Trilogy's thought from September 2009

Back to Church Sunday, by our Associate Vicar

On the 13th September at St. Matthew’s and the 27th September at St. James and Ss Peter and Paul we celebrated our Harvest Thanksgiving and also it was Back to Church Sunday.

Harvest Thanksgiving is a time to thank God for the beautiful world He has created and for all the produce that our fertile earth produces. Even in the middle of Birmingham, where we are so far from farms and crops, it’s still good to set aside a specific Sunday each year to remember God’s provision and to share His generosity with others as we distribute the produce we’ve brought to church with those in need.

Having a special Sunday for Harvest Thanksgiving is one thing, but what about Back to Church Sunday? Why have a special Sunday to invite our friends and family to church? Indeed, why go to church at all? Sundays are busy as it is. For some of us there is work, and then there is time with family, time to shop, time for sport. Where is the time for church? Why bother with church at all? “After all”, I often hear people say, “You can be a Christian without going to church.” Well, can you?

Being a Christian is about following Jesus and following His way of life. And right at the start of Jesus’ earthly ministry He called 12 men to follow Him – His disciples. From the beginning, following Jesus was not to be done alone, but was done in the company of others. We need each other on the Christian journey, to meet together to worship God, to study the bible, to share communion together, to pray for each other and to share our lives as we encourage each other. And that’s what church is. A group of people of all ages and different backgrounds, following Jesus together, and together making a difference in our neighbourhoods. And if we don’t meet together, if we don’t go to church, we are like hot coals that become cold as we fall out of the fire.

So, a special welcome to you if you’ve come back to church recently. I hope you’ve felt God’s welcome as you’ve worshipped with us. We hope you’ll want to come back again and make the Sunday morning service a priority for you and your family each week.

And may we all know God’s blessing as we follow Jesus together.

Jenny

Trilogy's Thought from June 2009

Sabbatical – or “Where’s the Vicar?”

Some people may be asking, “Where’s the Vicar?” The answer is that I am on sabbatical, which in turn leads to the obvious question, “What’s a sabbatical?”

A sabbatical is literally about ceasing from work. The Jewish principle, which we see in the Bible, was for the Sabbath (which was Saturday) to be a day free from work. In the Church of England, clergy can apply for sabbatical leave after they have been in their post for seven years. The Bishop has generously granted me this leave, so I will be away from my duties here over the summer and be returning to work towards the end of September. It is possible that you will see me around Birmingham during this time – I will still have a home in Aston with my family! Do greet me if you see me, but please understand that I won’t want to talk about work or the church, and I won’t be answering my phone or emails while I’m on sabbatical.

It does seem amazing that I have already been in Aston for seven years – though I appreciate that people at St Matthew’s and St James may not think I have been, as I’ve only been with you for 4 years now. The past seven years have been busy years, not least in merging our three churches together into one parish and building the talented and creative team that we now have serving the churches. As you will have realised, I have insisted that we have kept mission at the forefront during this time and that we do not forget to reach out into our community while we sort out our internal arrangements. In many ways, therefore, now is a good time to draw breath, take stock and to seek out what God has for us next.

As I look back over the past seven years, it has been exciting to see the Lord make our churches increasingly multicultural, as he has brought people from different parts of the globe into Aston and Nechells. The growth in confidence in mission that I have seen in each of our churches has also been most encouraging. And for the past four years, sharing in mission across our three churches has also been a great way for us to get to know each other. Each of our churches is now growing, and I believe we need to be preparing for more growth over the coming years.

One of the ways we prepare for growth is to prune. In John 15, Jesus illustrates this principle. Even fruitful branches are cut back, so that they can bear more fruit. I therefore hope that by being “cut back” now, I will be able to be more fruitful in the future. Pruning also allows other branches to grow. So, while Aston and Nechells and all of you will remain in my thoughts and prayers over the next few months, I am going to be leaving my responsibilities here into the very capable hands of my colleagues, and I hope they will grow and be fruitful without me being in the way!

You may want to know what I will be doing while I’m on sabbatical. Well, one thing is resting (that’s what Sabbath is for!) and trying to “recharge my batteries”. I’m not sure how long I can do that for though before I feel the need to do something! So I do have some other intentions. One is to visit other churches, to try to learn from them and to let God inspire my imagination. I want to look particularly at two things. One is about being multicultural churches and to see how we can make the most of the wonderful cultural riches that God has brought together in Aston and Nechells. The other is to look at other parishes like ours where a team of clergy lead a number of churches. The most important thing though is to take time to deepen my own relationship with God. It’s very easy as a vicar to be caught up in the “church business” with committees, buildings and other “important” things, and to lose sight of who it is all about. So I want to be spending time with God just for the sake of spending time with him, without an agenda for what we are doing with the church in Aston and Nechells. This is what Jesus says is the key to fruitfulness in John 15 – abiding in him.

We will also be enjoying an extended time away in Kenya together as a family during the school holidays. Ricky, Beth, Matty and I will mainly be the guests of the Very Revd Julius Wanyoike, who is now Provost of All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, but who was at St Chad’s Erdington until a year ago. I hope you will keep praying for us during our time away. I intend to place updates on the news page, so you can see what we have been up to.

Andy Jolley
June 2009

Trilogy's Thought from April 2009

“He is Risen” – Our Associate Vicar’s Thought for Easter

On Easter Sunday in our 3 churches we will say the great Easter response

“Christ is risen”
“He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”

And this Easter response will be said not only in our 3 churches, but also in churches across our country and throughout the world. And as we say these words, we are making a very powerful statement.

The story is told of an anti-God rally in Communist Russia in 1920. The speaker abused and ridiculed the Christian faith for an hour and then he invited questions. An Orthodox priest rose and asked to speak. He turned, faced the people, and gave the Easter greeting, “Christ is risen!”. Instantly those present at the rally rose to their feet and the reply came back loud and clear, “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” There is power in proclaiming the risen Lord Jesus.

And as we celebrate this Easter in Aston and Nechells, we are proclaiming the power of the risen Lord in our neighbourhood. Power to change both individual lives and our community life together as we bring the Easter message of hope, … hope of transformation. So often we are surrounded by bad news; problems in our close family, illness of loved ones and newspapers and television full of stories of financial ruin, of personal despair and of crime and violence. And it can be easy to lose hope, “what is our world coming to!”

But, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthian church at the end of his great chapter that proclaims the bodily resurrection of Jesus that first Easter, “How we thank God, who gives us victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord” ( 1 Corinth. 15: 57). Christ has won the victory through his own death and resurrection. So, however bad the mess that we are in, whatever the situation, whether of our own making or because of someone else, there is still hope. We can be forgiven and have a fresh start. We can move on and find new life and freedom.

As Christians we are Easter people, living out the reality of the crucifixion and the resurrection in our own everyday lives. We know in our own experience that God brings new life out of the most hopeless situations. In our testimony times week by week in our Sunday services we hear stories of what God is doing and how he is answering prayers and bringing hope and change. The process is not complete. It won’t be until Jesus returns. But with the resurrection of Jesus the new creation has started and we know that one day we shall be united with Him in a resurrection like His, completely free from sin and death. And so we live as resurrection people now, working and praying for transformation, the righting of wrongs in our own lives and the lives of those around us, knowing that this work will be wonderfully complete in the final resurrection.

“Christ is risen!”
“He is risen indeed, Alleluia”

Wishing you a happy and hopeful Easter
Jenny

Trilogy's Thought from February 2009

Below are some recent thoughts from the Vicar from the February 2009 edition of Trilogy.

As I write, a fresh layer of snow has fallen and covered over the evidence of Monday afternoon’s snowball fight and snowman-making. The garden has recovered the idyllic peaceful look of a typical Christmas card scene.

In our front garden, the snow is hiding some deeper scars. On Monday lunchtime a car skidded over the pavement, demolished a road sign, then our low garden fence and came to rest precariously balanced on both our lawn and the pavement. Removing the car involved making some deep holes in our lawn, which will require some careful repair work (thank the Lord for insurance!) when the snow melts. For the moment, though, there is very little sign of Monday’s trauma to the garden as everything is covered by the white snowy blanket.

This ‘covering’ over of damage reflects the way that God deals with our sins. Through Isaiah (1:18f), the Lord promises, “No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool. If you will only obey me and let me help you.” This is a marvellous promise. The assurance that our sins are forgiven and we can be free from guilt and shame is one of the most immense privileges of being a follower of Jesus. It means that we can come before God’s throne with confidence and boldness (Hebrews 4:16).

We will shortly be entering the season of Lent, a time when Christians have traditionally have given time to examine and deepen their relationship with God. This can also be a time for examining any unforgiveness or unhealed deep hurts in our lives that are currently covered over. As we face these things, so God can continue his transforming work in us to make us more like Jesus. Because the car “trespassed” on our garden, our lawn and fence will need careful and professional repair for our garden to be “whole” again. We will have to wait though until the snow has melted and the damage is exposed. Similarly, when people have hurt us (“trespassed against us”), we need to forgive them and allow God to heal the resulting hurts and scars in our lives. Yet, many people seem to prefer to live with their hurts rather than risk exposing them to God’s tender love and care. In doing so, they settle for less than God’s best. However, we need to remember and be encouraged by Jesus’ words that he came to bring life to the full (John 10:10). We really can approach God’s throne with confidence and boldness. God is good, and so are his plans for us. Sometimes though we first need to spend some time covered with the blanket of God’s faithful love before we can truly be confident in God’s goodness and trust him with our hurts and those things we find hard to forgive.

Can I suggest therefore that we all use Lent this year to seek to understand more fully God’s amazing love for us – and then to go on to ask God to show us any unforgiveness or unhealed hurts in our lives. To bring God’s forgiveness and healing may need the help of a wise Christian friend as well as the Holy Spirit. So be prepared both to ask others for help, and also to be asked to help yourself. In this way, Lent can be a time when each of us takes time to examine those things in our lives which stand in the way of a deeper relationship with God. Let us pray for ourselves and others in our churches that our lives will truly reflect the peace and wholeness that God longs to give to us, so that when people look at us, they will see the people that God intends us to be.

Andy Jolley
February 2009