Vicars’ Blog May 2019

May 2019

The river of life

This picture is an inspiration for our church for the year ahead. It comes from the vision given by God to Ezekiel (Ezekiel chapter 47). A river is flowing out of the Temple in the desert and wherever the river flows plants spring up and there is vibrant life everywhere even fish and creatures in the Dead Sea, where nothing lives. Jesus said people who believe in him are filled with the water of life and they can offer life and hope to people wherever they go. What an inspiring thought for our church in the year ahead!

 Tell me a story

Sometimes we have the privilege of listening to someone telling us about things that have happened in their lives maybe years ago. True stories are always gripping. The Easter story is the greatest story of all time which reminds us of the wonderful, everlasting hope that Jesus has bought for each of us. And our lives are different because Jesus has defeated death. How often do we tell our stories of faith? One of our Vision priorities to help us be more confident in faith is to share our stories of faith. The Sunday sermons in May, based on the Acts of the Apostles, look at ordinary people whose encounters with the risen Christ changed their lives for ever. What has our experience of God been? Each of us has some story to tell of what difference Jesus is making to our lives. It may be an answer to prayer just yesterday, or a long time ago, or it may be how we came to faith in Jesus. Someone once encouraged me to write my faith story and then to shorten it to a three minute version and then a one minute spoken story. We could try it. Hearing one another’s stories will certainly help us grow in faith.

A second Vision priority to help us take our next steps to deeper faith in Christ is to be praying people. The group that went to the Spring Harvest event before Easter have returned with ideas of how and what to pray and with enthusiasm to do more praying. Three points the speaker (Pete Grieg from 24/7 prayer ministry) gave us made it sound easy: keep it simple; keep it real; keep it up!  We look forward to hearing your stories.

Yours, Cathy and Jonny

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Thy Kingdom Come

Between Easter and Pentecost, the Archbishops are encouraging us to read and pray and in particular to pray the Lord’s Prayer. There are daily readings to help us. (See booklets below, click on the pictures for more information). We will have a week of prayer in St Mary’s church in the week up to Pentecost on Sunday 9th June and there will be an ecumenical prayer event at Guildford cathedral you can find out about it here.