Shut the door

Here's the reflection I shared at today's Deanery Mothers' Union Service at St Catherine's Wickford:

From the mid-1920s onwards, Evelyn Underhill became highly-regarded as a retreat conductor and an influential spiritual director. Her first experience of a conducted retreat at the Pleshey retreat house in 1922 transformed her attitude toward church and vocation, and began the process of clarifying her own calling.

Born on 6th December 1875 in Wolverhampton, from an early age she described having mystical insights, and her deep interest in spiritual matters continued throughout her life. Between 1921 and 1924 her spiritual director was Baron Friedrich von Hűgel, who encouraged her to place Jesus Christ more centrally at the heart of her reflections. After his death in 1925 she began taking on a prominent role in the Church of England, leading retreats at Pleshey and elsewhere, and as a spiritual guide to many. Amongst the books she published are ‘Mysticism’ (in 1911) and ‘Worship’ (in 1936). She was one of the first women theologians to give public lectures at English universities, and was the first woman allowed officially to teach Church of England clergy.

Evelyn Underhill is one of the most important Christian mystics of the twentieth century and was one of the first important figures to champion the humility, ordinariness, and indeed “normalcy” of the mystical life. The subtitle of one of her best books, ‘Practical Mysticism’ is “A Little Book for Normal People.” She worked hard to dispel the notion that mysticism only belonged to the super-holy, the super-religious, the super-pious. On the contrary, the contemplative life is the ordinary state for Christian maturity. (http://evelynunderhill.org/three-evelyn-underhill-anthologies/)

In her book on The Fruits of The Spirit, she wrote about today's Gospel passage (Matthew 6.1-6, 16-18) in relation to retreats:

“Christ, who so seldom gave detailed instruction about anything, did give some detailed instruction of that … recollection which is the essential condition of real prayer, real communion with God.

"When you pray, go into a room by yourself - and shut the door." I think we can almost see the smile with which He said those three words, and those three words define what we have to try to do. Anyone can retire into a quiet place and have a thoroughly unquiet time in it - but that is not … the shutting of the door …

Shut the door. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. Nearly everyone pulls it to and leaves it slightly ajar so that a whistling draught comes in from the outer world, with reminders of all the worries, interests, conflicts, joys and sorrows of daily life.

But Christ said shut and He meant shut. A complete barrier deliberately set up, with you on one side alone with God and everything else without exception on the other side. The voice of God is very gentle; we cannot hear it if we let other voices compete. It is no use at all to enter that room, that inner sanctuary, clutching the daily paper, the reports of all the societies you support, your engagement book and a large bundle of personal correspondence. All these must be left outside.

The object … is not intercession or self-exploration, but such communion with Him as shall afterwards make you more powerful in intercession; such self loss in Him as shall heal your wounds by new contact with His life and love.”

Evelyn Underhill was writing specifically for retreatants but Jesus’ words were not originally addressed to those on retreat. Instead, they were addressed to ordinary people going about their everyday lives, so his call to shut the door when praying was not once a year when we are on retreat but each time we pray. Likewise, seeking the opportunity of being alone with God and attending to God in order that we may do His will better in our everyday lives is not intended by Jesus as a once a year opportunity, rather as a regular experience.

The reward that God provides for our private prayers is the multiplication of all that we give, as St Paul says in our reading from 2 Corinthians 9: ‘He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.’

That was the experience of Mary Sumner who, in 1876, wrote her own personal prayer which she then prayed every day for the rest of her life: ‘All this day, O Lord, let me touch as many lives as possible for thee; and every life I touch do thou by thy spirit quicken, whether through the word I speak, the prayer I breathe or the life I live. Amen.’

Later, Mary decided that a new organisation was needed in her parish and the first branch of Mothers' Union was begun. She was spurred into action when her eldest daughter gave birth to her first baby. Mary remembered her feelings of inadequacy as a young mother charged with the terrible responsibility for a new life. She believed that women from every class needed to understand that motherhood was a profession and be equipped to perform it. Motherhood involved more than providing for the physical needs of children. The primary responsibility of mothers was to raise their children in the love of God. Mothers could only do this, she believed, if their lives were firmly rooted in prayer.

Her plan for a new form of mothers’ meeting, bringing together mothers of all classes, did not start auspiciously. Having gathered the women of the parish in the Rectory, Mary could not present her ideas due to nerves. She had to call them together again a week later to explain the objects of the new society and to give out simple cards containing practical suggestions.

In 1885, Bishop Ernest Wilberforce of Newcastle called on Mary to speak to a women's meeting made up of 1000 poor and anxious women at the Portsmouth Church Congress. Despite her initial resistance, as at that time respectable women did not address public meetings, she agreed. Painting a picture of the low moral standards in the country, she asked what could be done to improve the national character. Her answer was that the power for change lay in the hands of mothers. If women united in prayer and committed themselves to a Christian life the nation could be transformed.

The meeting responded to her passion and conviction with a rousing ovation. It was on this wave of public enthusiasm that the Bishop of Winchester decided to make Mothers' Union a diocesan organisation. This decision was destined to change the lives of many far beyond the boundaries of the diocese of Winchester.

The global movement that is the Mothers’ Union began with personal prayer in a room with a shut door and grew as a result of the prayer that underpinned its growth. May our generation commit ourselves to prayer by following the examples of Jesus, Evelyn Underhill and Mary Sumner. Amen.

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Celebrating Evelyn Underhill at the Retreat House with Canon John Howden.

Become fools so that you may become wise

Here's the sermon that I shared with our Mothers' Union branch members during their pre-TGM Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford:

A wise person once said, “There is only one way to acquire wisdom. But when it comes to making a fool of yourself, you have your choice of thousands of different ways.” In our NT reading today ( 1 Corinthians 3.18-end), St Paul says “If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” So, what is the wisdom that we are to seek and how do we acquire it?

In his letter, Jesus’ brother James states, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (1.5). Wisdom is a gift given by God that must be wholeheartedly sought and asked for. Once received, it must be relied upon to help one persevere, live a godly life, and have hope. More than just insight and good judgment, wisdom is “the endowment of heart and mind which is needed for the right conduct of life.” (http://www.galaxie.com/article/atj29-0-03)

James also helpfully distinguishes between Christian wisdom and that of the worldly-wise. The worldly-wise are full of selfish ambition, eager to get on, asserting their own rights. God reckons a person wise when s/he puts selfishness aside and shows disinterested concern for others. This kind of wisdom is seen in a person’s personality and behaviour – not in mere intellectual ability. Accordingly - and this is one of the main themes of James’ letter – genuine faith in Christ always spills over into the rest of life. It affects basic attitudes to yourself, other people, and life in general meaning that there should be no discrepancy between belief and action. (The Lion Handbook to the Bible)

Secular philosophy tends to measure everything by human beings, and comes to doubt whether wisdom is to be found at all. But the Old Testament with its motto – ‘the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’ – turns the world the right way up, with God at its head, his wisdom the creative and ordering principle that runs through every part; and human beings, disciplined and taught by that wisdom, finding life and fulfilment in his perfect will. Knowledge in its full sense is a relationship with God, dependent on revelation or wisdom and inseparable from character or discipline.

Philosophy means the love of wisdom but we are not talking here about a detached, academic or ivory tower style love of wisdom; instead we are speaking of insights which come from hard graft, wisdom from experience tested in the fire. So, for the Bible’s wisdom to really make sense we have to take and use it in everyday life; to apply to our Monday to Saturday lives rather than keeping it bottled up on Sundays alone.

Wisdom comes as we make a habit of reflecting on daily life recognising that God is to be found there. As David Adam has written:

“If our God is to be found only in our churches and our private prayers, we are denuding the world of His reality and our faith of credibility. We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the heart of God. Our work, our travels, our joys and our sorrows are enfolded in His loving care. We cannot for a moment fall out of the hands of God. Typing pool and workshop, office and factory are all as sacred as the church. The presence of God pervades the work place as much as He does a church sanctuary.” (Power Lines: Celtic Prayers about Work, SPCK, 1992)

The second source of wisdom is Jesus himself. What is said of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is also said of Jesus in John 1. James Dunn puts it succinctly: "What pre-Christian Judaism said of Wisdom … Paul and the others say of Jesus. The role that Proverbs … ascribe to Wisdom, these earliest Christians ascribe to Jesus." (Christology in the Making)

‘The New Testament teaches a “wisdom Christology” in various passages, indicating that Jesus is the fulfilment of this portrait of wisdom (see 1 Corinthians 1:24, 30; Colossians 2:3). The connections between Proverbs 8 and John 1 are particularly important: Wisdom is “from the beginning” (8:23), as is the Word that is with God; wisdom is the agent of creation (8:27-31), as is the Word (John 1:3); wisdom is “begotten” by Yahweh (8:24), as is the Word (John 1:18).’ (Peter J. Leithart)

This means that ‘Christians seek and find all the things Wisdom offers in Christ.’ Wisdom makes plans and carries them out. Wisdom helps kings to govern and rulers to make good laws which bring honour and prosperity to their nations because they walk the way of righteousness and follow the paths of justice (Proverbs 8. 11 - 21). Jesus, the Wisdom of God, also enables all these things to happen.

‘Wisdom was [God’s] agent to create the world, and through Wisdom, kings establish boundaries and create worlds (cf. Ecclesiastes 2:1-11); and Jesus is the Wisdom of God who equips us to form our worlds after the pattern of God’s Word and to re-form the whole world after the pattern of His kingdom. Jesus as the Wisdom of God does not rescue us from responsibility for the world, but equips us to be [righteous leaders].’

So, we are called to become wise but not with the wisdom of the world. Instead, let us beg for knowledge and plead for insight of God. Let us look for it as hard as we would for silver or some hidden treasure. If we do, we will know what it means to fear the Lord and we will succeed in learning about God because it is the Lord who gives wisdom; from him come knowledge and understanding. May it be so for us too. Amen.

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Iona - Wisdom.

The mother heart of God

Here's the reflection that I shared in today's Mothers' Union Eucharist for All Souls Day at St Andrew's Wickford:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!” (Luke 13. 31 – end)

In this statement of his love for the people of Jerusalem, Jesus speaks of his concern and love for Jerusalem being typified by a mother hen gathering together all her chicks under her wing for safety and warmth. Lovingly, Jesus is saying he wants to be like the mother hen gathering God’s people to him where they will then experience safety and love. At the same time that he makes this specific statement to the people of Jerusalem, he is also paying a wonderful tribute to motherhood itself by equating the love which God shows towards us to the love that mothers show towards their offspring.

We tend to think most readily of God as a father but there are several places in scripture where God’s love is described as being like that of mother for her children.

Hannah Whitall Smith wrote “My children have been the joy of my life. I cannot imagine more exquisite bliss than comes to one sometimes in the possession and companionship of a child. To me there have been moments, when my arms have been around my children, that have seemed more like what the bliss of heaven must be than any other thing I can conceive of; and I think this feeling has taught me more of what God’s feelings towards his children are than anything else in the universe. If I, a human being with limited capacity, can find such joy in my children, what must God, with his infinite heart of love, feel towards his; In fact most of my ideas of the love and goodness of God have come from my own experience as a mother, because I could not conceive that God would create me with a greater capacity for unselfishness and self-sacrifice than He possessed Himself; and since this discovery of the mother heart of God I have always been able to answer every doubt that may have arisen in my mind, as to the extent and quality of the love of God, by simply looking at my own feelings as a mother.”

Hannah Whitall Smith lived in the United States in the 1850’s. She was born into a Quaker family but later became a Wesleyan preacher and was one of the inspirations behind the Keswick Convention. She wrote those words about the mother heart of God after reading Isaiah 66. 12 – 13, another passage of scripture in which God’s love for all people is described as being like a mother’s love for her children: "The Lord says, “You will be like a child that is nursed by its mother, carried in her arms, and treated with love. I will comfort you in Jerusalem, as a mother comforts her child.”

Jesus’ focus was on the safety that mothers’ seek to provide for their children out of love. Here, the focus is on the sense of comfort that the child receives from the love of its mother, particularly as it is nursed and fed. Isaiah also used motherly imagery in reference to God in Chapter 49. 15 where the focus is on the faithfulness of a mother’s love:

“The Lord answers,

“Can a woman forget her own baby
and not love the child she bore?
Even if a mother should forget her child,
I will never forget you.”

Nancy Hicks picks up on imagery around nursing the child when she writes about Psalm 131:

“Nursing was one of the most intimate acts I have ever been allowed to participate in, and what joy to be utterly depended upon! But a nursing baby is a demanding baby, “Pick me up NOW! Feed me NOW!” And when she fell asleep in my arms I felt needed, but not really appreciated for anything other than my capacity to satisfy hunger.

Then she was weaned. Now, when she crawled into my lap it was for relationship and comfort and intimacy. I understood God’s delight at the psalmist’s words, “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.” 

In Psalm 131, the Psalmist pictures himself having the kind of intimacy with God that a weaned child has as it cuddles up on its mother’s lap. That intimacy comes after the child has been fed and has moved on from milk to solid food.

So, the picture that we gain from all these descriptions is of God’s love as the love of a mother for her child is that of God wanting to bring us into a place where we feel safe alongside her, where we know the comfort of being fed and therefore grow from the basics of the faith (the milk) to the depths of the faith (the solid food).

Do you experience the love of God in these ways? Have you thought, like Hannah Whitall Smith, that if we can find deep joy in our children, what must God, with his infinite heart of love, feel towards us? God loves you like a mother loves her child. As we reflect together on All Souls Day and pray for the souls of those we have loved and lost, God wants to take us into a deeper relationship with him and at the heart of that relationship is his infinite heart of love beating with the kind of love which mother’s commonly show towards their children. May we open up our lives and hearts to receive that love and enter in to that depth of relationship today! Amen.

There are two final points it is worth us noting. As we have already said, we commonly speak about God as male and yet the scriptures do use, as we have seen, female imagery of God. Interestingly, not just in terms of the mother heart of God, but wisdom and Spirit in particular are often feminine terms. This is of real significance in understanding that women and men are valued equally by God and were created by God to be equal.

Secondly, all talk about God as male and female, Father or Mother, is ultimately only descriptive language. God is always more than any label or image we use to help us understand him. Ultimately, God is Spirit and neither exclusively male or female. It is great to think of God as a loving Father or a loving Mother because those images help us understand and grasp something of the reality and significance of his love but God’s love is always greater and deeper than the love that we have experienced even from the most loving of parents.

Our Service for the Commemoration of the Departed is at 6.30 pm on Sunday at St Andrew's Wickford. All are most welcome.

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Hildegard von Bingen - Voices of Angels - Voices of Ascension.

Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry Annual Report

Here's the 2022 for the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry that I shared at our recent APCM:

The PCC is committed to enabling worship in all three churches which resources those who share in it to live lives of faithfulness and service, is welcoming and attractive to newcomers, and helps to make God known to those on the fringes of faith. We are committed, also, to living out our faith, both corporately and individually, in ways which serve the local community practically and pastorally.

We are seeking to be churches, and a team of churches, that are at the heart of the communities of Wickford and Runwell, while also being with those on the edge. We have joined HeartEdge and are utilising their mission model, the 4Cs of compassion, culture, commerce and congregation, together with the idea of Being With, as an incarnational model of mission and ministry:

• Compassion: We are involved with our ecumenical partners in the Gateway Project, the local Foodbank hosted by the Salvation Army. We also collect for the local Women’s Refuge and fundraise for our Kenya Link. We partnered with Kintsugi Hope in 2022, with the aim of setting up a Wellbeing Group in 2023, and began work on plans to set up a Parent and Toddler Group at St Catherine’s in 2023. Our coffee mornings and Meet and Make group provide warm spaces to local residents.
• Culture: We are developing St Andrew’s as a cultural centre for the town through our ‘Unveiled’ arts and performance evenings, an exhibition programme, and an arts festival (12-26 May 2023).
• Commerce: We hire out our Halls at all three of our churches and receive donations for use of our car park at St Andrew’s (update - now managed by NCP).
• Congregation: Our core activities include – Services; Messy Church; Mothers Union; Quiet Days (St Mary’s); Pastoral Visitors; Educational opportunities (Bible Study groups, Lent Course, Being With courses); Prayer Circle; and Social/fundraising events.

For us, Being With others includes: Contemplative Commuters; Meet & Make (Craft group); Saturday Solace; Schools ministry; Rail/Street Pastors (Mike Tricker); and Unveiled events.

We hope that in our three churches visitors and regulars will find:

• a warm welcome, whoever they are, wherever they come from, and whatever they bring, because all are made in God's image; and
• people in all their variety who try to live out God's transforming love for this parish and community.

Achievements and performance

Worship and prayer

Patterns of worship have been shaped by the Ministry Team, led, initially by Team Vicar (House for Duty), Revd Sue Wise, and, from May, by the Team Rector, Revd Jonathan Evens, in conjunction with the PCC. For much of the year we had two Sunday services, one at 10.00 am in either St Mary’s or St Andrew’s (alternating bimonthly) and an 11.00 am at St Catherine’s. However, from October, we reintroduced Sunday morning services at all three churches together with these being All-age services on the first Sunday in the month at St Andrew’s, second at St Catherine’s, and third at St Mary’s.

Our average Sunday attendance for October across the parish was 37 (with an additional average of 8 online), during which time our churches held their Harvest Festivals and we had a Messy Church for Harvest, we held our usual midweek and evening services, and hosted a School Harvest Service. We recommenced our monthly services at four Care Homes and, in the autumn, were able to begin holding Messy Church on a bi-monthly basis. At Christmas we were able to hold our Christingle and Crib Services for the first time in two years and saw encouraging numbers returning to those services, as well as for Midnight Mass, and Advent and Christmas as a whole.

There was a total of 41 baptisms in the year, of which one was an adult. There were 6 weddings in the parish and our funeral ministry continued with 43 funerals conducted by our clergy, in either church or crematorium, and 15 interments of ashes.

Occasions for sharing and exploring faith have been created through our education programme. We held our annual Parish Study Day in January, a Lent Course, a Parish Quiet Day at the Othona Community in Bradwell, and a Living in Love & Faith course. We also held a first Quiet Day at St Mary’s and aim to organize more in 2023. Several Bible Study groups have also met regularly during the year.

Mothers Union has had a full and interesting year’s programme under the leadership of Caroline Wheeler. This included an excellent Garden Party celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Following the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, books of condolence were opened at all three churches and Commemoration Services held.

Deanery Synod

Three members of the PCC sit on the Deanery Synod, as well as our clergy. This provides the PCC with an important link between the parish and the wider structures of the Church. There were four meetings in 2022, including a meeting with Parish Treasurers and Churchwardens to discuss the new Parish Share formula. Speakers throughout the year have included the Area Dean and Archdeacon of Southend on Parish Share, plus Fr Michael Hall on Spiritual Direction and Nikki Schuster (CEO of Renew) on counselling. Kat D'Arcy Cumber, our General Synod Link member, gave a report on the February 2022 Synod meeting.

Our Churches and Halls

Our buildings are maintained diligently by our churchwardens and the DCCs, ensuring work is carried out promptly and appropriately, with all the necessary checks in place. All three churches received their latest quinquennial inspection in 2021, with varying amounts of work to be undertaken, particularly with the older buildings. The church halls and St Andrew’s Centre are well maintained and have returned to much fuller usage now that pandemic restrictions have been fully lifted. At St Andrew’s sensor lights were fitted to light the car park at night. At St Mary’s there are a number of items that have to be taken care of in the next few years, as would be expected of a Grade 1 listed building. Urgent work has been required to the tower of St Catherine’s as a result of ground movement caused by the long dry summer. This resulted in subsidence of the foundations in the North West corner which caused a number of large cracks to appear in the walls and some stonework to fall. As a result, urgent safety and weather protection work has been undertaken - : removing or temporarily fixing loose stonework; undertaking temporary roof repairs and loose filling of walls for weather protection; removal of loose internal plasterwork; temporary covering of affected windows; and the reinstatement of the lightning conductor - which will be followed by the investigations needed to design a long-term solution to the problem. We launched a fundraising campaign at Christmas to begin raising the funds for this initial work and the much longer project to effectively underpin the church in order to prevent the regular recurrence of the issue.

Our churchyards are well maintained. A bug hotel and wildlife area have been introduced at St Mary’s. All three churches are considering their environmental impact and St Mary’s began work on an application for a Bronze Eco Church Award.

We enable our three churches and halls to function as hubs for the community. Between them activities and groups supported include: Coffee Mornings; Councillor Surgery; Art and Heritage Exhibitions; Floral Art; Gamblers Anonymous; Huff and Puff; Lace Makers; Ladies Support Group; Ladygate Scribblers; Martial Arts; Meditation; Meet & Make (Crafts Group); Mothers Union; Parent’s 1st Group; Phlebotomy Clinic; Rangers; Steps; U3A; Unveiled arts and performance evening; Warfarin Clinic; WI Craft Group; Wickford Chapter; Wickford Lodge; Wickford Women’s Institute; and several Yoga Groups. These groups and activities provide a wide range of social, leisure, educational and wellbeing opportunities for the local community, as well as providing warm spaces that enable those attending to save on heating in their homes while attending. On a monthly basis, we estimate the groups meeting in our Halls benefit in excess of 750 local residents.

In addition, local schools regularly visit our buildings for educational opportunities, which this year have also begun to include visits to our art exhibitions. Our new Unveiled arts and performance evening (Fridays fortnightly) plus our new art and heritage exhibition programme deliver new cultural offers in Wickford. These seek to bring high quality art and performance to Wickford while also encouraging local talent by providing new platforms for local performers and artists.

We held a very successful and well attended Christmas Bazaar at St Andrew’s for the parish which raised £2,000. Each church and the Mothers Union organized stalls. A grand draw was held, there was a grotto for children to visit Santa and choirs from Wickford Church of England School and Wickford Primary School sang to those who attended. Our thanks to everyone involved in the organization and running of the Bazaar, particularly those on the planning group.

Pastoral care

Much pastoral care within our congregations is informal and mutual. Our team of pastoral visitors and clergy continues to support individuals in need, and have once more been able to offer Home Communion. Visits to local care homes for services are once again happening monthly, including to the new Eve Belle Care Home, and the team visiting has been expanded with several new volunteers. A Prayer Circle operates when specific requests are made for those in need of prayer.

Mission and evangelism

Much of our mission and outreach, including Messy Church (bi-monthly on Saturdays), the Gateway foodbank (Ecumenical initiative), Open the Book (Schools work), ministry in care homes (monthly services in four homes), and other initiatives, is enabled by teams drawn from across our three churches. We are increasingly developing mission initiatives related to our context including: Contemplative Commuters - a Facebook group for any commuter wanting quiet reflective time and content on their journeys to and from work; Saturday Solace - 10-minute reflection and Christian mindfulness sessions between 10.00 am & 12 noon on Saturdays at St Andrew’s; and Unveiled – an arts and performance evening which attracted an average of 25 people per event, with events including artist talks, concerts, dance performances, exhibition viewings, heritage talks, lectures, and an Open Mic Night.

We continue to support the ecumenical Gateway Project, the local foodbank, with congregation members continuing to give generously in kind.

Clergy and laity support the work of local schools as governors and in taking assemblies. Assemblies are taken at seven local schools, with assemblies beginning at St Luke’s Park for the first time this year. We also hold school services in our churches for several schools, with a Carol Service for Beauchamps School being introduced this year for the first time. Lessons on Easter and Christmas take place at Beauchamps School and there is also input to Interfaith Week lessons and an Interfaith panel for the Sixth Form. Several schools visit our churches in the course of the year, with schools coming to see the art exhibitions at St Andrew’s for the first time this year. The Open the Book Team, who tell Bible stories in dramatic form, are using technology to video the stories and send them to the schools, thus enabling a new school to be added.

The churches have a strong tradition of hospitality to the local community, especially through coffee mornings and social events. Coffee mornings are held at all three churches and Meet and Make sessions in St Andrew’s continue to reach out to those on the fringe of and beyond our congregations.

Our three churches have a commitment to supporting the charity Positive Life Kenya. PLK works to break the cycle of poverty by educating and empowering marginalised families to build healthy environments for their children to thrive and create lasting change. We are currently committed to raising and sending at least US$ 250 each quarter. Each of our three churches respond to particular appeals, such as The Children’s Society and the Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Shoebox Appeal.

Our Facebook Group has continued to increase in membership and we have created the Contemplative Commuters Facebook group which has gained 30+ members. Our Facebook Group, Pages and website are kept up to date with news and schedules as well as livestreamed Morning prayer three days a week. St Mary’s include their news and views in the regular Runwell newsletter that goes to every house in Runwell.

Ecumenical relationships

The churches in Wickford and Runwell are responsible for jointly supporting the Gateway Project Foodbank that is run out of the local Salvation Army premises and staffed by volunteers from across the churches under their supervision. A minsters’ group meets every two months to discuss this and other projects and for mutual support. Together we arrange the annual Walk of Witness on Good Friday and the Church’s choir for the Town Christmas event. Funding was gained from the Locality Fund to run an Arts Festival in May 2023 using the churches as venues.

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Emma-Marie Kabanova - Awake! My Soul.

The Art of the Diorama

TIMOTHY HARROLD
The Art of the Diorama
St Catherine’s Church, Wickford
12-24 May 2023, part of the One Beautiful World Arts Festival

What is this?

An exhibition of miniature dioramas in boxes and drawers using the assemblage of found objects to create visual parables.

Who is Tim?

Tim was born in London in 1960. In the 1980s, he did a Foundation Course at Thurrock Tech and then a degree in Expressive Arts at Brighton Poly, during which time he co-founded the Theatre of the Bleeding Obelisk performance art group. His degree show included dioramas and assemblages using natural materials. Tim went on to teach art in secondary and further education, later working as a detached church youth worker. With his wife Vera, he created crossdenominational interactive prayer spaces and led creative workshops at national gatherings. Tim has shown his dioramas in a number of group exhibitions, notably with commission4mission in London and the Thurrock Art Trail. He has had solo shows: The Perceptual Eye at Well House Gallery (Horndon on the Hill, 2014) and Perceptualism at 35 Chapel Walk Gallery (Sheffield, 2017). Tim is also a poet, photographer, itinerant speaker, and has made a film. Tim & Vera live in Grays Thurrock, Essex and have 3 grown up sons and 2 grandchildren. 

What is a diorama? 

A diorama is a model representing a scene with 3- dimensional figures in miniature, or a work of art made by grouping together found or unrelated objects. The French word diorama means ‘through that which is seen’. 

What is assemblage? 

Assemblage is an artistic form or medium usually created on a defined substrate (an underlying layer) that consists of 3-dimensional elements projecting out of or from the substrate. Assemblage is 3-dimensional collage, typically using found objects. 

What is a visual parable? 

A parable is a story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels. These works of art are visual allegories or metaphors with spiritual meanings. 

What is Perceptualism? 

‘Perceptualism’ is ‘where the conceptual and metaphysical meet’. Tim seeks not to show only the surface of things nor to see into the shallows, but to perceive and pictorially express the deeper things that lie in hidden depths. His dioramas are creative journeys into the enigmas of discovery, adventure and explanation. Isaiah 43:19 asks us, “Do you not perceive it?”

The wonderfully creative Mothers Union in Wickford and Runwell have created a special Coronation display at St Catherine's Church. Their display is called The Way to the Coronation. Visit to see how many faces you can identify.

St Catherine's is open through the day from 9.30 am to 4.00 pm, so do come in to see the exhibition and the display.