luke:  John the Baptist had a crisis of faith, Jesus directed John back to the written Word of God.  John was well versed in scripture, he himself had quoted from Isaiah and Jesus had just fulfilled what Isaiah had prophesized in scripture.

It is written “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. If I was to read the Gospel as one would a Will, it would read like:

To ______ You are forgiven and healed, you have All the power over the enemy, you have my helper who will shew you things to come, you can ask in my name and I will provide, I will never leave you, you have authority to move mountains (problems) when you trust in my word (whosoever shall say) and do not doubt.

To list all of Gods promises would exceed this page.

“God is not a man that he should lie; hath he said, and shall he not do it”

Trust in the word of God, The written word of God will direct your path, KJV- Proverbs 4:20 -27

 

(This article was originally published as part of St David’s Messenger in April 2018)