28th November

28th November is Advent Sunday and we've a  9.30 Advent Communion service at Rochford and a 3.30 Advent Service at Hanley Childe -a delightful church with stupendous views.

An open gate

The gate to the right of Rochford church leads into an orchard. On Saturday the gate was shut and there were sheep grazing. On Sunday the sheep had been moved and the gate was open for worshippers at the Remembrance Service to park their cars.
That good neighbourlyness is important for building up community.

Not quite 60,000

This afternoon was my licensing as Priest in charge of Teme Valley South (TVS). Knowing that the service was to be followed by by a bonfire, Bishop David preached on Malachi 3 1-4 about fullers soap and refiners fire. In his time as an industrial chaplain he had seen  the steel works where rusty iron ore with impurities would be refined in a in a crucible to come out bright shiny and clean.

After the service was a bonfire and fireworks - the photo shows the display.
Talking with a colleague recently he told me that one author used the idea of a bonfire of what the church should be. In the book “Love and Faith and Unity in a Postmodern Age” by John Gladwin published 1998 he writes

"The vision of God revealed to us in the Gospel of Christ is like a perpetual blazing fire which draws individuals and communities towards it.
Every year at the season of Bonfire Night in November the London Borough of Islington holds a massive bonfire and firework party. On a good night 60,000 people can be there.
The bonfire party is a great image of the Church as it is called to be today. Watch the company of people gathered around the fire. They are somewhat untidily assembled. Some will feel the need to be close in near the blaze, others stand further off watching and wondering, and even further away are those conscious of the fire but yet not wholly attentive to it. All the time some are drawing near and others moving away. The fire itself seems to encourage the movement. There are people on their own drawn to the warmth, family groups and small communities there. The thing which unites all is not necessarily their mutual knowledge of each other but the power of the blaze at the heart of what is happening.”