Fasting that questions our security and leads to benefit for others

Here is the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning as part of our Eucharist for Ash Wednesday with the imposition of ashes (a second service will be held at St Mary's Runwell this evening at 8.00 pm):

Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words be silent and listen.

These are words that have been attributed to Pope Francis, although the source for these words has yet to be fully established. Nevertheless, Pope Francis has made similar or equivalent comments.

He says first of all that: ‘We must be careful not to practice a formal fast, or one which in truth “satisfies” us because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Fasting makes sense if it questions our security, and if it also leads to some benefit for others, if it helps us to cultivate the style of the Good Samaritan, who bends down to his brother in need and takes care of him. Fasting involves choosing a sober lifestyle; a way of life that does not waste, a way of life that does not “throw away”. Fasting helps us to attune our hearts to the essential and to sharing. It is a sign of awareness and responsibility in the face of injustice, abuse, especially to the poor and the little ones, and it is a sign of the trust we place in God and in his providence.’

In saying this he was following the teaching of his predecessors, Paul VI, in his 1973 Message for Lent, said that Lent is a time of renunciation and penance but is also “a time of communion and solidarity”. As a result, invited us to listen to the exhortations of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 58: 1-12): “This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: … sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.” Such exhortations, noted Pope Paul, “echo the anxieties of the people of today,” and thus, “each individual truly shares in the sufferings and misery of all.”

Pope Francis also says that we fast and do penance: ‘in order to free ourselves from dependencies regarding what is passing, and to train ourselves to be more sensitive and merciful. It is an invitation to simplicity and to sharing: to take something from our table and from our assets in order to once again find the true benefit of freedom.’ As a result, ‘Fasting reunites us to ourselves. Lent invites us to look inside our heart, with fasting, which frees us from attachment to things and from the worldliness that numbs the heart.’

‘Fasting is not a diet. Indeed, it sets us free from the self-centred and obsessive quest of physical fitness, in order to help us to keep in shape not only our bodies but our spirit as well. Fasting makes us appreciate things for their true worth. It reminds us in a concrete way that life must not be made dependent upon the fleeting landscape of the present world. Nor should fasting be restricted to food alone. Especially in Lent, we should fast from anything that can create in us any kind of addiction. This is something each of us should reflect on, so as to fast in a way that will have an effect on our actual lives.’

These arguments and the words with which we began are sometimes criticised as we should not simply abstain from sinful behaviour for a period such as Lent, but should always seek to lay aside our sinfulness. However, that is to misunderstand what Pope Francis is advocating. His argument is that we begin to abstain from sin in Lent in order to continue throughout our lives.

Finally, Pope Francis argues that ‘Prayer, charity and fasting need to grow “in secret” (Matthew 6: 1-21), but that is not true of their effects. Prayer, charity and fasting are not medicines meant only for ourselves but for everyone: they can change history. First, because those who experience their effects almost unconsciously pass them on to others; but above all, because prayer, charity and fasting are the principal ways for God to intervene in our lives and in the world. They are weapons of the spirit and, with them, we implore from God that peace which men and women are incapable of building by themselves.’

So: Fast from hurting words and say kind words.
Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
Fast from worries and have trust in God.
Fast from complaints; contemplate simplicity.
Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
Fast from bitterness; fill your hearts with joy.
Fast from selfishness and be compassionate.
Fast from grudges and be reconciled.
Fast from words be silent and listen.

This sermon uses material from: https://sites.google.com/view/popefrancishomilies/fasting and https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-03/the-popes-and-the-lenten-fast-training-the-will-in-good.html#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20key%20elements,example%20of%20the%20Good%20Samaritan.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forty Days And Forty Nights.

Everyone in

Here's the sermon that I preached in this morning's Eucharist at St Mary's Runwell:

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, the government set up an initiative called Everyone In. This aimed to provide a hotel room plus support to everyone sleeping rough on the streets. This new national homelessness strategy proved extremely effective and resulted in a large number of formerly homeless people moving into longer-term accommodation and therefore leaving the streets.

The policy demonstrated that with the right levels of funding and support, homelessness can be almost eradicated. The government's motivation for this approach was not so much concern for homeless people, as concern that Covid-19 would circulate more rapidly and aggressively if homeless people remained on the streets.

Without that imperative driving government policy, approaches to tackling homelessness have now returned to what they were pre-pandemic and the numbers living rough on our streets have risen significantly once again, and will rise further due to the cost of living crisis.

In our Gospel reading today (Luke 14.1, 7-14), Jesus talks about the limitations of charitable activity that is based on calculations of benefit for ourselves but also uses self-interest as a motivation to move towards a greater degree of selflessness.

Jesus lived a life of self-sacrifice without benefit for himself in order to bring love to others. Through the incarnation he gave up equality with God the Father to become the servant of humanity, as the teacher of his disciples he gave them an example of service by washing their feet, and, on the cross, he laid down his own life for the sake of all.

His ultimate challenge to us is to live life for the benefit of others or, as he explains here, to invite and welcome all those unable to repay us for our hospitality precisely because they cannot repay. True love is only true when we gain no personal benefit from it. When we benefit from our relationships with others, even with God, it means that we are not loving simply for the sake of the other but for a range of other reasons.

Jesus recognises, however, the challenge that this poses to people like us - each and every human being – as those for whom self-interest and survival are hard-wired into our being. Therefore, he teaches us by means of the Parable of the Dishonest Steward, a story of a shrewd manager who learns the benefits of relationships through self-interest after losing his job or challenges us to go further towards self-sacrifice by saying in the Parable of the Persistent Widow that, if hard-hearted people, like the Judge in that story, can do kind things for selfish reasons, should we not go further.

On this occasion, he challenges those who are self-interestedly taking the places of honour at a meal by using the logic of their self-interest to argue for greater humility on their part. He says it's actually of greater benefit to you to take the lower place initially and be called up, than to take the higher place and be demoted. He makes this argument, however, to try to start them on a journey towards greater humility and awareness of others, not to simply maintain them in a mindset of self-interest.

So, where, I wonder, are we on this journey towards selflessness? Are we at the beginning, like the guests at the meal, competing for the places of honour but open to the idea that there may be a different way to achieve their goals? Or are we further down the road of selflessness finding ways to be with others that don't involve personal benefit for ourselves? The important thing is to begin and to recognise that it's a lifelong journey.

Like any journey, though, it is one with a destination. The destination towards which we are heading is heaven, a place where we enjoy God, others, and ourselves for who and what we are, rather than for the benefit we can receive from others.

In heaven there is nothing to fix and nothing we need – no more death, mourning, crying or pain - instead there is just the experience of being with others and growing in appreciation for who they are as themselves. That is the reality Jesus is looking towards here with his talk of relationships that don't involve repayments for us. Once we go beyond relationships from which we get personal benefit and move into relationships which are simply about enjoying others for who they are, then we are approaching heaven.

With that mindset, the name of the government's pandemic homelessness strategy takes on additional significance. Everyone in. That's what Jesus is talking about when he says we should invite to our meals those who are normally excluded and cannot repay us. Everyone in. That's what our churches should be like, because they should be providing a taste of heaven. Everyone in.

But note that what Jesus commends here is also just a stage on the journey. Inviting those who cannot repay because they cannot repay is a way of creating in us a mindset of seeing God in others by appreciating others for who they are, rather than what they can do for us. When we have that mindset, then we are in heaven by being with others and enjoying them for who they are. That is when inclusion becomes reality, with others and ourselves accepted and appreciated and understood and loved as we are. Everyone in. A real taste of heaven. That's the destination towards which Jesus wants us to travel. Have we begun?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ho Wai-On - You Are Not Alone.

11 years of commission4mission

commission4mission was set up in 2009 and became a registered charity (Charity no. 1161109) in 2011. commission4mission ended its work at the end of March 2020.

Between March 2009 and March 2020 we undertook the following:

Art Trails: researched, published and launched a Church Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area; and Faith in the City Art Trail leaflet for the Corporation of London focusing on modern and contemporary artworks in the City Churches.

Commissions: 13 commissions at Queens Hospital Romford; All Saints Hutton; St Peter’s Harold Wood; St Edmund’s Tyseley; St Paul’s Goodmayes; St John’s Seven Kings; St Margaret’s Great Ilford; Christ Church ThamesView; and Dagenham Park Church of England School.

Exhibitions: Chelmsford Cathedral; St Laurence Upminster; the Pentecost, West Ham and Leytonstone Festivals; E17 and Leytonstone Art Trails; Holy Trinity with St Augustine of Hippo Leytonstone; St Martin-in-the-Fields; St Mary Magdalene Billericay; Tokarska Gallery; All Saints West Ham, Strand Gallery (Pentecost Festival), Harlow Town Centre (pop-up exhibition for Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival); All Saints Woodford Wells, Wimbledon Library Gallery; Hornchurch and Romford libraries (H’Art Festival – the Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival); St Stephen Walbrook; Norwich Cathedral; St Saviour’s St Albans; All Hallows by the Tower; Coventry Cathedral; and Holy Trinity Sloane Square.

Events: Launch event hosted by St Alban’s Romford; Art Talks by David Hawkins, Fr Rodrick Hingley, Graham Gould, Mark Lewis, Jonathan Evens, Glenn Lowcock, Steve Scott, Stephen Cottrell, Rob Floyd, Richard D. North, Wendy McTernan, Irina Bradley, Anthony Hodgson; Networking evenings on the themes of ‘Spirituality – the heartbeat of Art?’ and ‘Stations of the Cross’; Study Day on the theme of ‘Perspectives on commissioning Christian Art’ at Chelmsford Cathedral and on the value of public art at St Paul’s Harlow; Art workshop at St Paul’s Harlow which produced a design for a frieze; Art demonstration by Harvey Bradley; Big Draw workshop led by Mark Lewis, Francesca Ross and Peter Webb; Performance evenings featuring Colin Burns, Tim Cunningham, Jonathan Evens, Jane Grell, Malcolm Guite, Alan Hitching, Jenny Houghton, Tamsin Kendrick and Steve Scott; Arts in Worship event at St Stephen Walbrook where Hayley Bowen, John Gentry, Mark Lewis, Henry Shelton and Peter Webb led art workshops and a series of visual multi-media meditations were shown; and Art Walks led by Mark Lewis to churches on the Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area and Faith in the City Art Trail.

Our partners have included: HeartEdge; New Roots; Oasis Trust; and The Worship Cloud.

Projects: worked with CANA and Veritasse on Run with the Fire, an international art project for churches in the 2012 Olympic year – Run with the Fire DVD containing a digital exhibition and event guidance materials – resulting in events run using the digital exhibition in Aldersbrook, California, Devonport, Harlow, Leicester, London, Sacramento, Streatham and Woodford; supported Stations 2017, a collaboration between Mark Dean (artist), Lizzi Kew Ross (choreographer) and Lucy Newman Cleeve (curator).

Publications: commission4mission catalogue (2010); Condemned, a creative reflection for Lent illustrated with contemporary art works by seven member artists, accompanied by the words of Isaiah 53; articles by Jonathan Evens, Helen Gheorghui Gould and Steven Saxby to a special arts edition of franciscan magazine; three collections of images by commission4mission artists available for download via theworshipcloud.com: Mark of the Cross (images by Henry Shelton and words by Jonathan Evens), The Passion: Reflections and Prayers features pictures, poems and prayers by Henry Shelton and Jonathan Evens, and Stations of the Cross by Valerie Dean.

Retreats: Mark Lewis organised three retreats held at the Othona Community in Bradwell.

Services celebrating the Arts at St Peter’s Chapel, Bradwell, All Saints Goodmayes and St Stephen Walbrook; two Stations of the Cross services held at St Martin-in-the-Fields; Irina Bradley, Valerie Dean, Tim Harrold and Henry Shelton spoke on inspiration in a Bread for the World service at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Websites: Webpage (http://commissionformission.blogspot.com/) and website (https://www.commission4mission.org/).

Since we began our work we have donated over £12,000 to the following charities: The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields; The Salvation Army; The National Autistic Society; and PDSA (Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals), Oasis Trust, Rejuvenate Worldwide, St Francis Hospice, Safer Places, Sightsavers International, Smile Train UK and Haven House Children’s Hospice.

Our artists have included: Alan Hitching; Ally Ashworth; Andrew Vessey; Anne Creasey; Caroline Nina Phillips; Caroline Richardson; Christopher Clack; Clorinda Goodman; Colin Joseph Burns; Danielle Lovesey; David Hawkins; Elizabeth Duncan Meyer; Francesca Ross; Gillian Barritt; Harvey Bradley; Hayley Bowen; Henry Shelton; Janet Roberts; Jim Insole; Jonathan Evens; Joy Rousell Stone; Ken Ashby; Mark Lewis; Mbeng Pouka; Michael Creasey; Nadiya Pavliv Tokarska; Peter Webb; Richard Paton; Rosalind Hore; Ross Ashmore; Sergiy Shkanov; Valerie Dean; Celia Ward; Robert Enoch; Adeliza Mole; Anthony Hodgson; Barbara Harris; Cathie Chappell; David Millidge; Deborah Harrison; Dorothy Morris; Eugenia Jacobs; Fiona Hunter-Boyd; Irene Novelli; Irina Bradley; Jacek Kulikowski; Jacqui Parkinson; Jean Lamb; John Gentry; Laura Grenci; Lewis Braswell; Lucy Crabtree; Lucy Thomasin Morrish; Markos Kampanis; Martin Cosgrove; Mary Flitcroft; MaryJean Donaghey; Maurizio Galia; Michael Garaway; Rob Floyd; Rodney Munday; Susan Latchford; Sy Baker; Tim Harrold, Peter Shorer, Terry Ffyffe, Elizabeth Deane, Lisa Cunningham, Colin Riches, Judy Goring, Monica Thornton, Dorothy Gager, Sonia Veness, Beverley Barr, Jonathan Peter Smith, Victoria Norton, Nicolas Young, Emma Horsfield, Christine Garwood, Alexander Walker, Mari Hayman, and Sarah Ollerenshaw.

Mark Lewis, Chairman of commission4mission writes:

‘Further to our AGM in October and the decision made there to withdraw from registration as a Charity with the Charity Commission, we have regrettably had to take the further decision to dissolve commission4mission in its present form. I would like to thank all our members who have contributed to exhibitions over the last ten years and helped to make events a success.

This decision has not been taken lightly. Jonathan Evens has fulfilled the role of Secretary and Treasurer from the inception of commission4mission but, because of pressure of other commitments, will shortly step down from the Committee. Jonathan has undertaken these roles with exceptional dedication and commitment and we thank him sincerely for all he has done to develop and administer commission4mission. Given the demands of his current ministry we fully understand his wish to give up these committee positions.

Additionally, I had considered standing down as chairman at the next AGM because other life commitments are just making too many demands on me at present and in the foreseeable future. Harvey Bradley, has also decided to leave the committee for similar reasons. Harvey has been an enthusiastic and dedicated member of the committee since commission4mission began and we extend our heartfelt thanks for his valuable contributions.

Unfortunately without a fully constituted committee, a group becomes untenable and we know from experience that it will be difficult to fill these positions and maintain the organization and administration of commission4mission in anything like its present form. Many of our members live outside London, with other work and personal commitments and we feel it is unlikely that any would wish to take on the demands of these committee roles and be in a position to attend regular meetings.

The committee are meeting to decide on the disposal of commission4mission funds in order that we close commission4mission following the Charity Commission’s guidelines and to consider how we might continue as a community of artists in some other capacity. This will, of course, not be under the banner of commission4mission. Your ideas in this regard would be welcome.’

For further information or to share ideas, please contact Mark Lewis on mlewis342@googlemail.com.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Switchfoot - Where The Light Shines Through.

Philanthropy in the City - Day 1

Day 1 of the Philanthropy in the City programme at St Stephen Walbrook was the first opportunity to view both the Care of Creation art exhibition by the Society of Catholic Artists and Philanthropy – The City Story which documents how philanthropy has developed over 800 years and how it has contributed to the Square Mile and society.

The Society of Catholic Artists (SCA) is for those engaged as professional or amateurs in the various disciplines of the visual arts. Their membership includes painters, stone and metal sculptors, architects, stained glass artists, silversmiths, potters, iconographers, and more. The SCA has always aimed at raising the standard of religious art and encouraging a bond of spiritual awareness and Christian fellowship among artists, as well as being available to advise prospective patrons and to recommend suitable artists for commissions. Members have been responsible for major artistic work for cathedrals and churches throughout Britain. In this year of Pope Francis’ encyclical, ‘Care of Creation’ and respecting the spirituality of the venue, for this exhibition they are using the Pope’s message as a theme.

The City has a proud tradition of philanthropy dating back to the Middle Ages, led by Livery Companies and the Mayorality, as is brilliantly illustrated in the exhibition Philanthropy - The City Story. Philanthropy is one of London's hidden stories. The roles of business and government as channels for entrepreneurial effort are well known. But this exhibition explores philanthropy as an alternative catalyst of growth and change. The City, including almshouses, hospitals, open spaces, orphanages, the first public flushing loos, the Royal Exchange and even London Bridge, owes much to the great philanthropists of the Square Mile.

Also in today's programme was the next in our current Discover & explore service series with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields.. As part of the Philanthropy in the City programme we explored the theme of Charity. The service included the reading of both Holy Thursday poems by William Blake and John Tavener's setting of Blake's The Lamb.

Tomorrow at 6.30pm, Jin Chin (Chair, Samaritans London Central), David Barclay (Church Credit Champions Network), Mark Choonara (The Passage) and Revd Bertrand Oliver (All Hallows by the Tower) will share opportunities for volunteering with Samaritans, Home for Good and as a Church Credit Champion.

On Wednesday at 6.00pm we will host a service to review and give thanks to God for the year in office of Alderman Alan Yarrow, Lord Mayor of London including the Lord Mayor’s Appeal (Scope and Mencap) and overseas business visits. The service will reflect the theme of the Lord Mayor’s year in office: Creating Wealth, Giving Time, Supporting People.

Next Monday at 1.10pm will see the third in our Discover & explore series when Revd Sally Muggeridge and the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields will lead us in reflecting on the theme of Hope. Finally, on Tuesday 17th November at 6.30pm, we will host the launch of the Sophia Hubs Network. Hear about hubs in Redbridge and Sophiatown and find out about ways of investing in start-ups and businesses that bring community benefit.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Tavener - The Lamb.

Discover & explore - Charity

1 Corinthians 13 states that love or charity is the greatest of virtues, greater that hope or faith and, as you can read in the Philanthropy exhibition, Alexander Pope wrote that, even where we differ in relation to hope and faith, we can all still agree on the necessity and benefit of charity:

‘In faith and hope the world will disagree, 

But all mankind's concern is charity.’

The Bible, as a whole and also in our passage from 2 Corinthians (8. 1 - 15), encourages generosity in our giving - both financially and also in every other way. Three categories of recipients of our giving are particularly highlighted within the pages of scripture: the stranger among you (i.e. foreign migrants), widows and orphans, and fellow believers who are in need. We are encouraged to excel in generosity by following the example set by ‘the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.’

Charity, however, is not simply an unalloyed good. There are issues to be recognised and faced and that is part of the reason for including William Blake's two “Holy Thursday” poems in this service.

Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794) juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression … the collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems [as here, with “Holy Thursday”] fall into pairs, so that the same situation or problem is seen through the lens of innocence first and then experience. Blake does not identify himself wholly with either view … [and aims] to recognize and correct the fallacies of both … [so,] while Blake draws touching portraits of the emotional power of rudimentary Christian values, he also exposes—over the heads, as it were, of the innocent—Christianity’s capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty.’

‘In the poem “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Innocence, Blake described the public appearance of charity school children in St. Paul’s Cathedral on Ascension Day.’ Moved by the pathos of this vision of the children in church, the speaker of the poem urges us, as readers, to act with pity towards them remembering that such as these ‘are actually angels of God’.

In the version from Songs of Experience, however, the speaker of the poem ‘critiques rather than praises the charity of the institutions responsible for [these] children’ questioning whether they are not actually ‘victims of cruelty and injustice.’ ‘The rhetorical technique of the poem is to pose a number of suspicious questions’: ‘how holy is the sight of children living in misery in a prosperous country? Might the children’s “cry,” as they sit assembled in St. Paul’s Cathedral on Holy Thursday, really be a song? “Can it be a song of joy?” The speaker’s own answer is that the destitute existence of so many children impoverishes the country no matter how prosperous it may be in other ways: for these children the sun does not shine, the fields do not bear, all paths are thorny, and it is always winter.’

Charity essentially involves those with wealth giving some of their wealth to those without. There are issues of paternalism and power which are therefore involved plus the reality that this kind of charity leaves the structures of society which cause disparities of wealth and poverty untouched, as is the case for the children receiving charity in the "Holy Thursday" poems.

While Jesus once noted that the poor will always be with us, he did not mean that statement in terms of active maintenance of the structures that condemn some to poverty and privilege others with wealth. While we celebrate, through our current exhibition, the history and current reality of philanthropy in the City we also question the concentrations of wealth found in the City and the equity of their use and distribution. We need Blake's prophetic rage in the “Holy Thursday” poem from Songs of Experience combined with his embrace of charity in the “Holy Thursday” poem from Songs of Innocence.

It is for these reasons that many charities, as well as providing direct relief to those in need, do so in ways which empower those in poverty and also lobby Governments and multi-nationals over the structures, processes and trade agreements which fail to lift millions out of few whilst benefiting the 1per cent who own about 50 per cent of the world's wealth.

Charity, at is best, is not about trickle-down economics but instead about a real and fair redistribution of wealth. As St Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians:

‘it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written,

“The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.”’

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

William Blake - Holy Thursday.

William Blake & Victor Vertunni

I'm using William Blake's two Holy Thursday poems in tomorrow's 'Discover & explore' service at St Stephen Walbrook which will be exploring the theme of charity. In the course of preparing my reflection I have come across Victor Vertunni's William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Wildy Haskell writes: 'Blake was renowned in his time for both the musical flow of his poetry, but also for the melodies he would craft for them, almost by accident. Without any formal music training, Blake was cited by music professors of his and later times for his musical ability. While none of that music has filtered down through the years, Victor Vertunni has provided fitting musical backdrops for Blake's creations. The album, William Blake's Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience, is an often seamless marriage between Blake's fluid poetry and Vertunni's arrangements.'

Those coming to tomorrow's 'Discover & explore' service will also be able to see the 'Philanthropy - The City Story' exhibition plus a exhibition by the Society of Catholic Artists entitled 'Care of Creation'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victor Vertunni - Holy Thursday.

Discover & explore: New service series

Discover & explore was a service series at St Stephen Walbrook in June and July 2015 of musical discovery exploring themes of beauty, faith, home, imagination, leisure, love and work with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Feedback for this series was overwhelmingly positive and included the following:

• Perfect service of peace in our busy lives.
• Spiritual food in the middle of the day.
• Each part elided into the next, giving a warm whole.
• The music was wonderful. The service was also thoughtful.
• It was like a little jewel with a number of facets drawing us in and lighting our path.
• Beautifully and intelligently done.

The series also included a well-attended and very interesting guided tour of the Victorian Collection at the Guildhall Art Gallery. Our thanks to Sonia Solicari, Principal Curator, for giving us such a wonderful tour and facilitating the partnership with St Stephen Walbrook for this service series.

The next services in the Discover & explore series will be:

• Monday 2nd November, 1.10 - 1.50pm – Bereavement (All Souls).
• Monday 9th November, 1.10 - 1.50pm – Charity.
• Monday 16th November, 1.10 - 1.50pm – Hope.
• Monday 23rd November, 1.10 - 1.50pm – Faith.

The Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields have an essential musical role at this great church. Every year twelve scholars are appointed to sing regular services while also gaining concert experience, benefiting from an extensive training in all aspects of sacred and secular choral music. They are led by the Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Andrew Earis.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

St Martin-in-the-Fields - Choral Evensong.

The 4C's

Here is my Vicar's letter in the January edition of 'Pilgrimage', the magazine for St John's Seven Kings:

As most of you know I will be leaving St John’s on Sunday 18th January in order to become Priest for Partnership Development with roles at both St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Stephen Walbrook. It will be a wrench to leave St John’s, its people and the ministry here but I see my new role as a continuation of the approach to ministry that we have used here at St John’s over the past eight years and as an opportunity to share that approach more widely through this new role.

St Martin-in-the-Fields aims to undertake its mission and ministry through four C’s; congregation, charity, commerce and culture. The church has a large, diverse congregation which gathers for a wide range of different services and activities. The social action for which it is well known with homeless people is undertaken by a charity called The Connection. There are several commercial activities run at St Martins’ including a well used shop and cafe. In addition, there is a large programme of cultural events including concerts and art exhibitions. All of these activities contribute to the mission and ministry of the church

Over the past eight years at St John’s we have worked with a similar pattern. We have sustained a diverse congregation through a wide range of different services plus prayer and study activities. We have been involved in community and social action through ongoing initiatives like the Contact Centre and Redbridge Voluntary Care among others, while also developing new initiatives like the Sophia Hub. Our commercial activities are based around the hire of the Church Centre which has been revised and expanded over this period. Finally, we have also been a centre for a range of cultural events including book group, concerts, exhibitions, workshops and writer’s panels, among others. Again, as at St Martins’, all of these have been part of our mission and ministry contributing to our witness in the community, the maintaining of our congregation and the improvements in our finances.

St Martins’ wish increasingly to share this model and approach with other churches in order to support the development of wide ranging and sustainable mission and ministry. My new role will assist in enabling that sharing of approaches and resources to happen. It is my belief that this is a model that can be widely used within the Church as a whole and which will be vital as we face the challenges and opportunities of the future. What we have done together here at St John’s over the past eight years has also demonstrated the value of this model in an area where numbers of Christians overall are reducing. Sustaining our congregation, improving our finances and developing new ministry is a significant achievement in our context and, to my mind, shows that the combination of congregation, charity, commerce and culture is an approach which needs to be shared and used more widely within the Church as a whole.

That is why I am excited about my new role and think that the time is right for me to move on from St John’s. I thank you all for all we have shared together over the past eight years – encouragements and challenges – and encourage you to continue to be at the forefront of the Church’s mission and ministry by continuing to use the 4C’s here at St John’s. May the riches of God’s empowering and sustaining Spirit rest upon you and fill you in the next new phase of mission and ministry here at St John’s.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Academy of St. Martins-in-the-Fields - Pachelbel's Canon in D Major.