Cricket, Churches, Art and Meals

I've had a busy but very enjoyable weekend which began on Friday evening with a testimonial event for Robert Croft in the Long Room at Lords followed by a day trip to Stoke-on-Trent for the licensing service of Rev. Geoffery Eze in the parish of Stoke Minister and then, after morning services at St John's, a trip to Mersea Island to speak at the Learning Supper for West Mersea Parish Church at the invitation of Peter Banks.

My talk on commission4mission and exploring approaches to Christian Art can be read by clicking here.

In the course of the evening I also found out about the work of Jevan Watkins Jones as a firstsite associate artist and the work being done in local schools and colleges by Christian Youth Outreach (CYO). Watkins Jones often uses his art to resensitize our relationship with ' found objects ' whether a narrative or a motif, he offers us a different view defined by its subtlety and beauty. Tim Abbott, Director of CYO, will be the next Learning Supper speaker sharing experiences of prayer from their Sanctum project.

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After The Fire - 1980-F.

Farewell to our curate

This afternoon we said goodbye to Geoff Eze, who has been our curate at St John's Seven Kings since 2008. This is what I said in thanking him for all he has contributed here during that time:

Because of your wise-cracking and extrovert personality, we have enjoyed and been challenged by some of your sermons that have stayed firmly lodged in our memories like your Christmas Day sermon where you gave us a humourous quiz about yourself (surprise, surprise!) that had us all thinking this is Geoff bigging himself up again. Only to then remove your robes in order to symbolise all that Christ gave up through the incarnation. I remember the whole mood and dynamic of the sermon and the service changing at that point with the meaning behind the action being crystal clear and lodging in memory just as much as the action itself.

We’ve had sermons using jazz, liturgies which rhyme, video interviews, as well as many sermons that have weaved a contemporary story (often personal and self-deprecating) together with the passage on which you have been preaching in such a way as to sustain interest in both the story and the passage. These are approaches to preaching that are not just for effect; they have helped us get at the heart of bible passages in a way that helps them stay in our memory and therefore continue to influence us.

You’ve done some great work with our children and young people over the time that you have been here; organising and fronting Holiday Clubs and building up the youth group with a varied programme which has interested our young people and drawn in young people from outside the church too. You’ve also developed youth leaders and helped in handing over the running of the Youth Group so that we can be confident it will continue. But you haven’t simply focused on young people, important as they are, those elderly and housebound folk that you have regularly visited have been very grateful for your conversation and for bringing them communion at home.

You have played an active role in the development of Street Pastors within the Deanery and took up the opportunity to provide a Christian witness in the community by becoming a Police Chaplain to the Newbury Safer Neighbourhoods Team. You’ve supported the deanery by being the clerk to the Clergy Chapter and by being the arranger for the early cluster meetings. You’ve been a key part of building the closer relationship we now have with St Paul’s Goodmayes and have organised and led the Palm Sunday procession and Praise in the Park. You’ve also done some excellent work with local schools, initially with the Christian Education Project, and then more recently through the Easter Activity Stations and by forging new links with the new Aldborough E-Act Free School and Seven Kings High School.

So, there has been lots that you have done and much that we will remember with real gratitude. But, of course, we will also remember with real affection the person that you are; your optimism and positivity; your liveliness and energy; your humour and piano playing; and perhaps, most of all, the challenge of your ministry here – the challenge to us to expand our vision of what God can achieve through us combined with the encouragement to become all that God intends us to be.

Although we will miss you, we also know that you do need to move on for the next phase of your ministry, so we want to pray for your as you move to Stoke and as you begin your new ministry in the parish of Stoke Minister. Let us pray:

Lord God, we thank you for Geoff and for all that he has brought to St Johns during his time here. We thank you for bringing him to us and for all that we could share together during his curacy. We thank you for his new role in Stoke Minister and pray that you will help him adjust to his home, parish and city with all of the changes that will be involved. We pray that Stoke Minister will be a parish where he can use all of the gifts you have given to him and where he can utilise all that he has learnt through his training and curacy. We pray that he will continue to learn from you through the new experiences he has and the people he will meet and among whom he will minister in Stoke Minister. May your Spirit fill him for these new challenges and opportunities and may your hand of blessing rest upon to sustain and strengthen him for this new ministry in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Black Gospel Jazz - There Is None Like You.

Easter Activity Stations and Schools (2)

Four Year 5 classes from Newbury Park Primary School used the Easter Activity Stations at St John's Seven Kings. Here is Geoff Eze, our curate, with the station on Forgiveness.

After thinking about the way in which Jesus said, "Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing," this Station involved the children asked themselves the following questions:

1. Have you ever been hurt by anybody?
2. Do you need to forgive them?

They then wrote a list of who and what they needed to forgive and stuck this to felt boards by the cross on the altar.

We introduced the Stations with Jesus' analogy of his death and resurrection being like a buried seed bringing forth new life. Children, teachers and classroom assistants all seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity to learn about and from Easter in this way.

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Duke Special - No Cover Up.

What makes a church wedding so special?

Our curate at St John's Seven Kings, Geoff Eze, features in an online video promoting church weddings has been launched on the Church of England website, to meet an increase in demand for information on church weddings. In the video Geoff asks and answers the question: "What makes a church wedding so special? The music, the hymns, the vicar, the venue, the powerful vows, and the love of two people coming together."

Featuring vicars enthusiastic about weddings, couples who have rated their church weddings extremely highly, and the Bishop of Hertford, the professionally produced five-minute video explains how the church has a warm wedding welcome for all. It can be viewed on the weddings website http://www.yourchurchwedding.org/ and on the national Church of England website http://www.churchofengland.org/.


So far this year http://www.yourchurchwedding.org/ has a monthly visitor average of around 50,000, compared to 33,000 visitors per month in 2010 (a 52 per cent year to year increase).

The video, and website, form part of the Church of England's project to promote church weddings that has included roadshows and workshops for clergy in many parts of the country.

The Rt Revd Paul Bayes, Bishop of Hertford, explains in the video: "Now people move around the country a lot more, we've changed the law so you can get married not just in your local church, but also in a whole range of churches that are special for you."

The Revd Rosie Harper, vicar of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, says: "Taking weddings is one of the most joyful parts of my job. And I don't mind whether people come to church often or not, whether they've been baptised or not, because it's everyone's church and so people can come and be welcomed and have a church wedding."

Rosie married Donna and Tod Bowsher, who also feature. Donna says: "The church family were really helpful making sure everything ran really smoothly… It's been said that there's love in the walls because it's so old and there's been so many weddings there, and you do absolutely feel that when you go in the church. So not only is it aesthetically a beautiful place, but it feels beautiful too." Two other couples share their memories of their church wedding.

Tamar Kasriel of Futureal, research adviser to the Archbishops' Council's Weddings Project, reveals: "The majority of the population in the UK… felt that a church wedding is somehow the proper place for a wedding."

Navin Motwani, e-communications officer at the Archbishops' Council, takes viewers through the useful website www.yourchurchwedding.org, introducing them to an online ceremony planner featuring hymns and Bible readings (now used to plan over a third of Church of England weddings), and helpful advice, such as the page Seven Steps to a Heavenly Wedding.

The five-minute Your Church Wedding video was produced with support from the Jerusalem Trust, and will remain online for the next 12 months.

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Regina Spektor - Us.

Becoming places of deep exchange

The churches of the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches (SKFC) signed a new covenant tonight during our Unity Service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The new covenant was discussed and agreed by the church committees of Seven Kings Methodist Church, Seven Kings United Free Church, St John's Seven Kings, St Peter's Aldborough Hatch and St Teresa's Newbury Park during 2010. The covenant, which was originally the idea of Methodist minister Rev. Ken Nicholls, was signed by clergy and lay members of the five churches.

The Unity Service was hosted by St John's Seven Kings and attended by members of each of the five SKFC churches. The service was led by Revd. Geoff Eze and used materials prepared for this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on the theme of All Things In Common. I preached using an excellent sermon prepared by Revd. Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, in which he said:

"The starting point for our Christian witness is for the Church to become that expression of unity, that model of acceptance and welcome and hospitality that is rooted in God. Where these hopes and dreams are bound together, communities become places of deep exchange, where together we become all that God intends for us. To BE the whole people of God."

It is our hope that this new covenant will provide a foundation for our shared activity in future and will also take us further in our church communities becoming places of deep exchange, where together we become all that God intends for us. Our covenant reads as follows:

We, the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches (SKFC), give thanks to God for the unity we experience among us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We acknowledge our common heritage in the faith and profess together our belief in the one God, the Father, Creator of heaven and earth; the Son who dwelt among us, was crucified for us, and was raised from the dead for our salvation and the Holy Spirit who leads his church into all truth.

We regret past misunderstandings between Church denominations and traditions, and recognise that each of our churches has its own distinctive witness and tradition. We honour these traditions standing before one another in charity and praying for a deeper understanding and reconciliation

We undertake to explore together our doctrinal differences and our understanding of the church in the light of existing dialogues at national and international level, so that we may understand one another better and make a contribution to the reconciliation of the churches at those levels

On the basis of our existing unity in Christ, we commit ourselves to one another in love and charity to promote common worship, fellowship, witness and service to the community of which we are a part

In particular we commit ourselves to:

1. To declare our unity as the people of God in this community in whatever practical ways possible.

2. To maintain our common practices of worshipping together, and to seek to develop them further

3. To begin a process of co-ordinating our individual activities, as far as possible.

4. To seek to grow in understanding of the grace and love of God, and of each others traditions. To develop joint prayer and study of each other’s traditions, as well as of our Christian faith and its applications in daily life.

5. To listen to the local community, to become aware of its needs and aspirations and to develop a co-ordinated programme of service and outreach to it.

6. Thoroughly to review our Christian resources of buildings, people, money and ministry, and to develop proposals for sharing them to the best advantage for the church and the community.

We, as SKFC members, undertake to review this covenant at an annual service and then to renew and review it in five years time

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Iona ~ Edge of the World.

Art & Music workshop (2)

St John's Seven Kings held an Art & Music workshop today organised with local churches in preparation for this year's Our Community Festival. The art workshop was led by Mark Lewis of commission4mission with Matt Lewis and Henry Shelton and involved portrait and landscape drawing on the theme of local people and places. These are being collaged into larger displays to be exhibited at St Paul's Goodmayes in the week of, and on the day of, the Our Community Festival. The music workshop will gather together a singing group which may perform at the Our Community Festival and was organised by Rev. Geoff Eze, curate at St John's Seven Kings.

The 'Our Community' Festival is, as its name suggests, a Festival for the whole community in Seven Kings/Goodmayes, which obviously includes the churches. If we, or other community groups, weren't involved it wouldn't be a whole community event. The churches, though, are actively involved in the local community in a host of different ways - running/hosting community groups, schools work, Holiday Clubs, community campaigns, services for wedding and funerals and much more - throughout the year, so being involved with the Festival is a way of highlighting what we actually do.

What we will specifically aim bring to the Festival is an art exhibition at St Paul's Goodmayes, a singing group to perform on the Festival stage, and an information stall publicising the wide range of church activities and services in the area. commission4mission is helping us get the art exhibition ready by running the art workshop. In addition to that though we are involved in the Festival planning group and our congregations will be among those who actively support the Festival by coming along and joining in the fun on the day.

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Sounds Of Blackness - Hold On (Change Is Comin').

Good News: Help & Healing

Here are my remarks from the recent Annual Parochial Chuch Meeting at St John's Seven Kings, which are based on Acts 9. 36‐end.

News about the church in Joppa spread through the whole town because:

o Tabitha was known for doing good, helping the poor, the clothes she made for others (help);
o Tabitha was raised to life (healing).

Help & healing brought new life and was good news.

News about St John’s has also spread in the past year through: word of mouth; community networks; press coverage; and activities/services. New people coming to St John’s have responded to, for example: a funeral sermon; our public stance opposing the BNP; our commitment to improving the community. They have found: counselling; friendship; involvement; prayer; and support here at St Johns. So again, help & healing have brought new life and are good news.

We have in 2009:

o seen new people joining & contributing to the church over the course of the year;
o made changes that are addressing our financial shortfall ;
o developed new partnerships with local churches through the Deanery clustering arrangements;
o contributed to local campaigns to improve community facilities (e.g. the new Seven Kings
library); and
o grown through study, worship and service in our ongoing programme of activities and services.
Some highlights from 2009 included, among others:

o MU 100th Anniversary;
o Geoff Eze’s priesting;
o Palm Sunday procession, Praise in the Park & Caribbean Evening with St Paul’s Goodmayes;
o Showstoppers Holiday Club;
o Patronal Festival events & services;
o Social & fundraising events;
o Confirmations; and
o Visit from Bisoke Balikenga & well attended services over Christmas.

This year we need to work more closely with community groups using our building (user group; newsletter) and continue our active involvement in the local community as a Christian presence and witness (church activities, events & services, community campaigns, community garden).

We are seeking as many different ways of making contact with as many local people as possible in order that in different ways and though different means we can share the love of Jesus.

News about the church spread through the whole town and many people believed in the
Lord. (Acts 9. 42) Help & healing brought new life and was good news.

You can support the way forward by:

o “Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be brave, be strong. Do all your work in love.” (1 Corinthians 16 v 13‐14) – our text for 2010;
o Contributing as you are able (Stewardship);
o Recognise that we can’t and shouldn’t try to do it just by ourselves (Partnership);
o Spread the good news (Mission); and
o Pray for and encourage those whose contribution is different from your own (Fellowship).

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The Housemartins - I'll Be Your Shelter.

Art & Music workshop

St John's Seven Kings is organising an Art & Music workshop on Saturday 29th May from 2.00 - 5.00pm. This workshop has been organised with local churches in preparation for this year's Our Community Festival and is open to all.

The art workshop will be led by Mark Lewis and Peter Webb of commission4mission (http://commissionformission.blogspot.com/) and will involve portrait and landscape drawing on the theme of local people and places. These will then be collaged into larger displays to be exhibited at St Paul's Goodmayes in the week of, and on the day of, the Our Community Festival.

The music workshop will gather together and rehearse a singing group able to perform at the Our Community Festival. This workshop is being organised by Rev. Geoff Eze, curate at St John's Seven Kings.

The art workshop is on a drop-in basis while, for the music workshop, we need participants to come at 2.00pm and remain for the whole session.

Other community events happening at St John's Seven Kings in the near future include:

• Interational Crime Writer's Panel on Wednesday 12th May from 7.15 - 9.00pm. Organised by Redbridge Library Services, this is an evening spent with Crime Authors Michael Stanley, Barbara Nadel and Matt Lynn as they discuss Crime Fiction worldwide! Free tickets are available from the Parish Office, by phone from 020 8708 2737 or by email to mina.rehman@redbridge.gov.uk.


• Plant & Table-top Sale on Saturday 22nd May, 11.00am - 1.00pm. Refreshments and light lunches also available, as well as a range of items for sale.


• Storytelling sessions by Redbridge Library Services for children on Wednesday 12th May (2:00pm – 2.30pm), Friday 4th June (11:30am – 12:00pm), Wednesday 23rd June (2:00pm – 2.30pm) and Friday 16th July (11:30am – 12:00pm).

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Delirious? - Everything.

Praise in the Park

Geoff Eze & Fr. Ben Rutt-Field introduce the event

Bibi Bacchus from St Johns gives her testimony

Michelle Harewood from St Pauls gives her testimony

A selection of those at Praise in the Park

The Salvation Army band

This afternoon Christians from many of the churches in Seven Kings and Goodmayes gathered at the bandstand in Seven Kings Park for an afternoon of Praise in the Park led by the Salvation Army Band (Ilford).

Praise in the Park mixed contemporary worship songs with traditional hymns and featured testimonies from members of St Johns Seven Kings and St Pauls Goodmayes. Bibi Bacchus spoke about coming to Christian faith after growing up in a multi-faith culture in Grenada while Michelle Harewood shared her experience of being strengthened by God in difficulty before finding fulfilment in her current work supporting those who have HIV/Aids.

Revd. Geoff Eze, Curate at St Johns, led the event, which was introduced by Fr. Benjamin Rutt-Field, Vicar of St Pauls Goodmayes. Major Jane Ward read from the Bible and Captain John Smith led the Salvation Army band from the Ilford Corps. The Salvation Army is an international Christian church working in 118 countries worldwide. As a registered charity, The Salvation Army demonstrates its Christian principles through social action and is one of the largest, most diverse providers of social welfare in the world.

The temperamental summer weather did not deter more than 90 local Christians attending Praise in the Park with churches represented including: Seven Kings Methodist Church; Seven Kings United Free Church; St Cedds Goodmayes; St Peters Alborough Hatch; St Teresas Newbury Park, as well as the Salvation Army Ilford Corps, St Johns and St Pauls.

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International Staff Songsters - Good Enough for Him.

Lifelong learning

Geoff with his gift of a home communion set

Geoff opening his gifts

Geoff at the Bring & Share lunch to celebrate his priesting

Bring & Share lunch

Geoff's family at the Bring & Share lunch

Those who went to Spring Harvest this year found that the learning sessions were divided up according to different learning styles. Which of these learning styles fits you best?

o Activist – You like the opportunity to generate a lot of ideas and to think on your feet. You like to start things off, have a go and try things out. You're open minded and enthusiastic about new ideas but tend to get bored with the details of implementation. You tend to act first and consider the implications afterwards. You love bouncing ideas off other people and solving problems as part of a team but you also enjoy the limelight! You learn best when you're involved in new experiences, problems and opportunities; when you're working with others and by being thrown in the deep end.

o Reflector – You like to think about details carefully before taking action and you take a thoughtful approach. You enjoy being prepared and the chance to research and evaluate something. You welcome opportunities to rethink and reflect on what you've learned and to consider a situation from different perspectives. You like to make decisions in your own time, you keep a low profile and enjoy observing others and hearing their opinions before offering your own. You learn best by reviewing what's happened and mulling over what you've learned and when you have time to complete tasks without tight deadlines.

o Theorist – You are logical and objective and take a step by step approach to problem solving. You pay attention to the details and can be a perfectionist. You are good at translating what you see around you into theories and you're good at fitting things into an overall understanding. You're detached and analytical, rather than subjective or emotional in your thinking and you like to feel intellectually stretched. You learn best in complex situations where you have to rely on skills and knowledge and when you can question and probe the ideas behind things.

o Pragmatist – You like to see how things work out in practice and you enjoy experimenting. You're a down-to-earth problem solver and you like concepts that can be readily applied to your everyday life. You can get impatient with lengthy conceptual discussions which you regard as impractical because you like to see the relevance of your work and to see a practical advantage from using what you've learned. You learn best when there is an obvious link between the topic and job and when you have the chance to feedback on ideas. You love being shown techniques with obvious advantages (e.g. saving time or money) or when you are shown something you can copy (like a proven technique).

We all have a preference for one or the other of these and learn most easily when learning experiences fit with our preferred style but, in order, to become more rounded people its also good to step out of our comfort zones and stretch ourselves by using the other learning styles as well.

You’ve thought briefly about those different styles in relation to yourself and probably other people too, so now let’s think about them in relation to Jesus and the disciples. When Jesus called his first disciples and they dropped their nets to follow him, the disciples were in Activist mode: acting first and considering the implications afterwards; being thrown in the deep end and trying things out.

But then they spent most of their time doing what disciples of rabbi’s always did, sitting at the rabbi’s feet and listening to the rabbi’s teaching. Then they were in Theorist mode: paying attention; fitting things into an overall understanding; intellectually stretched; questioning and probing the ideas behind things.

Now, in today’s Gospel reading, we see them going into Pragmatist mode by being asked to copy what they have been shown. Jesus sends them out two by two to have a go at doing what he has been doing: teaching and healing. Now they have to see how things work out in practice, apply the techniques that Jesus has taught them and solve problems in practice; like the problem of how to respond when they are rejected.

Later, when they return (and we read about this in Luke rather than Mark) they go into Reflector mode by reviewing with Jesus what happened while they were travelling preachers and healers and mulling over what they had learnt. They come back in great joy having had some great experiences and Jesus then puts what they have seen and done into the context of God’s plan for the world.

So, we can see the way in which the disciples benefited from different learning experiences and different learning styles at different times in their development. What is happening here today at St Johns is part of the same process; one particular disciple is in Pragmatist mode copying what he has been shown and trying something out in practice for the first time as Geoff Eze presides at communion for the first time having been ordained last week as a priest.

This is the culmination of a lengthy process of learning that will continue after today, because learning should be a lifelong experience for all of us and not something that is confined to particular periods in the education system. Geoff has made his own Activist response as he put himself forward for selection to the ordained ministry. There was a lengthy Reflective period as he went through selection followed by two years of primarily Theorist learning at Trinity College before coming here for a period of learning that mainly combines Pragmatism with Reflection.

That combination of Pragmatist with Reflector suits Geoff well, which is one reason why his curacy is proving a positive experience for him and for us, but all the learning styles are involved at different times and, as Jesus did with the disciples, we try to work through a cycle of learning – planning an activity as a Theorist; testing out techniques as a Pragmatist; throwing yourself into the activity as an Activist; and then reviewing the experience as a Reflector before working through the learning cycle all over again.

Now we might say that that is fine for a curate who as everyone knows is in the final stages of training for future roles in ordained ministry (incumbency, chaplaincy and so on) but what does it have to say to us who are not training as ordained ministers?

I’ve tried to indicate answers to that question as we’ve gone along. When he gave his disciples the Great Commission just before his Ascension, Jesus said that they were to go and make disciples. What he was saying is that all of us who follow Jesus are to be disciples and disciples are those who sit at the feet of the rabbi (in our case, Jesus) and learn from him. Just as Jesus took his disciples through a cycle of learning, so he wants to do the same with us. As part of that learning, the disciples were given roles and responsibilities and became leaders in the church – as has also happened for Geoff – but they never ceased to be disciples and always had more to learn.

It is the same for us, as it is for Geoff. It is a little like the process of being ordained first as a deacon and then as a priest. Simply put, a deacon is a servant. We are ordained first as a deacon to remind us that we are servants of Christ and his church first and foremost. When we are ordained as priest, we don’t then stop being a deacon and it doesn’t matter whether we then go on to further ordinations, for example as a bishop, we remain a deacon, a servant, throughout.

It is the same for us, whether we are a Reader or a Church Warden or a Homegroup leader or a Hall Bookings Manager or a Choir Director or whatever role we might play in our church or our workplaces, as a Manager or a Secretary or Director or some other role. Whatever role or responsibility we have we are first and foremost a disciple, a learner, and, as a result, our learning should be lifelong and not only during particular periods of education.

Geoff, because he is in training, can be a visual reminder that we are all in training all the time. We need that reminder regularly because we all face the temptation to think that we have arrived – maybe as Christians, maybe in the role we carry out – when in fact we all have more to learn all the time. Not least, because we are learning from the perfection of Jesus himself and we always fall short of that perfection and therefore always have more to learn.

When we understand ourselves to be disciples, learners, first and foremost then it changes our attitude towards the roles we play. If we know that there is always something more we can learn then we pay attention to others and what they are doing rather than focusing on ourselves, we have a basic curiosity that makes us ask why are you doing that that way, instead of saying “it’s my way or the highway,” we have an underlying humility that recognises that I may have much to learn from your way.

Where are we in relation to these kinds of attitudes? Where are we in our learning cycle with Jesus? Where do we need to be stretched and challenged in our lives and learning styles? Are we inspired by the experience of having someone who is actively learning among us to be active learners ourselves? It is easy for parishes to think that because they are a training parish they have everything to give instead of everything to learn. But the best trainers are those who are aware of always learning themselves.

What are you learning from Jesus at the moment? How is your faith changing and developing your life at the moment? How is your ministry growing in your home, in this church, in our community and in your workplace? These are the questions we need to ask if we are to be those who sit at the feet of Jesus in order to learn from his teaching and practice. These are the questions we need to ask and to answer if we are to be disciples.

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Larry Norman - I Am A Servant.

Not titles but testimonies

Geoff Eze, curate at St Johns Seven Kings, was ordained as a priest during a service held at St Marys Walthamstow on Sunday 28th June. He was one of six ordained as priest by the Bishop of Barking during the service, which was attended by many of the St Johns congregation.

During the ordination service, the Ven. Elwin Cockett, Archdeacon of West Ham, spoke movingly about his father who instead of pursuing positions as a doctor in this country served others abroad through his skills and, as a result, died in his mid-thirties. On the day of his funeral the Ghanaian town where he had served came to a standstill. Elwin concluded that it was not titles but testimonies that are the true measure of a person’s life and service.

Geoff says that: "Serving St John's for the last year has been a privilege and a blessing. My ordination to the priesthood is a testimony to the work of the Lord through His people, especially that of my vicar, Jonathan and the loving and dedicated congregation of St John's. I look forward with intrepidation and excitement to continue working for St John's and the people of Seven Kings in Christ's name."

An ordination is a very special celebration for the whole church. From earliest times Christians have recognized that God has called and gifted every Christian to some sort of ministry. The Bible and early church history suggest our traditional pattern of Bishop, Priest and Deacon as servant leaders of God’s people.

Ordination as priest is the next step that Geoff is taking on an exciting journey through life of being committed to God. We, at St John’s, look forward to all that the next stage on that journey will bring both for him and for us.

Geoff will preside at communion for the first time in the 10.00am service at St Johns Seven Kings on Sunday 5th July. The service will be followed by a bring-and-share lunch to celebrate Geoff’s Priesting. All are welcome.

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Paul Johnson - If We Lose Our Way.

Embrace the risk

Geoff Eze, the curate at St John's, hadn’t sung ‘Unto us a Son is born!’ before and he got quite a shock when he was out carol singing round the parish and he realised what he was singing in the third verse:

“Herod then, with fear was filled:
‘A prince,’ he said, ‘in Jewry!’
All the little boys he killed
At Beth-lem in his fury,
At Beth-lem in his fury.”

‘Unto us a Son is born!’ is the only carol in our Carol Sheet that mentions this part of the Christmas story and you can see why, as in a few short phrases it graphically brings home to us the horror of the genocide which the Christmas story contains.

A few days ago I heard Revd. Giles Fraser, Vicar of Putney, talk about this story in a BBC Four programme on ‘Ten Best Sacred Christmas Classics.’ He was talking about ‘The Childhood of Christ’ by Berlioz and spoke about the way that this piece of music associates Christmas with fear by including the story of the massacre of the infants.

Why should Christmas be associated with fear? He was arguing that people had traditionally associated God with protection. God was the all-powerful, the omniscient, the all-seeing, all-knowing one who could always be there for you in every situation and circumstance. But the Christmas story is of God becoming the weakest, most vulnerable, most dependent thing that a human being can be and that is a new-born baby.

The Christmas story is that the God who we think of as being an all-powerful protector actually becomes wholly dependent on human beings for his own protection. Fraser argues that that is frightening because it removes our sense of being protected at the same time that it makes God weak and vulnerable. And the point in the Christmas story when this realisation comes rushing in on us like a freight train is the massacre of the innocents because we realise that God is now in a place and position where he can be killed; not just through the malevolence and wickedness of Herod but possibly just through an accident or neglect. As a human baby God is wholly dependent on human beings for his protection and as we hear regularly on the news we don’t actually have a very good track record when it comes to treating children well.

Fraser emphasises the sense of shock and fear for us in finding our protector become dependent. I want instead to emphasise what this conveys to us of God’s love. The story of the massacre of the innocents shows us that God is willing to take the risk of coming into our world; a world in which genocide occurs and in which innocent children are abused and die. He is willing to risk coming into this world unprotected as a baby wholly dependent on his human parents for protection:

“And the word became …
Wordless
Flesh
A baby with no words
And the voice of the maker became a hungry voice
A cry for food
A cry for milk
The voice that made gravity cried out for fear of falling
The voice that made women cries for a woman’s breast and screams with disappointment when it is denied …

Then now God is this small thing
Is a baby
Is a baby that can be dropped or hurt or left unfed, left unchanged, left wet and smelly
Or be child-abused.” (‘Image of the Invisible,’ Late, Late Service)

This is the reality of the incarnation and of the Christmas story. This is what it means for Jesus to be born. It is the ultimate identification. God becomes flesh and blood and moves into our neighbourhood with all that that involves, not just at the beginning of his life but throughout:

incarnation

knew what it meant to be born into poverty
knew what it meant to survive genocide
knew what it meant to be forced to live as a refugee
knew what it meant to grow up disadvantaged
knew what it meant to experience the stigma of illegitimacy
knew what it meant to go to school and to learn a trade
knew what it meant to turn to God in prayer, faith and hope
knew what it meant to offer up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears
knew what it meant to be hungry and thirsty
knew what it meant to be tempted and tested
knew what it meant to share food and drink with friends
knew what it meant to be feted and praised
knew what it meant to feel compassion
knew what it meant to meet people’s needs
knew what it meant to be criticised for doing good
knew what it meant to shed tears at the death of a friend
knew what it meant to be questioned and rejected
knew what it meant to wrestle with God
knew what it meant to be arrested and imprisoned
knew what it meant to be put on trial
knew what it meant to be beaten and tortured
knew what it meant to be scarred
knew what it meant to be abandoned by a father
knew what it meant to learn obedience from suffering
knew what it meant to die

Emmanuel – God with us
made like his brothers and sisters in every way
tempted in every way, just as we are
able to sympathize with our weaknesses
Emmanuel - became flesh and blood
moved into our neighbourhood.

Why does God do this? Why does he take the risk? It is all because of love and it is perhaps best explained in some words from Hebrews 2. 14-18:

“Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it's logical that the Saviour took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil's hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.

It's obvious, of course, that he didn't go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham. That's why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people's sins, he would have already experienced it all himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed.”

Hebrews 4. 14-16 then goes on to says: “Now that we know what we have — Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God — let's not let it slip through our fingers. We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all — all but the sin. So let's walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”

This Christmas let's do just that - walk right up to him and get what he has demonstrated that he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help, receive the love, embrace the risk.

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Regina Spektor - The Call.

A memorable weekend

Mugisa performs her song

Bibi's Guianese presentation

'The Girls'

Morris Dancers

Part of the International Evening audience

The past weekend has been memorable at St John's Seven Kings for two reasons. We have welcomed our new curate, Geoff Eze, into the parish and have been visted by the Rt. Revd. Isingoma, Bishop of Boga, a diocese in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To celebrate we held an International Evening on Saturday 5th July which featured guests in national dress, food from around the world, and performers from many different countries. We enjoyed songs in English, French, Swahili and Tamil, morris dancing, a quiz on British National Parks, a presentation on Guiana, among other items. The Crusader and Starlight signing groups performed tamil and caribbean gospel songs. Geoff Eze was welcomed with the gift of a prayer book and a card signed by the whole congregation. Bishop Isingoma gave a blessing and his wife, Mugisa, performed a song.

The previous Sunday Geoff Eze had been ordained as a deacon at Chelmsford Cathedral and a group from the parish had been at that service to support him. Geoff says:

"Having been ordained at Chelmsford Cathedral on the 29th of June it is with great excitement and equal trepidation that I have entered the role of Curate to serve not only the congregation of St Johns but the wider parish within Seven Kings. Having been a Christian since the age of 11 (influenced heavily by loving Christian parents) God has led me to Seven Kings (via St Matthew’s in Stratford, East London).

I come to Seven Kings as a man who has lived a little and cried a lot more but with the hope that God can affect Seven Kings for the better. I have a limited knowledge of the local parish having lived in Ilford for the majority of my life but I am living in a vibrant, changing part of Redbridge with its excitements and challenges. It is in those challenges that I believe God is affecting the community just by opening the doors of St Johns to the doors of the entire community. That is exciting. That is exhilarating. It is frightening, but within the tension of all three God has placed me. That is a privilege that intend to honour with the help of my Lord Jesus Christ."

Bishop Isingoma preached to a full Sunday morning service at St John's and was encouraged to be told of a gift in memory of Dr Sugie Davie which will enable motorbikes to be bought for his Archdeacons. These will aid them in visiting parishes across the large Diocese of Boga. The Bishop also met Rachel Page, a teenager from St John's who will be visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo this summer as part of a CMS Encounter. During the Encounter, Rachel will be involved in a brick making project and a children's Bible Club.

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Sounds Of Blackness - Optimistic.

Welcomes & a farewell

Rt. Revd. Isingoma (Bishop of Boga, Democratic Republic of Congo), Revd. Geoff Eze (Curate, St John's Seven Kings), Mme Mugisa Isingoma (Bishop's wife) at St John's Seven Kings

July, for St John's, will be a time for several welcomes and a farewell. The welcomes began at our International Evening on Saturday 5th July when we had the opportunity to welcome Geoff Eze, our new curate into the Parish. Geoff was ordained as a deacon the previous Sunday and had already spent his first week in the Parish by the time of the International Evening, but for most of us that evening was our first opportunity to welcome him.

Also at the International Evening were Bishop and Mrs Isingoma from the Diocese of Boga in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are currently visiting our Parish, prior to attending the Lambeth Conference. Bishop Isingoma preached at the 10am service on Sunday 6th July and Mrs Isingoma will speak at a special Mothers’ Union meeting on this evening. We have been looking forward greatly to their visit as it gives us another opportunity to renew our support for the work of Judy Acheson and Agape in Boga.

Next Sunday St John's will welcome Father Ben Rutt-Field from St Paul’s Goodmayes, as he and I will swap churches for that morning and lead each other’s services. As part of the Deanery Vision, neighbouring parishes are being encouraged to look for ways of working together. Father Ben and I are initiating that process for St Paul’s and St John’s by visiting each others churches. In the autumn we hope to take this further by getting our respective Mission committees together to share ideas on ways of working together.

The farewell is to Linda McMurray, the Minister of Seven Kings Methodist, who helped in the leading of the Lent courses held at St John’s this year. Linda and her husband Nigel are moving to Newcastle and Linda’s leaving service will be held on Sunday 20th July from 3pm at Seven Kings Methodist. I have greatly valued Linda’s friendship and prayers together with the opportunity to work ecumenically with her, both here and in Barking.

Our Holiday Club (10.00am – 12.30pm, 29th July to 1st August) will this year be called ‘Champions Challenge’ and will include the usual blend of songs, drama, crafts and games. This year there will also be a Community BBQ (12noon – 2pm, Saturday 2nd August) to which everyone is invited and the Holiday Club service will round the week off at 10am on Sunday 3rd August. After all that we will no doubt collapse in a heap having had a lot of fun and having shared Jesus with those around.

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Delirious? - Inside Outside.

Welcome to Geoff Eze

This is Geoff Eze and I following Geoff's ordination as a Deacon at Chelmsford Cathedral yesterday. Geoff begins his ministry as curate at St John's today and I am greatly looking forward to working with him and his being part of our team at St John's.

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Robert Randolph & The Family Band - Going In The Right Direction.