Hi Everyone,

It's Advent, lockdown is over (ish!) and a Covid vaccine is on the way. Hope springs eternal! Yet for so many people this season is immensely difficult and the good news comes too late for them as jobs are threatened, businesses collapse and loved ones are no longer with us. 

Advent is a really apt season right now because it combines perfectly the sense of lament and hope. We lament that the world is not what it should be but we look forward, not only to Christmas but to the return of Jesus when all things will be made right. When we sing the famous Advent hymn, O Come O Come Emmanuel, we are not just entering into the Christmas story but our hearts cry out once more for Jesus to hasten his return. This isn't just a pie in the sky, wishing on a star kind of hope but this is a real hope in the God who is present with us, who is good, who loves the whole of his creation and who always keeps his promises. 

However this Advent is for you, I offer to you this resource of daily reflection videos. A new video is released each day which is about 2 minutes long with a longer video each Sunday (approximately 8 mins). I encourage you to watch the first video in particular as it comes from Manchester.

It is not easy at the moment, but know that you are loved and held in prayer. If you are in particular need at this time, please let us know, we are listening and want to help if we can. 

With love

Jess

Hi Everyone,

I was initially want to say something today about Helen's excellent sermon on the image of the church as crazy paving but watching the news at lunchtime made me rethink what I wanted to say. No, I haven't changed my mind on Helen's sermon – I still think it was excellent but I was struck by an item speaking about the hidden pandemic of loneliness.

I suspect that most of us from time to time have had to deal with loneliness and for some of us this is a chronic condition made worse by the pandemic. The rescuer within me wants to make this right for everyone and yet this is impossible. It also isn't the right thing to do. If our reflections on church have taught us anything so far it is that we are equally valued and equally needed. My going out on my own on a one woman mission to save the world from loneliness is unlikely to be effective and is not what God calls us too either.

I am not the church, we are the church.

We are the people of God who are sent out to bless and to declare God's good news in the world. Just like the crazy paving, we are all different shapes and sizes and gifted in unique ways yet when we all join together we create something beautiful that leads to people to the very throne of God. 

Loneliness and isolation are killers. One person cannot overcome them alone and yet together, as the church we can make a huge difference when we look beyond ourselves and to the needs of those around us. It takes all of us bringing that little bit of light and hope where we are.

How you can be a blessing right now:

• Smile at people when you go out.
• Chat to the person at the till when you pop to the shop.
• Check that the person sat alone on the bench or on a wall is okay.
• Notice who you haven't seen around for a while and give them a call or send them a text.
• Do some baking and deliver it to your neighbours or to people at work or to staff at school.
• Set up or join a WhatsApp group with your neighbours. 
• Send Christmas cards to everyone on your street (making sure you put your name and your house number)

What to do if you are feeling lonely right now:

• Let someone know!!
• Join an online group (Women's footprints, Book Club, Over 50's, Wednesday Morning Prayer, Fellowship group or one of the many in the wider community)
• Pick up the phone and call someone (make the first move)
• Invite someone out for a walk (we are still allowed to meet with one person)

Being church is all about connecting so why not make take the opportunity to connect today?

With love

Jess

Hi Everyone,

Well it is day 1 of lockdown #2. I don't think many of us expected to be in this position back at the beginning of the year but here we are nevertheless. 

The experience this time is going to be different for different people. In our house, lockdown is not massively different to being in tier 3 because the kids are still going to school and the grown ups in the house were mainly working from home anyway. Our families live quite far away so we hadn't seen them in person really for quite a while either. For us it feels like more of the same. Yet I am painfully aware that for other people this is a return to isolation, and the cancellation of the few things that they were able to do in person. 

Lockdown is hard, and for some of us it is even harder. So my message to all of us today is to be kind to yourself and to other people who might be experiencing the current situation differently. However, you are expereincing the new lockdown, one thing that remains constant for all of us is that God is present with us. He knows our needs, hears our cries and he cares. Even in the darkest times, we are never alone. Those words at the beginning of the communion prayer ring as true today as when we are gathered around the table: The Lord is here, his Spirit is with us.

It seems really apt that this month we are exploring what it means to be church in our sermon series now we have the added dimension of what it means to be the church during lockdown. I am looking forward to preaching on Sunday and using a couple of the playdough models that you created last week as a springboard to think about what church is and what it could be. My lips are sealed as to which ones are being used this week so you will have to wait and see!

I look forward to catching up with you on Zoom on Sunday if I don't see you before.

With love

Jess

P.S. If any one would particularly appreciate meeting up for a socially distanced walk (I'm thinking a slow poddle rather than a hike!) to be able to see someone, or to talk or to have someone to pray with in person, please let me know and I'd be happy to arrange something with you.

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the late edition - it's been a bit of a strange day and, to coin Simon's word from Sunday, I feel a little discombobulated. 

Judith spoke on Sunday about this feeling of disorientation and those habits or spiritual disciplines that we can develop as a regular practice to help us through disorientating times. You might hear this spoken about in other settings as reslience - working on those things that help us to cope with challenge and change. 

I like to think of those practices as self-care. Treating ourselves as whole people we need to attend to our spiritual needs, our physical needs, our emotional needs, our social needs and our intellectual needs. It can sound a bit selfish when it's written as a list like that but the reality is that we cannot care for others, serve others, minister to others or share the good news with others when "the well is dry". 

The good news is that, unlike secular resilience methods, we are not relying simply on our own resources or those things that we have stored up when life has been easy and good. Instead, we have a God who we can fully rely on. The God who reaches out his hand when we are sinking. The God who calls us by name, loves us, knows us and says that we are his.

So build up resilience, focus on spiritual disciplines but also rest in the knowledge that you are never alone.

With love

Jess

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about deserts this week, not to be confused with desserts (although I do think about those quite a lot too). In films and cartoons deserts are often shown as places with miles and miles of sand, nothing and no one to be seen for miles and miles. It’s hot and oppressive – a place of despair. 

Often in churches preachers speak about desert times in our lives referring to times in our lives when God seems absent. I think deserts can actually be really positive places. In the early church there was a group called the Desert Fathers. These were people who deliberately separated themselves from the rest of the world in order to seek God. For them the desert was a place of God’s presence not his absence. 

On Sunday we looked at the story of Jesus in the wilderness in Mathew 4:1-11. Read it again here.

The first thing that we read is that Jesus was led into the desert by the Holy Spirit – God was very present in that place. It was a place where Jesus prepared for ministry, where he resisted the temptation to take the easy way out and where he was ministered to.

Perhaps a message to us here is to not be afraid of the desert but to actively seek those places where we can be quiet with God. It can be a challenging place as we are confronted with our true selves without filters or the photo shopped image we might want to portray to others. But it is a place where God meets us, challenges us and transforms us by his Spirit. It is a place where we are known completely and yet loved completely.

As Chris Tomlin sings in his song Indescribable:
“You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same.”
​
Why not take some time out this Lent to seek out the desert (wherever that might be for you). Take some time to be quiet and alone with God, to allow him to examine your heart and to minister to you as we begin our journey towards Easter.

With love

Jess