Bread for the World: Christian Education

Tonight, at St Martin-in-the-Fields, we hosted a Churches Together in Westminster Reformation 500 event, with St Anne’s Lutheran Church London and Revd Eliza Zikmane, focusing on Martin Luther’s legacy to Christian Education through the Small Catechism.

In our Bread for the World service we sang two of Martin Luther's hymns (A mighty fortress is our God and Now thank we all our God) and a setting of Our Father (Lord's Prayer), while St Martin's Voices sang: Jesu, meine Freude (Chorale); Aber die Herzen forschet (from Motet ‘Der Geist hilft’) - J.S. Bach; and Jesu joy of man’s desiring - Bach. The service ended with Organ Chorale Prelude ‘Wir glauben all ‘ an einen Gott (from ‘Clavierubung’).

Our readings were extracts from Luther's Small Catechism:

Table of Duties

Certain passages of Scripture for various holy orders and positions, admonishing them about their duties and responsibilities

To Bishops, Pastors, and Preachers

…..

He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. Titus 1:9

……..

To Parents

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Eph. 6:4


3) The Creed

The Second Article: Redemption

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Plate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

What does this mean? I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. Who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.


Eliza Zikmane spoke about Luther's use of cutting-edge technology and the wide range of mediums he used through which to teach. In our discussions after the service we explored the following questions:

1) What was the basic Christian education you had and by whom? Did it have a lasting impact, and in what way?

2) I wonder what kind of sections would we choose and why, if we were to write a Small Catechism (a short outline of our/our church's faith). What kind of questions and answers would we write? Would they still be relevant in several hundreds of years’ time?

3) Luther used cutting-edge technology and a wide range of mediums to teach. How are we embracing the cutting edge technology of our time and with what results? What are the challenges for Christian/religious education in London in 21st century?

We began and ended our discussions with the following prayers from Small Catechism:

Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent that my love may go out to my neighbour. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. In you I have sealed the treasure of all I have. I am poor; you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor. I am a sinner; you are upright. With me, there is an abundance of sin; in you is the fullness of righteousness. Therefore, I will remain with you, of whom I can receive but to whom I may not give. Amen.

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.

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

J.S. Bach - Aber die Herzen forschet.

Why should the Devil have all the best technology?

St Martin-in-the-Fields will host a Churches Together in Westminster Reformation 500 event on Christian Education as part of our Bread for the World Service on Wednesday 13 September, 6.30pm. The Service will be organised with St Anne’s Lutheran Church London and Revd Eliza Zikmane. It will focus on Martin Luther’s legacy to Christian Education through the Small Catechism by asking the question, Why should the Devil have all the best technology?

Bread for the World is a great way to find focus during a busy week. With music led by the Choral Scholars of St Martin’s, we share the Eucharist in church followed by a simple soup supper in 6 St Martin’s Place with the opportunity to reflect on and explore the bible together in small groups.

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

Martin Luther - O Lord, Look Down from Heaven, Behold.

Discover & explore: Reformation 500 & Londinium

Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook feature music and liturgy with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. These services explore their themes through a thoughtful mix of music, prayers, readings and reflections:

• “A perfect service of peace in our busy lives.”
• “Spiritual food in the middle of the day.”
• “Beautifully and intelligently done.”

The current series of these services of musical discovery has explored Reformation 500 themes and comes to an end on Monday 3 July at 1.10pm by exploring the theme of 'Life of Repentance.' The Choral Scholars will sing: Ach, arme Welt – Brahms; The Lord's Prayer – Joshua Pacey; Anthem – Leonard Cohen; and Beati quorum via – Stanford.

Our autumn Discover & explore series will be part of the ‘Londinium’ programme organised by the City of London and will explore Rome, London & Christianity through music, prayers, readings and reflections. Highlights include St Paul in Rome, Constantine and The Temple of Mithras & St Stephen Walbrook:

• 25th September - St Paul in Rome 
• 2 October - St Peter in Rome 
• 9 October - The Early Church in Rome 
• 16 October – St Alban 
• 23 October – Constantine 
• 30 October – Christianity in Roman London 
• 6 November – The Temple of Mithras & St Stephen Walbrook 
• 13 November – St Augustine 
• 20 November – St Mellitus 
• 27 November – St Erkenwald & St Ethelburga

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

Joshua Pacey - The Lord's Prayer.

Discover & explore - The Lord's Supper

Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook features music and liturgy with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. These services explore their themes through a thoughtful mix of music, prayers, readings and reflections:

• “A perfect service of peace in our busy lives.”
• “Spiritual food in the middle of the day.”
• “Beautifully and intelligently done.”

The current series of these services of musical discovery is exploring Reformation 500 themes and continued today with the theme of 'The Lord's Supper'. The service featured the Choral Scholars singing: Ave Verum Corpus – Byrd; Agnus Dei from Cantus Missae, Op. 109 – Rheinberger; O salutaris hostia – Rossini; and Author of life divine – Wesley.

All Discover & explore services begin at 1.10pm:

• Mon 19 Jun - The Cross alone 
• Mon 26 Jun - Forgiveness is free 
• Mon 3 Jul - Life of repentance

In today's service I shared the following reflection:
St Stephen Walbrook was built as a Reformation church. One of the indicators that that is so, are the relative sizes and positions of the communion table and the pulpit. The size of the pulpit indicates the importance placed on the hearing of God’s Word, while the small size of the communion tables reflects the concern of the Reformers that communion was celebrated in a way that made clear that no sacrifice was being made. For this reason the Canons of the Church of England state that communion should be celebrated from a table not an altar. This was part of Reformation debates as to what happened at communion and what was being celebrated.

The Reformation position of the Church of England was made clear in the Book of Common Prayer which states that ‘no Adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.’

These issues and debates then became central to changes made to the building here at St Stephen Walbrook in the 1970s and 80s with the introduction of the Henry Moore altar and the circular reordering of the space under the dome. The Ecclesiastical Court cases regarding the Moore altar centred on the Canon which states that communion must be celebrated at a table not an altar, and revolved around the extent to which the Moore altar resembled either a sacrificial altar or a communion table. Eventually, it was agreed that the Moore altar could be defined as a communion table and agreement was given for its permanent installation.

The size and position of Moore’s altar does however change the original dynamic between in the building between the Lord’s Table and the pulpit (which was reflective of the Reformer’s theology) in favour of a more contemporary theology; that of the Parish Communion movement which successfully made Holy Communion the principal act of worship in Parish churches, instead of Morning or Evening Prayer. By carving a round altar table with forms cut into the circular sides Moore suggested that the centre of the church reflected the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem commemorating the sacrifice of Abraham and Isaac as a prefiguring of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and the place for the offering of the Eucharist at the heart of Christian worship. This place is now designed for people to gather as a community around the altar where God in the Eucharist can be found at the centre.

The debates initiated by the Reformers therefore continue into our current understandings and practices regarding the celebration of the Eucharist and the gathering of God’s people in worship. At one end of these debates is the understanding that Communion is a remembering of Christ’s sacrifice while, at the other, is the understanding that it is a repeating of Christ's sacrifice.

These, however, are not the only ways of understanding how Jesus is present in the Lord’s Supper and what is accomplished when it is celebrated. To my mind, it takes an artist to understand how the sacraments operate and, for me, that artist is the Roman Catholic painter and poet David Jones. A sacrament is, as St Augustine stated, 'an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.’

For David Jones, a key word in this regard is ‘anamnesis’, which means to re-present under an existing reality under a different mode. It is, therefore, to do with the re-calling, re-presentation and re-membering of an original act or object in a form that is different from but connected to the original act or object that is being re-called. So, remembering the Lord’s Supper is not simply recalling it to mind; instead we re-member it by re-enacting and re-presenting the original act. The original act is a once-for-all act but it can be re-created and re-presented in our Eucharistic celebrations. We use a different form to bring a past act into the present in a way that means we encounter, receive and respond to that original act afresh. We are, therefore, doing more than simply recalling that act in our minds but, at the same, are not repeating the act in its original form in the present.

David Jones developed an understanding of art based on anamnesis which viewed all art as sacramental because the signs made by artists are the thing signified under the forms of their particular art. The artwork is the original object or action that has been re-presented but in a different form meaning that it is both ‘the thing’ and a ‘different thing’ at one and the same time. In the same way, at the Lord’s Supper, the bread and wine are both simply bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ at one and the same time.

In the Introduction to his long poem entitled ‘The Anathemata’, Jones wrote that ‘words like “remembrance” or “memorial” hav[e] for us a connotation of something absent which is only mentally recollected. But in the scriptures of both the Old and New Testament, anamnesis and its cognate verb have a sense of re-calling before God an event in the past so that it becomes here and now operative by its effect.’

This poem begins and ends with the celebration of the Mass in London during wartime. In between, Jones explores the elements which form this particular celebration of the Mass - the very particular political and civilizational conditions of Rome which led to the Sacrifice of the Cross combined with a resultant fusion of Jewish, Greco-Roman, Germanic and Celtic cultures. His survey of these elements eventually leads him back to the celebration of the Mass in wartime London meaning that, as Kathleen Staudt notes, the ending of The Anathemata ‘insists that there is something constant in the gestures of offering that Christ, priest, and poet have made and make “at all times,” regardless of the products of that gesture’ (Incarnation Reconsidered: The Poem as Sacramental Act in The Anathemata of David Jones, Contemporary Literature, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), 81-82).

On this basis, the bread and wine of The Lord’s Supper is at once a “thing” in itself, part of the world of flesh and form, and a “representation” -- a “showing again” of the original act under another form. Just as in the incarnation Christ brings the human and divine together in his body, so in The Lord’s Supper, the material and the eternal are brought together in the act of making a sign and in the re-membering, re-calling, re-enacting and re-presentation of that sign we receive the original reality of that sign but in a different form. In this way the outward and visible sign of the Eucharist works an inward and invisible grace in us. Jesus comes to us in the form of bread and wine and all who receive the Sacrament receive his body and blood.

Intercessions:

Wise and gracious God, you spread a table before us; nourish your people with the word of life and the bread of heaven. With the bread that we bring, we shall remember Jesus. With the wine that we bring, we shall remember Jesus. Bread for his body, wine for his blood, gifts from God to his table we bring. We shall remember Jesus. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation: through your goodness we have bread to set before you, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will be for us the bread of life. Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation: through your goodness we have wine to set before you, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will be for us the cup of salvation. As the grain once scattered in the fields and the grapes once dispersed on the hillside are reunited on the Lord’s Table in bread and wine, so, Lord, may your whole Church soon be gathered together from the corners of the earth into your kingdom. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We thank You, Lord God, that You refresh us with this precious gift of The Lord’s Supper. We ask for Your mercy, that You would use this meal to nurture in us strong faith toward You and genuine love among us all. Almighty and Ever-loving God, we thank You that You feed us at Your Table with this spiritual food and assure us of Your goodness toward us. We thank You that we are members of the Body of Your Son. Assist us with Your grace, so that we may continue in this holy fellowship, and live more fully to Your glory. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

The Blessing

Blessed be God, by whose grace creation is renewed, by whose love heaven is opened, by whose mercy we offer our sacrifice of praise; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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

Gioachino Rossini: O salutaris hostia.

Start:Stop - Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly

Bible reading:

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3. 12 - 17)

Reflection:

Our Monday lunchtime Discover & explore services are currently exploring themes taken from the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Recently we reflected on the Reformers beliefs regarding scripture including: to love and treasure the Word of God; seeing the Scriptures are the sole source for doctrine and practice; rejoicing because the Scriptures deliver Christ to us; the Word is to be read, taught and proclaimed; the Word informs us of God’s love and instructs us in His will; and God’s written Word is given for all people. (http://lutheranreformation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ref500-Kit-Bulletin-Insert-2.pdf)

Colossians 3 says we are to let the word or message of Christ dwell in us richly as we worship together. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin has helpfully unpacked some of what is involved in doing so. He wrote that: “The Bible is the body of literature which renders accessible to us the character, action and purpose of God. Taken as a whole, the Bible fitly renders God but this can only be understood as we are in engaged in the same struggle that we see in scripture. This is the struggle to understand and deal with the events of our time in the faith that God creates purpose, sustains all that is and will bring all to its proper end. The Bible comes to us in its “canonical shape”, as the result of many centuries of interpretation and re-interpretation, editing and re-editing, with a unity that depends on two primary centres - the rescue of Israel from Egypt and the events concerning Jesus - events, happening in the contingent world of history, which are interpreted as disclosures, in a unique sense, of the presence and action of God. However, the interpretation has to be re-interpreted over and over again in terms of another generation and another culture. The original interpretative language becomes a text which in turn needs interpretation. Yet the text cannot be eliminated. The events are not mere symbols of an underlying reality which could be grasped apart from them. What is presented in the bible is testimony.”

“The Bible is the book of community, and neither the book nor the community are properly understood except in their reciprocal relationship with each other. It is this relationship that is the clue to the meaning of both the book and the community. The Bible functions as authority only within a community that is committed to faith and obedience and which is embodying that commitment in an active discipleship embracing the whole of life, public and private.”

A further helpful way of understanding how the Bible can function with authority in our lives was set out by former Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright. He describes the story of the Bible as a five act play (containing the first four acts in full i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus) within which we can understand ourselves to be actors improvising our part on basis of what has gone before and the hints we have of how the play will end:

"The writing of the New Testament ... would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ... The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to."

Wright concludes that he is proposing "a notion of "authority" which is ... vested ... in the creator god himself, and this god's story with the world, seen as focused on the story of Israel and thence on the story of Jesus, as told and retold in the Old and New Testaments, and as still requiring completion." As Lesslie Newbigin has written, this story is understood "as we are in engaged in the same struggle that we see in scripture"; that "is the struggle to understand and deal with the events of our time in the faith that God creates purpose, sustains all that is and will bring all to its proper end." This is what I think it means to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly and to make the Bible authoritative in our lives.

Intercessions:

Open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of your law. Open our spiritual eyes to show us the glimpses of glory we cannot see by ourselves. Give us the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened. May we see that the works of God stand as marvellous mountain ranges in the Bible, but also see that the highest peak, and the most majestic vista, is the person and work of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. May your word shape and inform and direct our practical living.

Remind us of the sufficiency of your grace to produce genuine change in our lives. Allow seeds from Scripture to bear real, noticeable fruit in tangible acts of sacrificial love for others that we might be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. May your word shape and inform and direct our practical living making us more manifestly loving, not less, because of the time invested alone in reading and studying your word. May your word shape and inform and direct our practical living.

May we experience the great goal of Bible reading and study as this: knowing and enjoying Jesus. This is a taste now of heaven’s coming delights. This is eternal life, that we know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. In this way give direction, focus, and purpose to our study that we may press on to know you, the LORD. May this form great yearning and passion in our souls, so that we count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as our Lord. May we keep both eyes peeled for Jesus until we see how the passage at hand relates to Jesus’s person and work. May your word shape and inform and direct our practical living.

(http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/four-prayers-for-bible-reading)

The Blessing

Go now in peace, knowing that you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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

Mark Heard - Well Worn Pages.

Discover & explore: Through Christ alone

Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook feature music and liturgy with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. These services explore their themes through a thoughtful mix of music, prayers, readings and reflections:

• “A perfect service of peace in our busy lives.”
• “Spiritual food in the middle of the day.”
• “Beautifully and intelligently done.”

The current series of these services of musical discovery is exploring Reformation 500 themes and continued last Monday with the theme of 'Through Christ alone'. The service featured the Choral Scholars singing: Morning star & The Deer's Cry by Arvo Pärt; God so loved the world by Bob Chilcott; and O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit by Thomas Tallis.

All Discover & explore services begin at 1.10pm:

• Mon 22 May - God loves you 
• Mon 29 May Bank Holiday – Church closed 
• Mon 5 June - Baptism saves 
• Mon 12 Jun - The Lord's Supper 
• Mon 19 Jun - The Cross alone 
• Mon 26 Jun - Forgiveness is free 
• Mon 3 Jul - Life of repentance

In today's service I shared the following reflection:

‘When Martin Luther preached from the Gospel passages on John the Baptist, he always emphasized how John’s finger pointed to Christ, and how the church most follow in John’s footsteps and point people to the Lord without fail.” He said:

“…The devil does not intend to allow this testimony about Christ. He devotes all his energy to opposing it and will not desist until he has struck it down and suppressed it …”

“For this reason it is necessary constantly to persevere and adhere to John’s testimony concerning Christ. For it requires toil and effort to continue with word and testimony, for a person at death to be able to say, I must die, but I have a Saviour concerning whom John the Baptist testifies; on him and on no other creature, either in heaven or on earth, do I rely …”

“What I am telling you is that it is easier for us humans to believe and trust in everything else than in the name of Christ, who alone is all in all, and more difficult for us for us to rely on him in whom and through whom we possess all things.”’ (https://reformedreader.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/martin-luther-on-solus-christus/)

How could we understand this key Reformation emphasis today? For me, the key to understanding is the incarnation. In John’s Gospel we are told that: “No one has ever seen God” but “The only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” In the Prologue to John’s Gospel, Jesus is described as being God’s Word to human beings; he is in himself the message that God wants to communicate to us. This Word is a real person, not simply a description of God or a statement of the truth about God. What this means is that the truth about God is found in a relationship with Jesus and not in a set of statements or beliefs about him. Truth is not a prescription that we can swallow but a relationship in which we live.

The key difference between the Old and the New Testament for Christians is that in the Old Testament God was revealing himself to and through fallible human beings – meaning that his revelation is imperfectly made and imperfectly received - while in the Gospel stories of Jesus, God is able to fully reveal himself in the humanity of Jesus. So, there is in scripture a developing revelation of God which culminates in the person, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. This means that where we see a difference between the revelation of God found in the Old Testament and that found in the Gospels we have to resolve that difference in favour of what we find in Gospels, because it is the only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, that has made God known.

Jesus is the creativity, the definition and the wisdom of God; all wrapped up and revealed in human form and flesh. Jesus’ creativity is seen in the new way of being human that he reveals to us. In him, the divine and the human come together enabling us to see all that human beings can potentially be; all that we can potentially become. In him we see the best of humanity because in him we see God expressed as fully as can be in human form.

What we see is love because God is love and therefore, in Jesus, we see pure love expressed without reserve and without self-seeking: the way of compassion instead of the way of domination; the way of self-sacrifice instead of the way of selfishness; the way of powerlessness instead of the way of power; and the way of giving instead of the way of grasping. Therefore to follow in his way is to experience divinity in our lives; to move towards the divine. When we see him call his disciples to follow him that is what occurs; they leave their old way of life behind in order to begin to experience a new and divine way of being human. As the Prologue to John’s Gospel puts it, God himself becomes their Father.

In doing so, he is also the Word of God which describes and defines us. The Prologue to John’s Gospel explains Jesus’ ability to define us in terms of light and darkness. John gives us the image of God as light to help us grasp the idea that Jesus is the one by whom we can come to see humanity as we really are and as we were intended to be. Light is not something we can see directly but something that enables us to see ourselves and our world. This is what Jesus does for us through the incarnation; he shows what humanity was originally intended to become. In Jesus, for the very first time in the history of the world, a human being lives a fully human life.

As a result when we see ourselves and our world in the light of the life of Jesus, what we see are our failure and inability to be the people that we were created to become. In the light of the way that Jesus lived his life, we see our lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. As the writer of 1 John says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But when we live in the light, seeing ourselves as we really are, then we become honest with ourselves and with God. By coming into that honesty we confess our sins and are purified of them.

Ultimately, the Word that God speaks to us in and through Jesus is ‘Love’. In 1 John 4. 9 – 10 we read, “God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.”

Jesus came into our world as the Word of God to live a life of self-sacrificial love as a human being. He shows us what true love looks like and he shows us that human beings are capable of true love even when most of the evidence around us seems to point towards the opposite conclusion. But he did not come solely as an example or a description of love. He is love itself, the reality of love, and, therefore, as we come into relationship with him we come into a true relationship with love. This why he came, that we might receive him; that we might receive love. He is then in us and in him. Love in us and we in love.

In the beginning Love already existed; Love was with God, and Love was God. From the very beginning Love was with God. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. Love was the source of life, and this life brought light to people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.

“God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.

Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us. (1 John 4. 8 – 12).

Intercessions:

For love God came to us in the person of Jesus—God With Us—and poured his Spirit into us that we might be one with him forever. In his name, let us pray to the Lord, saying: Christ is all, and is in all. Lord, thank you for the gift of your constant presence. Give us the desire to commit our hearts to you. Thank you for the grace of your unfailing love. Grant us the willingness to love others as you have loved us. Thank you for uniting us with your Son. Help us put on our new selves, setting our hearts and minds on things above. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God of hope, with thanks and praise we open our hearts to you, who unite us with you through Christ. Help us to pursue you with the passion only your Spirit can provide, and to reflect you with the light only your Spirit can supply. So we say, Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits thou hast given me, for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother, may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly, day by day. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Thou hast led me to place all my nature and happiness in oneness with Christ, in having heart and mind centred only on him, in being like him in communicating good to others; This is my heaven on earth, but I need the force, energy, impulses of thy Spirit to carry me on the way to my Jerusalem. Here, it is my duty to be as Christ in this world, to do what he would do, to live as he would live, to walk in love and meekness; then would he be known, then would I have peace in death. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

(https://ace.nd.edu/files/resources/Prayer%20to%20be%20Anchored%20in%20Christ%20Alone.pdf and http://www.scripturezealot.com/2014/07/20/puritan-prayer-christ-alone/)

The Blessing

With our lives hidden in Christ, let us now depart in peace, united in the faith and joined in His call to
serve through the power of His in-dwelling Spirit; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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

Arvo Pärt - Morning Star.

Discover & explore: God's written word

Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook feature music and liturgy with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. These services explore their themes through a thoughtful mix of music, prayers, readings and reflections:

“A perfect service of peace in our busy lives.”
“Spiritual food in the middle of the day.”
“Beautifully and intelligently done.”

The current series of these services of musical discovery is exploring Reformation 500 themes and continued last Monday with the theme of 'God's written word'. The service featured the Choral Scholars singing: 'God be in my head' by John Rutter, 'Psalm 119', 'But the word of the Lord endureth forever' by Samuel Sebastian Wesley & 'O for a closer walk with God' by Charles Stanford.

All Discover & explore services begin at 1.10pm:

Mon 15 May - Through Christ alone
Mon 22 May - God loves you
Mon 29 May Bank Holiday – Church closed
Mon 5 June - Baptism saves
Mon 12 Jun - The Lord's Supper
Mon 19 Jun - The Cross alone
Mon 26 Jun - Forgiveness is free
Mon 3 Jul - Life of repentance

In today's service I shared the following reflection:
In the first Discover & explore service of this series, we reflected that the Reformers’ theological convictions about the essentials of Christianity were later summarised in five Latin phrases (or slogans) that emerged during the Reformation known as The Five Solas. These included Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.

The key implication of the principle is that interpretations and applications of the Scriptures do not have the same authority as the Scriptures themselves. Luther said, "a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it" and this was consistent with the intent of the Reformation which was to correct what Luther asserted to be the errors of the Catholic Church by appeal to the uniqueness of the Bible's textual authority.

Sola scriptura, however, does not ignore Christian history, tradition, or the church when seeking to understand the Bible. Rather, it sees the church as the Bible's interpreter, the ecumenical creeds as the interpretive context, and Scripture as the only final authority in matters of faith and practice. As Luther said, "The true rule is this: God's Word shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel can do so."

Lutheranism, as we heard in today’s reading, loves and treasures the Word of God. The Scriptures are the sole source for doctrine and practice. The Scriptures deliver Christ to us, and for this we rejoice. As we heard in Colossians 3. 12 - 17, we are to let the word or message of Christ dwell in us richly as we worship together.

But for many people this raises as many questions as it answers because it is simply not possible for us to read scripture without interpreting what we read. All reading of scripture is interpreted reading. There is no ‘plain’ reading of scripture which does not involve interpretation. For scripture to be understood there has to be a struggle because the text has to be re-interpreted over and over again in terms of each generation and each culture. Engaging in this struggle may be what is meant by letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly.

The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin has helpfully unpacked some of what is involved in doing so. He wrote that: “The Bible is the body of literature which renders accessible to us the character, action and purpose of God. Taken as a whole, the Bible fitly renders God but this can only be understood as we are in engaged in the same struggle that we see in scripture. This is the struggle to understand and deal with the events of our time in the faith that God creates purpose, sustains all that is and will bring all to its proper end. The Bible comes to us in its “canonical shape”, as the result of many centuries of interpretation and re-interpretation, editing and re-editing, with a unity that depends on two primary centres - the rescue of Israel from Egypt and the events concerning Jesus - events, happening in the contingent world of history, which are interpreted as disclosures, in a unique sense, of the presence and action of God. However, the interpretation has to be re-interpreted over and over again in terms of another generation and another culture. The original interpretative language becomes a text which in turn needs interpretation. Yet the text cannot be eliminated. The events are not mere symbols of an underlying reality which could be grasped apart from them. What is presented in the bible is testimony.”

“The Bible is the book of community, and neither the book nor the community are properly understood except in their reciprocal relationship with each other. It is this relationship that is the clue to the meaning of both the book and the community. The Bible functions as authority only within a community that is committed to faith and obedience and which is embodying that commitment in an active discipleship embracing the whole of life, public and private.”

A final helpful way of understanding how the Bible can function with authority in our lives was set out by former Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright. He describes the story of the Bible as a five act play (containing the first four acts in full i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus) within which we can understand ourselves to be actors improvising our part on basis of what has gone before and the hints we have of how the play will end:

"The writing of the New Testament ... would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ... The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to."

Wright concludes that he is proposing "a notion of "authority" which is ... vested ... in the creator god himself, and this god's story with the world, seen as focused on the story of Israel and thence on the story of Jesus, as told and retold in the Old and New Testaments, and as still requiring completion." As Lesslie Newbigin has written, this story is understood "as we are in engaged in the same struggle that we see in scripture"; that "is the struggle to understand and deal with the events of our time in the faith that God creates purpose, sustains all that is and will bring all to its proper end." This is what I think it means to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly and to make the Bible authoritative in our lives.

Intercessions:

Open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of your law. Open our spiritual eyes to show us the glimpses of glory we cannot see by ourselves. Give us the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened. May we see that the works of God stand as marvellous mountain ranges in the Bible, but also see that the highest peak, and the most majestic vista, is the person and work of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Remind us of the sufficiency of your grace to produce genuine change in our lives. Allow seeds from Scripture to bear real, noticeable fruit in tangible acts of sacrificial love for others that we might be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. May your word shape and inform and direct our practical living making us more manifestly loving, not less, because of the time invested alone in reading and studying your word. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

May we experience the great goal of Bible reading and study as this: knowing and enjoying Jesus. This is a taste now of heaven’s coming delights. This is eternal life, that we know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. In this way give direction, focus, and purpose to our study that we may press on to know you, the LORD. May this form great yearning and passion in our souls, so that we count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as our Lord. May we keep both eyes peeled for Jesus until we see how the passage at hand relates to Jesus’s person and work. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

(http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/four-prayers-for-bible-reading)

The Blessing

Go now in peace, knowing that you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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

Charles Stanford - O, For A Closer Walk With God. 

Reformation 500

The following piece is included in the latest newsletter for Churches Together in Westminster:

2017 is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses on the door of the castle chapel in the German town of Wittenberg – an event that has become known as the starting point of the Reformation. Across the continent, numerous events are planned, from art to worship, to remember that episode in Christian history, and to reflect on its influence on our society as an extensive movement of reform. The anniversary is an opportunity to explore how a better understanding of what took place 500 years ago in Wittenberg can draw people and churches closer together. 

Churches Together in England have been urged to keep this anniversary together in the spirit of five 'R's:

• Rejoicing – because of the joy in the gospel which we share, and because what we have in common is greater than that which divides; and that God is patient with our divisions, that we are coming back together and can learn from each other. 
• Remembering – because all three streams of the Reformation have their witnesses and one church’s celebration could be another’s painful memory; and yet all believed they acted in the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ for their time. 
• Reforming – because the Church needs always to grow closer to Christ, and therefore closer to all who proclaim him Lord, and it is by the mutual witness of faith that we will approach the unity for which Christ prayed for his followers. 
• Repenting – because the splintering of our unity led us to formulate stereotypes and prejudices about each other’s traditions which have too often diverted our attention from our calling as witnesses together to the mercy of God in proclamation and service to the world. 
• Reconciling – because the call to oneness in Christ begins from the perspective of unity not division, strengthening what is held in common, even though the differences are more easily seen and experienced. In national and local events, whether together or separately, churches are seeking to honour each other and give thanks for our growing friendship and fellowship in the Gospel. 

One such initiative is ‘Still Reforming’, in which twelve parishes across London are welcoming each other, fellow Londoners, and visitors on their doorsteps, inviting them to experience for themselves the diverse heritage of the Reformation. Each month, a different congregation is hosting an event beginning at its open door, in the hope that all those involved will learn something new, exchange ideas and perspectives, and attempt to understand together what the relevance of the Reformation is for us today. Several CTiW churches are involved. 

The Anglican-Lutheran Society in Partnership with Women and the Church (WATCH) London and St Anne’s Lutheran Church is organising three evenings of interactive presentations and social time to be held at St Mary-at-Hill, Lovat Lane, Eastcheap, London, EC3R 8EE, home to the Lutheran Congregation of St Anne’s, on Women of the Reformation: Overlooked Stories. On Thursday 18 May, 6.30-8.30pm, Anne Boileau, author of Katharina Luther: Nun. Rebel. Wife, will present Katharina von Bora, Dr. Martin Luther's Wife. Then, on Thursday 22 June, 6.30-8.30pm, Rev'd Dr Roy Long, a retired Pastor in the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, will speak about Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's Last Wife. Finally, on Thursday 29 June, 6.30-8.30pm, Rev’d Eliza Zikmane (Lutheran Pastor), Rev’d Dr Julia Candie (Anglican Vicar) and Sally Barnes (Anglican Lay Woman) will provide stories of Women Reformers Then and Now. 

Conferences which may be of interest include Reformation 500: Ecumenical Perspectives, the annual conference of the Society for Ecumenical Studies, on 17 June in Oxford and Responding to the Reformation, the Churches Together in England conference, from 16-18 October in Swanwick. 

See www.reformation500.uk for a fuller listing of Reformation 500 events.

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

Martin Luther - Come, Christians One and All, Rejoice.

Discover & explore: Grace not works

Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook feature music and liturgy with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. These services explore their themes through a thoughtful mix of music, prayers, readings and reflections:

• “A perfect service of peace in our busy lives.”
• “Spiritual food in the middle of the day.”
• “Beautifully and intelligently done.”

The current series of these services of musical discovery is exploring Reformation 500 themes beginning with the theme of 'Grace not works'.. The service featured the Choral Scholars singing: 'This joyful Eastertide' arranged by Charles Wood, 'Ave Maria' by Robert Parsons, 'Amazing Grace' arranged by Will Todd, and 'Magnificat' from The Short Service by Thomas Tallis.

All Discover & explore services begin at 1.10pm:

• Mon 1st May - Bank Holiday – Church closed 
• Mon 8 May - God's written Word 
• Mon 15 May - Through Christ alone 
• Mon 22 May - God loves you 
• Mon 29 May Bank Holiday – Church closed 
• Mon 5 June - Baptism saves 
• Mon 12 Jun - The Lord's Supper 
• Mon 19 Jun - The Cross alone 
• Mon 26 Jun - Forgiveness is free 
• Mon 3 Jul - Life of repentance

In today's service I shared the following reflection:

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century changed Christianity forever. Roused to action by the corruption and abuses they saw in the Roman Catholic Church of the time, leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin spearheaded a movement that transformed Christianity and eventually led to the emergence of the Protestant denominations that exist today. The Reformers were guided by the conviction that the church of their day had drifted away from the essential, original teachings of Christianity, especially in regard to what it was teaching about salvation—how people can be forgiven of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and receive eternal life with God.

Luther's study and research led him to question the contemporary usage of terms such as penance and righteousness in the Roman Catholic Church. He became convinced that the church had lost sight of what he saw as several of the central truths of Christianity — the most important being the doctrine of justification by faith alone. He began to teach that salvation is a gift of God's grace through Christ received by faith alone. As a result of his lectures on the Psalms and Paul's letter to the Romans, from 1513–1516, Luther "achieved an exegetical breakthrough, an insight into the all-encompassing grace of God and all-sufficient merit of Christ."[ Lewis W. Spitz, The Renaissance and Reformation Movements, Revised Ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1987), 332]

So, the Reformation sought to re-orient Christianity on what they thought to be the original message of Jesus and the early church. The Reformers’ theological convictions about the essentials of Christianity were later summarised in five Latin phrases (or slogans) that emerged during the Reformation known as The Five Solas. These are:

• Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority. 
• Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ. 
• Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone. 
• Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King. 
• Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone. 

Sola Fide and Sola Gratia stand alongside one another and are our primary concern today. They summarise the belief that we are saved solely through faith in Jesus Christ because of God’s grace and Christ’s merit alone. We are not saved by our merits or declared righteous by our good works. God grants salvation not because of the good things we do, and despite our sin.

The Reformers believed that, as humans, we inherited (from our ancestor Adam) a nature that is enslaved to sin. Because of our nature, we are naturally enemies of God and lovers of evil. We need to be made alive (regenerated) so that we can even have faith in Christ. God graciously chooses to give us new hearts so that we trust in Christ and are saved through faith alone. God graciously preserves us and keeps us. When we are faithless toward him, he is still faithful. We can only stand before God by his grace as he mercifully attributes to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ and attributes to him the consequences of our sins. Jesus’ life of perfect righteousness is counted as ours, and our records of sin and failure were counted to Jesus when he died on the cross.

Sola fide and sola gratia express the teaching of Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Luther insisted that "This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness." This, however, led to further debate about the extent to which our works are a factor in salvation; a debate which also occurred in the early Church. There is an apparent conflict between the letters of Paul and the letter of James on this point which has caused confusion on the part of many Christians as James states that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone (2:24). Luther once called the book of James "an epistle of straw" because of this difficult passage, although he later retracted the remark.

It is arguable, however, that James was not contradicting Paul but instead teaching something compatible with Paul's teaching while also correcting a misuse of Paul's teaching. What James was trying to get across to his churches was that loveless faith is absolutely useless; and anybody that comes along and says "We are justified by faith alone, and so you don't have to be a loving person to go to heaven" is not telling the truth. That is the understanding which informs the reading we heard earlier from the Lutheran Church’s Missouri Synod: ‘Your good works are done in response to salvation. Justification by grace through faith does not mean good works are bad, but puts them in their proper role. We live according to God’s will out of thankfulness to His love.’

Intercessions:

Help us, O God, because, like all your children, we need your daily grace. Yesterday’s blessings can encourage but will not take care of the burdens of today. May we know you as the Shepherd of our lives and eternal souls. May our fears be dissolved by faith in you and through the power of your love. Help us to love and manifest the spirit of love under all circumstances to all people. May our lives be a glory to you, a help to our fellow human beings and rewarding to ourselves. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

O God, you know our weakness and failings, and that without Your help we can accomplish nothing for the good of souls, our own and others’. Grant us, therefore, the help of Your grace. Grant it according to our particular needs this day. Enable us to see the tasks You will set before us in the daily routine of our lives, and help us work hard at our appointed tasks. Teach us to bear patiently all the trials of suffering or failure that may come to us today. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

O Lord God almighty, who has brought to us to the beginning of this day, defend us in the same by Your power; that we may not this day fall into any sin, but that all our thoughts, words, and works may be directed to the fulfillment of Your will. Merciful Lord, you are never weary of speaking to our poor hearts. Grant us grace that, if today we hear your voice, our hearts may not be hardened. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

The Blessing

God grant to the living, grace; to the departed, rest; to the Church, the Queen, the Commonwealth, and all humankind, peace and concord; and to us and all his servants, life everlasting; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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

Will Todd - Amazing Grace.

Discover & explore - Summer 2017 series

Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook feature music and liturgy with the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields. These services explore their themes through a thoughtful mix of music, prayers, readings and reflections:

• “A perfect service of peace in our busy lives.”
• “Spiritual food in the middle of the day.”
• “Beautifully and intelligently done.”

The next series of these services of musical discovery will explore Reformation 500 themes. The first service (on Monday 24th April) will feature: 'This joyful Eastertide' arranged by Charles Wood, 'Ave Maria' by Robert Parsons, 'Amazing Grace' arranged by Will Todd, and 'Magnificat' from The Short Service by Thomas Tallis.

All Discover & explore services begin at 1.10pm:

• Mon 24th Apr - Grace not Works 
• Mon 1st May - Bank Holiday – Church closed 
• Mon 8 May - God's written Word 
• Mon 15 May - Through Christ alone 
• Mon 22 May - God loves you 
• Mon 29 May Bank Holiday – Church closed 
• Mon 5 June - Baptism saves 
• Mon 12 Jun - The Lord's Supper 
• Mon 19 Jun - The Cross alone 
• Mon 26 Jun - Forgiveness is free 
• Mon 3 Jul - Life of repentance

Other comments which have been made about Discover & explore services include:

• ‘They are thought-provoking and inspiring services and the music is amazing.’ 
• ‘I really enjoy the Discover and Explore Services. I find the atmosphere very peaceful and the beautiful music enhances that feeling. I like the fact that it is a different type of service and there is time to contemplate and pray.’
• ‘I personally like the Discover & Explore services very much. I will admit that I have a great love of choral music so the service format is winner on that ground alone for me. However looking at it objectively, I like the format very much. It hits the right note of a serious but lighter touch, but it is not too light. I like the idea of taking a topic and shaping the rest of the service around that theme. It’s great for example to have excerpts from Shakespeare. The length is right too. I come to church amongst other reasons to think, reflect and learn and I feel this service format is excellent.’
• ‘Discover & explore brings me into the City. Entering the church feels like entering another world – one which is, though, very much part of its surrounds as well. The thing I most enjoy is hearing the choir’s anthems in a historical site whose acoustics are perfect for that. That said, I probably wouldn’t make the effort if it were just concerts: I like the integration of the music into the themes of the reflections and readings as well. It’s a coherent entity. And the emphasis this term on figures from St. Stephen’s history, the collaboration with the Guildhall Art Gallery – those are the kinds of things that ground the series in its community. But again, the extraordinarily high quality of the music is what really draws me in. I would feel like I’d wasted a wonderful opportunity if I didn’t come to Discover & explore!’ 
• ‘I discovered this treasure recently. The choir fills the Dome, as does the tiny organ. I am a keen singer and in that space feel (in the hymns) you are with the choir. The service sheet is very good and I was signed up on first visit to reading. The weekly foci are interesting and often relate to remarkable previous incumbents.’
• ‘The Discover & Explore format is great - sorry I haven't made it before! You are v fortunate to have the choir in the week! Even better in real life today. Lunchtime service @StStephenEC4N with choral scholars from @smitf_london conducted by @JeremyColeUK.’

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

Charles Wood - This Joyful Eastertide.

Discover & explore: Peter Delaney (Internet)

Today's Discover & explore service at St Stephen Walbrook, explored the theme of internet (and the London Internet Church) through the ministry of Peter Delaney. The service featured the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields singing Ubi Caritas by Duruflé, The Call of Wisdom – Todd, Loquebantur variis linguis by Tallis and Nunc Dimittis by Barnaby Martin.

The next Discover & explore service is on Monday 24 April at 1.10pm when, as part of our new series exploring Reformation500 themes, together with the Choral Scholars, I will explore Grace, not Works.

In todays service I gave the following reflection:

Peter Delaney was Archdeacon of London from 1999 to 2010 and was Priest in Charge of St Stephen Walbrook from 2004 - 2014. He is a man with a passion for the arts and communication as a means of understanding humanity and God. After a classical art education and a brief period teaching, he worked for NBC television in Hollywood and there found his vocation to the Anglican Priesthood returning to England to read theology at Kings College London.

He served at Marylebone with Chaplaincies to the National Heart Hospital and London Clinic. He was Chaplain at the University Church of Christ the King. From there he was invited to become Precentor and Residentiary Canon at Southwark Cathedral, where he developed an arts programme of exhibitions and theatre and theological training. He was appointed Vicar of the ancient City church of All Hallows by the Tower where he not only developed the parish but set up a Performing Arts Cultural Exchange Programme twinned with New York and Philadelphia. Peter was made a Prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral, London 1995. He began the City Churches Advisory Group at St Katharine Cree to develop the City Churches until being appointed Archdeacon. He was made MBE in 2001 for services to community in the City of London.

As part of the work at St Stephen Walbrook, he developed the London Internet Church as a vision of the church for the future. Peter is Director of the London Internet Church and with a team of others has moved this concept of the church of the future into a reality. After a lifetime holding together the disparate interests of faith, arts, theatre and television, St Stephen and the London Internet Church became the synthesis of all these interests.

At the heart of the London Internet Church is the praise and worship of Almighty God. In order to involve the whole LIC family on line, the Trustees have considered carefully how each one of can fully enter into the fellowship of the LIC. In line with the principles of the Anglican Communion, daily prayer and the Eucharist are the core of worship on the site. Those visiting the site are invited to worship and study with the LIC using the following new ways of approaching God in worship, prayer and praise:

• Morning Prayer and Night Prayer – short filmed services lasting a few minutes and to be used at work or wherever you may be able to pray. These are services of quietness and reflection as we start or end the day: a daily changing prayer, ranging from 5 to 9 minutes in length, fronted by a number of church leaders, church dignitaries, actors and other celebrities.
• Walbrook Eucharist– A film of the Eucharist using the words of the Book of Common Prayer set around the Henry Moore altar in St Stephen Walbrook. The film can be used to pray with us, make a spiritual communion with us, and teach others about the Eucharist.
• Prayer Request and the Light a Candle Ministry – join with people throughout the world in placing prayers on the prayer board and actually lighting a candle on the webpage. When people pray or light a candle online, their prayer will be said and once a week a candle is lit in St Stephen Walbrook.
• Teaching – Sermons from St Stephen, a series of Bible Studies involving Scripture, Prayer and Action, art courses covering Caravaggio, Giotto, Spencer and Botticelli, and videos such as The Exodus Story in twenty minutes retold by John Simpson CBE, Rabbi Mark Winer, Rabbi Mark Solomon, the Bishop of London, the Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Dean of St Paul’s and Dr Jonathan Gorsky of Heythrop College.

In developing the London Internet Church Peter would have been seeking to fulfil the Great Commission given by Jesus to his disciples to make disciples of all nations. At the beginning of the 1970s a Roman Catholic document called Communio et Progressio pointed out that “modern media offer new ways of confronting people with the message of the Gospel”. ‘Pope Paul VI said the Church “would feel guilty before the Lord” if it failed to use the media for evangelization. Pope John Paul II declared that “it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the ‘new culture' created by modern communications”.’

‘All this applies to the Internet. And even though the world of social communications “may at times seem at odds with the Christian message, it also offers unique opportunities for proclaiming the saving truth of Christ to the whole human family. Consider...the positive capacities of the Internet to carry religious information and teaching beyond all barriers and frontiers. Such a wide audience would have been beyond the wildest imaginings of those who preached the Gospel before us.’

‘As the Church understands it, the history of human communication is something like a long journey, bringing humanity “from the pride-driven project of Babel and the collapse into confusion and mutual incomprehension to which it gave rise (cf. Gen 11:1-9), to Pentecost and the gift of tongues: a restoration of communication, centred on Jesus, through the action of the Holy Spirit”. In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, “communication among men found its highest ideal and supreme example in God who had become man and brother”.’

‘The modern media of social communication are cultural factors that play a role in this story. The Church has a two-fold aim in regard to the media. One aspect is to encourage their right development and right use for the sake of human development, justice, and peace—for the up-building of society at the local, national, and community levels in light of the common good and in a spirit of solidarity. But the Church's concern also relates to communication in and by the Church herself. Such communication “finds its starting point in the communion of love among the divine Persons and their communication with us”, and in the realization that Trinitarian communication “reaches out to humankind: The Son is the Word, eternally ‘spoken' by the Father; and in and through Jesus Christ, Son and Word made flesh, God communicates himself and his salvation to women and men”.’

‘God continues to communicate with humanity through the Church. The Church herself is a communio, a communion of persons and eucharistic communities arising from and mirroring the communion of the Trinity; communication therefore is of the essence of the Church. This, more than any other reason, is why “the Church's practice of communication should be exemplary, reflecting the highest standards of truthfulness, accountability, sensitivity to human rights, and other relevant principles and norms”.’ Our hope is that this has and will continue to be true of the London Internet Church.

Intercessions:

Heavenly Father, we embrace Your call for us to make disciples, to be witnesses and to grow leaders. Give us the eyes to see Your vision, ears to hear the prompting of Your Spirit and courage to follow in the footsteps of your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Help us help others to discover your Way, to know your Truth and to share your Life in your dear Son. Inspire us by your Spirit to sow the good seed of the gospel through the London Internet Church with imagination and compassion that many will come to know you and many will be strengthened in their faith, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We light candles in church and on the London Internet Church site as a prayer: when we have gone the candle stays alight, kindling in the hearts and minds of others the prayers we have offered for the sick, the suffering, for those who have died, for the peace of the world, for ourselves and prayers of thankfulness too. Lighting a candle is a parable: burning itself out it gives light to others. Christ gave himself for others. He calls us to give ourselves. Lighting a candle is a symbol: of love and hope, of light and warmth. Our world needs them all and so we pray for these things in this world. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, you speak and bring all that is seen and unseen into being: we give you thanks for the gift of the media to reach the far flung places of the earth with messages of hope and life. We give you thanks for those who risk their security and even their lives to expose injustice and to bring news of hope. May they strive to be the bearers of good news that all people may come to know the abundant life for which we have been created; and yet more wonderfully redeemed in Jesus Christ. We offer our prayer in your name, in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Father. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

The Blessing

The Lord says, ‘Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations.’ The Father, whose glory fills the heavens, cleanse you by his holiness and send you to proclaim his word. The Son, who has ascended to the heights, pour upon you the riches of his grace. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, equip you and strengthen you in your ministry. And the blessing of God almighty, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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

Will Todd - The Call Of Wisdom.