Friday 21 December 2012

Biblical Hermeneutics


Biblical hermeneutics is the art of interpreting the written texts of our ancient, inspired writings. And, as we sit in the warm glow of our Christmas tree, it’s important to enter, interpret and seriously apply our nativity texts.

The Magi came from the East is an interesting affirmation of current practice for Christians in North Wiltshire. At this time of year Cabot Circus and Cribbs Causeway are traditionally being approached from the east and, extraordinarily, just as the star slowed and stopped over Bethlehem, we slow and stop as we approach the junctions with the M32 or the M5. Mmmmm. It makes you think doesn’t it?

Suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude clearly refers to the sudden and shocking appearance of many things from absolutely nowhere; such as when a messenger brings items of online (celestial?) shopping mysteriously to your front door. Where do these things come from? How do they know we’re here? How do they know exactly the wrong size for each item of clothing?

And the shepherds were abiding in the fields watching is clearly a reference to the isolated men simply sitting and watching, clutching a strong black coffee, waiting for that moment when they can return with their flock from the fields of customer browsing.

Obviously, what I’ve presented to you is an expert’s view. Alternative positions on these texts might imply that the Angels point us to the divinity of Jesus, the Magi call us to lay down our lives in worship of Jesus, and the Shepherds challenge us to share with others the good news of Jesus. You’ll have to make up your own mind and react accordingly.

In the mean time, many thanks from Marilyn and myself for all your lovely cards and presents; they’re greatly appreciated. And sincere love and peace from all the members of the leadership at the Abbey to our brothers and sisters with whom we serve. It’s a joy to work with you as we proclaim the one born in Bethlehem across the communities of North Wiltshire. Happy Christmas.


Thursday 6 December 2012

The Malmesbury Nativity


Clergy get Ministry Development Reviews, known as MDR, or KGB. It’s to check that since a bishop laid his (not for long) hands on you all those years ago that there is still some direction in your life, that you are still growing, and you still have a passion for God. Not an entirely bad thing really, and my MDR recently revealed that in the midst of budgets, buildings and baptisms that, as a creatively wired person, I should intentionally make time for creativity in my job. At about the same time we were looking to redevelop our annual junior church nativity, make our crib services more genuinely all-age and bring some of the energy and creativity of Riding Lights to the end product. The result of this serendipity is The Malmesbury Nativity.


For four days just before Christmas we will be turning the central aisle of the Abbey into Malmesbury High Street where Aldhelm, William and Eilmer will cross the boundaries of time and join forces with Hannah Twynnoy (with no tiger) to tell the story of the birth of Christ to Aldhelm’s reluctant audience – the people of Malmesbury. Some of your questions answered:

Can an adult enjoy this? Absolutely. The Malmesbury Nativity is designed to be more adult friendly than usual and not just a young family show. It lasts about an hour and will be performed by four young actors from Wiltshire currently studying drama and theatre at university level – no longer will you have the vicar in a white sheet and tinsel. Costumes are currently being made, the lighting is coming from a foreign land (Cardiff) and the musicians are reworking eight or nine Christmas Carols with the influence of Mumford and Sons.

Can a little child still enjoy this? Absolutely, again. Under an hour, short scenes, lots of humour and energy, great music, and the opportunity to dress up as an angel, a shepherd or a magi and get onto the stage for the final tableau. What’s more, the abbey cafĂ© will be open for cakes and hot chocolate which seem to have a magical effect on most young people.

Did you really shoot the Little Donkey? I shouldn’t have said that, no we didn’t, honest; although we did have a vet or two in our congregation volunteer to help. However the Little Donkey song is staying in its stable this year for a rest.

Can I get a ticket still? Yes, but make haste to Bethlehem as they are going fast. Tickets are free for under-18s and £2 for adults to cover costs. The Christmas Eve performances are nearly sold out but we are releasing 75 standing tickets this weekend for the Christmas Eve shows. And if you’re planning to come to church on Sunday 23rd at 4pm you’ll need a ticket!

Yes, but is this actually about the birth of Jesus at all or just a bit of fun? Well, both we hope, but we’ve entrusted writing the pivotal scenes 4-7 to two writers called Luke and Matthew. We hope they deliver.

Friday 30 November 2012

Response


I'm addicted. Some watch their soaps, some can’t stop shopping (I personally can’t start), some worship at Old Trafford, but I'm hooked on Hugh Laurie in the American medical drama House. When I unwrap my presents on Christmas Day I'm really hoping that my devoted family, colluding with me in my addiction, will have put the final Season 8 under the tree, and that will then become my holiday devotional; bliss. In the meantime I watch old episodes, including one recently in which a man simply couldn't respond to anything – to the words of his son, the touch of his wife, no response, no reaction, nothing, until the very last minute of the episode. At the end his recovery began, but up until that point he was simply an observer.

Magi travel around the word and prostrate themselves, Mary magnifies the Lord in song, the Shepherds tell everyone, the Angels glorify, Herod murders children, Simeon prophesies salvation for humanity and pain for Mary, Anna gives thanks, and the Little Donkey dances. OK the donkey is not in all editions of the New Testament, maybe in A Shrek Christmas (NIV), but if he was there he’d have done something. That’s the point really – there aren't any observers. Actually at one point Luke tells us that Mary ponders the events of the last 24 hours in her heart, but pondering is not passivity, and as she has just given birth and been invaded by shepherds she’s allowed a break.

The Christian claim that the light of all humanity was born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago is not an invitation to simple observation or passivity. The birth of Christ demands engagement and a response; sometimes it’s a rejection. Perhaps you might argue that our national obsession with Christmas Day is an indication that we’re responding really rather well, it’s certainly fun, and I love it – except the party hats from crackers which never fit on my head. But the question that bugs me a little is ‘what are we actually responding to at the moment?’

The season of Advent emerged in the sixth century as a time of fasting and preparation so that when the Mass of Christ arrived our innermost beings would be on the right page, so that our response would be awe, not world-weariness; on earth as it is in heaven. Join us in Morning Prayer at the Abbey at 9am each weekday of Advent if this is going to help deepen your response this Christmas. Or pick up the sheet at the back of the Abbey if you’d like to pray at work or as you park the car at Cribbs Causeway (whose strap-line incidentally is currently The Joy of Shopping.)

Handel responded with his Messiah, J.S. Bach wrote his Christmas Oratorio. Something needs to be born in us.

Thursday 22 November 2012

Introducing the next Archbishop


A brief biography of the next Archbishop of Canterbury abridged from the Archbishop’s website

Born in 1956 in London, the Right Reverend Justin Welby was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history and law. For 11 years - five in Paris and six in London – he worked in the oil industry mainly on West African and North Sea projects. During this period he became a lay leader at Holy Trinity Brompton in London, home of the Alpha Course, having previously been a council member at St Michael’s Church in Paris. A major influence both on Justin and his wife Caroline was their experience of personal tragedy. In 1983 their seven-month old daughter died in a car crash in France. Six years later in 1989, after sensing a call from God, Bishop Justin stood down from industry to train for ordination.

After being ordained Deacon in 1992, he spent 15 years serving Coventry Diocese. After a curacy in Nuneaton, in 1995 he became Rector of St James, Southam and St Michael and All Angels, Ufton, the neighbouring parish. He helped revive churches, growing their congregations and launching bereavement and baptism teams, among other things. Between 2000 and 2002 he also chaired an NHS hospital trust in South Warwickshire.

In 2002, he was made a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, where he ran the reconciliation work based there. With Canons Andrew White and Stephen Davis, he worked extensively in the field in Africa and the Middle East. In the Niger Delta, he worked on reconciliation with armed groups. He met with religious and political leaders in Israel and Palestine, and on one trip to Baghdad reopened the Anglican Church with Canon Andrew White, shortly after the allied invasion.  In 2006 he also took responsibility for Holy Trinity Coventry, the main city centre church, as Priest-in-charge.

He left Coventry in 2007 to become Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, the largest cathedral in England. Its local area, Toxteth, is among the most deprived in north-west Europe. During his leadership he brought the Cathedral into much greater contact with its local community, working with asylum seekers and in partnership with neighbouring churches. The Cathedral also hosted events from a TUC rally to royal services. Over his four years, during which he also continued to work on reconciliation and mediation projects overseas, the Cathedral’s congregation increased significantly. In 2011 he was announced as the new Bishop of Durham, taking over from the author Tom Wright. He will be enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013.
.
His interests include French culture, sailing and politics. He is married to Caroline, who studied Classics at Cambridge, where they met. They have two sons and three daughters.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Advent Calendar


It was an ordinary Monday afternoon but I’d been looking forward to it for days: 2pm, Monday, a meeting with the Abbey organist and choirmaster, John Hughes. I like John an awful lot, and I enjoy a cup of tea with a fellow musician pretty much whenever. But that Monday we were discussing the music for my two favourite ecclesiastical seasons – Advent & Christmas; and I was pretty much like…well, a little boy on Christmas morning. Without wasting precious time on beverages and small talk we started exchanging musical ideas and very soon we were listening to choirs and sourcing publishers and wondering if our planning for the carol services was going to be bad for our altos’ blood pressure or cause our basses to tear out their (remaining) hair. Yes to both, probably.

Our fevered planning that afternoon means that the choir will be extra busy at the Abbey during Advent and Christmas, gargling will be heard across North Wiltshire as voices are looked after and new pieces by Paul Manz & Jonathan Dove with classics by Rachmaninoff and J.S. Bach are prepared. The music, with our congregational carols and our ancient lessons, forms an architecture to our worship as impressive as the abbey itself. But there is so much more to this coming season than beauty. In our holier moments Advent ignites within us longing and expectation – Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free – the Christ that came is still to come. And Christmas, as preachers tend to point out each year, is about presence, and our joy that the God present at Bethlehem is still present in Bethlehem and Syria and SN16 – O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Longing, expectation, presence and joy – perhaps it’s these themes, with their associated music, that make me watch the calendar to Advent.

So two weeks until Advent Sunday and from Tuesday 20th November we’d like you to pop in to the abbey and grab a pack of Advent and Christmas brochures to deliver across the town as we let 3,000 households know what they’re (not) missing. We love welcoming new faces to the Abbey and helping people become part of our community – so please get involved by delivering a few brochures and bringing glad tidings to your neighbours.

Incidentally, last Sunday I forgot to mention to our assembled congregations that the preacher at our services at 10.30am and 4pm this Sunday is the Rt Revd Lee Rayfield, Bishop of Swindon. (Please don’t mention this to him.) Bishop Lee is a regular visitor and a great friend of Malmesbury and he has personally been offering pastoral support and guidance to Lee & Mary Barnes in the last month, for which we are immensely grateful.

Thursday 8 November 2012

Not Remembering


I never knew my father-in-law, Private Oscar Dale. He grew up by Bondi Beach, played cricket with a young lad called Bradman, and in 1940 he signed up to join the Australian Army and fight in WWII. Oscar travelled by ship to Cairo, sending postcards of the pyramids back home to Sydney before fighting with the allies in Egypt. Later he entered the fight in the Greek peninsula and after capture spent a considerable time as a prisoner of war in Austria and Germany. While in prison he learnt a little German, but he also learnt how to resist, and for that he was led out one day to a firing squad. At the last moment he asked to defend his actions, he spoke in his newly learnt German, and remarkably his life was spared. At the end of the war Oscar returned home to his young Australian wife via England. Unfortunately, while he was being hidden by Greek farmers earlier in the war he had drunk diseased goat’s milk and this undermined his health throughout his life. He passed away before his youngest daughter Marilyn met and married a young English opera singer. So Oscar has never heard my gratitude for my wife, or met his pommie granddaughters. Although one day we will all worship together.

On Remembrance Day, as a community and a nation we remember conflict and sacrifice and we pray for justice and peace. Two minutes silence is never long enough to remember those who laid down their lives and I am always conscious that, as a man whose life has been barely touched by war, I stand alongside others whose fathers and brothers and mothers and daughters have paid the very highest price. We will remember them.

And I remember with affection my father-in-law who I never met, a memory lost because of a glass of milk in a war zone. And in the sadness of ‘not remembering’, I try to comprehend the weight of ‘not remembering’ a father who hasn't returned from Iraq, or a mother who hasn't returned from Afghanistan.

When you go home
tell them of us and say,
for your tomorrow
we gave our today

Saturday 3 November 2012

Latest News


Update from James & Alice Pettit
James & Alice (who worked at Malmesbury Abbey until 2009 as Associate Pastor and Pastor for Youth & Creative Arts) are on the move from their current base in Faversham, Kent. From the start of January 2013, James and Alice will be moving to Sittingbourne (which is 20 minutes nearer to Malmesbury!), where James will be Team Vicar of St Mary and St Michael. http://www.saintsinsittingbourne.co.uk/ Alice will complete her time as Curate by working with James, as part of the same team. James’ licensing will be at the end of January (probably Monday 28th). 'Thank you for your prayers and support, we wish you a happy and blessed Advent and look forward to seeing you again soon!'

DINNER FOR KIGEZI
Our harvest appeal for the water and sanitation project in southern Uganda raised an astonishing £2983.70. Malmesbury Abbey is now a connected church, through Tearfund, with this essential work in our partner diocese. You can see the latest news from Kigezi here http://connected.tearfund.org/en/project_link/choose_a_project/africa/uganda_-_water/ and a short video about Christmas in Uganda here http://www.tearfund.org/en/resources/for_churches/pack_library/with_love_from_uganda_resource/. Thank you for being involved in such a great project.

OSILIGI WARRIORS
The performance by the Osiligi Maasai Warriors on Saturday November 3rd is pretty much sold out. There may be a few spaces to stand at the last minute.


Saturday 20 October 2012

Minds of Clay


One morning recently I was reading Isaiah 55 when verse 9 rather leapt out and punched me on the nose. You see, the day before I’d heard myself speaking in a meeting, and as I spoke I was internally questioning whether anything, anything at all that I was saying was even remotely close to God’s heart. Blah, blah, blah, I listened to myself, blah, blah, blah. I seemed pretty confident and coherent but hardly touched by the divine; Hmmmm. And then verse nine the following morning from the World Boxing Council:

As the heavens are higher than the earth
So are my ways higher than your ways
And my thoughts than your thoughts

God may be close, Christ is with us even until the end of the age, but that distance between the divine mind and the human effort sometimes seems to have closed so little, and on my good days I see it in myself first and in others second. Then on the phone that afternoon I heard myself talking again and reflected as I was talking on and on that if I was God I’d give myself a slap with Isaiah 55:9 too. Yes we carry our treasure in jars of clay, we speak with lips of clay and we think with minds of clay.

I can see why Paul writing to a badly behaving church in Corinth didn’t ask the church to simply abandon and shut down the spiritual gifts because of their misuse; to back away would be to exchange one form of diminished church for another. Paul’s plea to a church to eagerly desire the greater gifts is a call to abandon the low valleys and ravines of our thoughts and to ascend to the higher thoughts and ways of God. Our lower thoughts serve the church poorly and the world even worse.

It highlighted to me the need for the prophetic, the wise and the discerning to emerge prayerfully from Christian leaders and the Christian body. And those of you that know your 1 Corinthians will be pointing out that it’s all there in chapter two: none of us can say ‘we have the mind of Christ’ without the Spirit, the One who knows the thoughts of God. (I’m resisting finishing with ‘it is the pneumatic that changes the pathetic into the prophetic, although that might become a three point sermon at some future point.)

Abbey November Diary

While we redevelop the Abbey website, which sadly doesn't have a diary page, we thought it might be helpful to have the monthly diary viewable here. If you have any questions please phone the parish office on 01666 826666. 

Thursday 1st November
4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice

Friday 2nd November

9-10am           Organ Practice

Saturday 3rd November

9-10am           Prayers
5.30pm           Arrival of Maasai Warriors
7.30pm           Performance by Osiligi Maasai Warriors

Sunday 4th November
8am                BCP Holy Communion
10.30am        Holy Communion
4pm                Informal Family Worship (no Junior Church)
6.30pm           Service of Thanksgiving for the Faithful Departed

Monday 5th November

7pm                Malmesbury Singers Rehearsal

Tuesday 6th November

9.30am           Women Alive!

Wednesday 7th November

10.30am         Holy Communion

Thursday 8th November

4pm                Evening Prayer
7.30pm           Poppy Appeal Concert

Friday 9th November

9-10am           Organ Practice
12.30pm         Tour – no guide
7pm                FNT

Saturday 10th November
9-10am           Prayers

Sunday 11th November
8am                Holy Communion
10.30am         Holy Communion with Act of Remembrance
2.30pm           British Legion & Churches Together, Service of Remembrance
4pm                Informal Worship with Act of Remembrance for families

Monday 12th November

2.15pm           Prayers for Local Schools in St Aldhelm’s Chapel

Tuesday 13th November

7.15pm           Refresh!  Film Night – Amazing Grace

Wed 14th November

10.30am         Holy Communion
7pm                Cantores Choir Rehearsal

Thurs 15th November

4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice

Friday 16th November

9-10am           Organ Practice
7pm                FNT

Saturday 17th November

9-10am           Prayers

Sunday 18th November
8am                BCP Holy Communion
10.30am         Holy Communion; Preacher, the Bishop of Swindon
4pm                Informal Worship; Preacher, the Bishop of Swindon with Junior Church

Monday 19th November

7pm                Malmesbury Singers

Tuesday 20th November

9.30am           Women Alive!

Wednesday 21st November

10.30am         Holy Communion
7.30pm           Intercessory Prayer

Thursday 22nd November

4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice
8pm                CafĂ© Theology

Friday 23rd November

9-10am           Organ Practice
7pm                FNT

Saturday 24th November

9-10am           Prayers
3pm                Set up & rehearsal for concert
7.30pm           Concert

Sunday 25th November
8am                BCP Holy Communion
10.30am        Morning Prayer with Baptisms
4pm                Informal Worship & All-Age Communion (no Junior Church)
8pm                ((resonate))

Monday 26th November

7pm                Malmesbury Singers Rehearsl

Wednesday 28th November

10.30am         Holy Communion
7.30pm           Prayer Ministry Training Evening

Thursday 29thNovember

4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice

Friday 30th November

9-10am           Organ Practice
6-8pm             LATE NIGHT SHOPPING




Thursday 18 October 2012

Maasai Warriors


Introducing solar lights to your community, building a church and community centre, building a six classroom primary school, kitchen & dining room and teachers' houses, undertaking maintenance of clean water supplies, sponsoring 65 orphans or children from very poor families to attend school – perhaps not exactly what you’d expect a warrior to do? The Osiligi Maasai warriors are slightly different. Osiligi is the Maasai word for ‘hope’, and Osiligi is a UK charity working with the Warriors to help to relieve poverty in the Maasai areas of Kenya without changing the culture of the communities it assists. The charity is run by volunteers and 100% of all donations go to Kenya to be used in projects like introducing solar lights to the community and…oh yes, that’s where we started.


Tajeu Ole Minisa (known as Richard) is the leader of the group. Born one of nine children, his father died when he was fourteen and his mother struggled to sell water and firewood in an effort to pay Tajeu’s school fees. In the end he had to leave school and after training as a warrior for one year, he went to help his mother drive out their cows to look for pastures. He supplemented any money they had by working as a night watchman. Realising that he had a gift as solo singer, he met with friends and saw the potential singing had to inspire people as they coped with poverty and hard times and to educate people on how to lead a more Christian life. Richard is married with three sons and he will be performing in the Abbey with Kamayet, Kesame,Lydia and Miriam.

The Warriors tour the UK each year performing their songs and tribal ceremonies and this year’s tour takes them from small village halls and community centres to Exeter Cathedral and Malmesbury Abbey on Saturday 3rd November at 7.30pm; tickets £7 (adults) and £3 (children) available at the Abbey bookshop on on the door on the night. The music is mesmerising and unforgettable – a spectacle, with a good heart, not to be missed.

Thursday 11 October 2012

Abbey October Diary

While we redevelop the Abbey website, which sadly doesn't have a diary page, we thought it might be helpful to have the monthly diary viewable here. 

Thursday 11th October
4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice
8pm                CafĂ© Theology

Friday 12th October
9am                Organ Practice
10.30am        Creative Response

Saturday 13th October
9am                Prayers
10am              Healing in the streets
10am-2pm     Possible ITV filming in the Abbey
3pm                Set Up/Rehearsal/Concert

Sunday 14th October
8am                1662 Holy Communion
10.30am        Harvest Holy Communion
4pm                Informal Worship & Junior Church
6.30pm          Choral Evensong (Harvest)

Monday 15th October
2.15pm          Prayers for Malmesbury School (St Aldhelm’s Chapel)
7pm                Malmesbury Singers Rehearsal

Tuesday 16th October
All week         Removal of carpet in South Aisle

Wednesday 17th October
10.30am         Holy Communion
7.30pm           Workers' Prayer

Thursday 18th October
4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice

Friday 19th October
9am                Organ Practice

Saturday 20th October
9am                Prayers
10am              Healing in the streets

Sunday 21st October
8am                1662 Holy Communion
10.30am        Holy Communion
4pm                Informal Worship & Junior Church

Monday 22nd October
All day            Portable Appliance Testing
7pm                Malmesbury Singers Rehearsal
  
Tuesday 23rd October
9.30am           Women Alive! (Le FlambĂ©)
10-12pm        Malmesbury Primary School Harvest Service
2.30pm           Funeral

Wednesday 24th October
10.30am         Holy Communion
3pm                Renewal of Vows/Marriage Blessing

Thursday 25th October
10.30am         Funeral
1.30am-5pm  Servicing of Sound System
4pm                Evening Prayer
7pm                Choir Practice

Friday 26th October
All morning     Servicing of Sound System
10.30-12pm   Creative Response

Saturday 27th October
9am                Prayers
10am              Healing in the streets
  
Sunday 28th October
8am                Holy Communion
10.30am        Morning Prayer & Healing
4pm                Informal Worship & Interview
8pm                ((resonate))

Monday 29th October
7pm                Malmesbury Singers Rehearsal

Wednesday 31st October
10.30am         Holy Communion

Monday 1 October 2012

Dinner for Kigezi


‘All good things around us are sent from heaven above…’ The Harvest Festival season has arrived in North Wiltshire and churches are whipping out their harvest hymns and decorating the church with impressive home grown produce; (the pineapples last Sunday at St John the Baptist, Brokenborough perhaps suggesting that not everything is locally grown?) In truth this has been a tough harvest for our farmers so our gratitude to God for His provision has a fair dollop of relief served with it this year.

However, this Harvest at Malmesbury Abbey we are taking a different approach. We are asking you not to bring carrots or turnips, or old bicycles or mobiles as we have done in previous years (when we worked with Bikes4Africa and WaterAid.) This year, on Sunday October 14th, we want your dinner money. Fast for a meal and put the money you save in a Dinner for Kigezi envelope, or simply work out the cost of your family meal, or dinner at The Old Bell, and put the same amount in an envelope marked Dinner for Kigezi. Why?



As part of our diocesan link with the church in Uganda, the Deanery of North Wiltshire (our bit) is linked with the Diocese of Kigezi, based on the city of Kabale near the Rwanda/Ugandan border; I visited there last year (see above.) In the mountainous south west of Uganda access to water and sanitation is limited, and the diocese there has an outstanding project that is improving the general health of children and particularly the lives of girls and women who are no longer having to work daily long distances to fetch water. Alongside this there is an HIV education project running which provides safe water for those living with HIV. Through Tearfund we are becoming a connected church to this project over the next few years, and you can find out more about it at 

If you put your dinner money in an envelope from the Abbey and fill it in we can reclaim the tax through gift aid. Many thanks.

Thursday 27 September 2012

All Change


Having just said farewell to Lee and Mary Barnes, as they left for the Diocese of Liverpool in July, and now preparing to welcome (Revds) John and Alice Monaghan as they join us in June 2013, it’s sadly now time for the Abbey to bid farewell to Paul Tilley as he leaves us for the University of Bristol at the October half-term.

Paul is about to take a new direction in life as he studies full-time for an M.A. in Educational Psychology and then undertakes a paid Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. This is really great news for Paul and it will be sad to see him go after he’s become such an important part of us over the last three years; but after a pretty rough 2011/12 I’m pleased for Paul that his life and learning is being refreshed and that he faces new challenges and opportunities in Bristol.

Pipeline, Trax, and the Friday Night Thing will be losing a good teacher and friend at half term and we will say goodbye to Paul at our 4pm service on October 21st.

What next for our Youth department at the Abbey? Well, myself and the PCC have decided not to rush to answer that question but to listen to the needs and insights of the leadership teams for both Abbey youth and children's departments. We’ll also want to look at our 2013/2014 budgets and plan wisely and sustainably before we make staff appointments, if any.

Our first task is volunteer personnel. Sarah McGrory continues with us on placement during her final year studying for a B.A. in youth and community work. Sarah will continue to oversee Trax (11-14) and SiB (at Malmesbury School) and serve on the leadership of Malmesbury Abbey Skate 2013 with myself. We are immediately looking to recruit, from our congregations, volunteers with a passion for God and young people to serve as leaders and assistants for Pipeline and the Friday Night Thing, who will be supported and trained by myself and the youth leadership. Initially we’re asking people to commit from early-November through to next summer and particularly asking mature Christians with teaching experience to step forward. But we also are looking for people, who want to grow in a new area of ministry, who love young people and who are considerably cooler than the vicar, to commit to serving once or twice a month. Our Youth department is a great place to grow in your own faith, to help shape the lives of young people, and to go insane.

Please e-mail neill@malmesburyabbey.com to explore this, and pray for Paul, Eloise, Isaac & Reuben as an exciting new chapter begins in Bristol.

Thursday 20 September 2012

The Monaghans are coming


We have a real passion for encouraging new ministry and leadership at the Abbey, so it is great to announce that John Monaghan is joining us in June 2013 as a full-time curate for the next three to four years. Some of you will have met John and the family as they joined us at the Abbey for worship at the end of August, albeit slightly undercover; but here is a brief intro from John and Alice:

John is from Dublin where he grew up and trained as a sports physio.  His father is an evangelical, charismatic Catholic who co-ordinates the Alpha course in Ireland, and his mother is a Pentecostal minister and clinical psychologist – so he’s enjoyed a wonderfully ecumenical upbringing!  John’s middle name is Emanuel – ‘God with us’, and he remembers making his first personal commitment to follow Christ at the age of seven, when he really wanted, (and then experienced) the assurance of God with him.  From the age of sixteen, he became more involved in his mother’s church – an Assemblies of God, Pentecostal church in Dublin.  His faith continued to grow as he stepped out in service (as it often does!) as a youth leader and worship leader in that church.


John met Alice in 2001 at a Christian conference in Ireland where John was leading the worship.  Alice’s parents are also Christians, and her commitment to Christ really came alive in a new way through an Alpha course her friend invited her to while she was studying architecture at Edinburgh University.  John subsequently moved to the UK, where Alice had just started training for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.  They got married in 2003.  Alice served her curacy at St James Church, Gerrards Cross, Bucks, under Paul Williams (currently bishop of Kensington).  Having been a clergy spouse for several years, John decided to return the favour (as well of course feeling deeply called in that direction!) and trained for ordained ministry at Trinity College, Bristol.

John and Alice have three adorable(ish) children – Philip (6), Toby (4) and Clara (2).  Alice currently works part-time as Assistant Vicar of Christ Church, Clifton, and when they are not doing churchy things they love having friends over for supper, family picnics and walks in the countryside, jumping on their trampoline (with the kids of course), running and mountain biking (okay – only John likes doing that!).  The Monaghan’s (silent ‘g’ by the way!) are really excited about being part of the community at Malmesbury from June 2013, and would value your prayers as our time in Bristol draws to a happy conclusion over the next year, and as we prepare to move next June.

Thursday 13 September 2012

Audacity


Last year, after eating Sushi for the first time, yes pretty pathetic I know,  I talked with the Dean of Singapore Cathedral, Kuan Kim Seng, as he outlined two developments that were particularly exciting him in the life of the Cathedral. These were not something mundane and straightforward for his church, like church planting in Vietnam or providing schools across his city, but something really big. The first of these was taking five youth pastors and sending them to train for six months with Bill Wilson and Metro Ministries in New York City; on their return they were to start a new Saturday morning ‘Sunday School’ for 1000 young people. At the same time he was taking 400 people from the largest of his nine Sunday congregations and starting a brand new Saturday evening congregation. As he described these huge projects I knew I was talking with a man who believed the future belonged to God and for whom to believe audacious things for God’s kingdom was nothing particularly remarkable. I asked him if these two significant developments appeared in any of the Cathedral’s recent strategic planning and he replied ‘no, God sometimes surprises us!’ And you might think that sometimes Singapore Cathedral surprises God.

In the early chapters of John’s gospel you see Jesus, while he still can, attempting to go under the radar: humbly being baptised by John with the rest, trying to avoid a miracle with water at a wedding, talking one on one with the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus, gathering a few disciples. But soon the highly visible and audacious starts breaking in – a healing in Jerusalem, 5000 fed, Lazarus looking pretty well for a dead man, and perhaps most unsubtle of all, turning over the tables of the bureau de change in the Temple. Audacity is a Jesus characteristic. In Dean Kim Seng it has also become a kingdom priority and a leadership characteristic.

At the Willow Creek leadership conference in 2011, Stephen Furtick, senior pastor of Elevation Church, Charlotte NC, talked about daring to believe God for the impossible and the audacity it takes to get started. Then he delivered to assembled pastors an enormous kick up the backside: ‘if the size of your vision isn’t intimidating there’s a good chance that it’s insulting to God.’ The boldness of these two leaders has remained with me since, a holy nudge, so that when the task ahead seems immense I simply need to ask ‘is God scared yet?’

Thursday 6 September 2012

Morph-ing


Morph didn't use to be a verb, it was just a noun, but then it slowly changed into something else. Our small groups have had different names and branding - house groups, bible studies, home groups, cells, missional communities, the brotherhood of darkness (we didn't use that one in the end.) Our even smaller groups have morphed similarly - prayer triplets, prayer partners, life transformation groups, accountability groups. But my passion for small community life in the church is not that it conforms to one model, or has a particular name, or meets on the same night of the week, but simply that it happens.

Hopefully you are starting to notice that a priority this autumn at the Abbey is to strengthen our small community life and broaden its range. Change is already well under way; we are morphing in the light of God (apologies, yes I know that was really, really bad.) Three groups have already emerged with a fresh focus on theology, marriage and the creative arts. There are new welcome and discipleship groups at our 4pm service and our new 10.30am daytime home group is growing well. Some groups are meeting monthly, others fortnightly and some weekly. Some are studying John's gospel to accompany our autumn series, others aren't. Some groups will last for ever; others will last for a season. We don't want a utopian conformity in how we meet together but a realistic diversity. In the midst of this flexibility we are seeing new life emerge and already 50-60 people have reconnected to small community life. 

And when we disagree with someone, or don't like the carpet of our homegroup host, or get bored with X saying the same thing every week and Y doing their irritating prayers, we would do well to think on these words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer from his Life Together:

Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none that is less than this. Whether it be a brief single encounter or the daily community of many years, Christian community is solely this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.

There is a profound and liberating simplicity to what Bonhoeffer says, community life is at the foot of the cross. Life together, it seems, is unchanging, profoundly uninfluenced by culture, chemistry, tradition and dynamics; life together is founded simply on Christ. But life together does change as it grows, and it grows as we join in and grow up together.

You can find more information at abbeysmallcommunities.blogspot.co.uk , where you will also find discussion starters from our Sunday talks on John’s gospel. Please contact Sandie in the Parish Office if you'd like to get involved in any way.


Monday 3 September 2012

Usain Bolt at Malmesbury Abbey

I'm sure he was there somewhere?!


P.S. This was to illustrate a sermon about John the Baptist pointing to Christ, not just mindless frivolity (like most weeks.)

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Moderately Important


"One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important."  CS Lewis

I bumped into this quotation from Christian Apologetics at the back end of the summer and I must confess I didn’t like it very much at all. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with it, I agree with CS Lewis as a default setting – the sum of my life’s thinking wouldn’t be a fair exchange for a half-decent paragraph of Lewis. What I didn’t like was it’s diagnosis of my spiritual condition, a soul drifting in the summer sun and allowing the crucial to become the peripheral and vice versa. There is nothing particularly wrong with Test Match Special and a glass of Rioja, but perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to define us.

But having put on my hair shirt and thwacked myself a few times as penance, I noticed the first six words of the quotation above which are often omitted when repeated elsewhere – ‘one must keep on pointing out’. At some time in my past, and possibly yours, there was a season when my innermost being realised that to follow Christ was of infinite importance, life was (gloriously) different from that moment on. There have been various dark times since, and undoubtedly there will be in the future, but at no point have I concluded that Christianity was of no importance, I think that would be too recognisable as a dimension of the spiritual battle. But if I’m honest, living at times as if following Christ was of moderate importance is something I can be fairly accused of. Cranmer, in the Book of Common Prayer, would have us confess our sins of negligence, weakness and deliberate fault. We tend to put our hands up to the deliberate fault stuff – sorry, O Lord, that I kickest the cat verily–  but it’s harder to recognise that subtle negligence and weakness, and it is in this we reduce Jesus Christ to moderate importance. CS Lewis identifies this not as a one-off problem, but as a condition of the church that frequently needs pointing out.

So I point it out to myself again, and I point it out to my brothers and sisters at Malmesbury Abbey, that this isn’t and never was moderately important. And it crucially matters that we make very effort to stay spiritually alive and well this autumn. How vicar? I’m not sure that there is anything new under the sun really: simply engaging each week in corporate worship, serving together in ministry and mission, and allowing some space in our (daily) lives to meet with God, will go a long way to rescue us from moderation. And also not kidding ourselves that spiritual consistency and growth will happen between now and Yule unless we actually make changes to effect it.

‘Who do you say I am?’

Sunday 19 August 2012

Leadership 101: Height


It’s hard to oversee something when you’re crawling underneath it.

In the autumn of 2011 I was granted a three month sabbatical by my Bishop, Extended Study Leave to step back from the relentlessness of ordained ministry, to refresh my thinking on leadership, and to count the grains of sand on an Australian beach. Returning in January 2012 one of the surprising benefits of this disengagement was height. I understand leadership in the church (or anywhere really) to involve the overseeing of people and their life together, both their well-being and their direction - seeing both over and beyond, pastoral and prophetic. But it’s really hard to oversee something when you’re crawling underneath it, and over months and years the organisational dimensions of the pastoral and prophetic can gradually drag you in, making the over-seeing harder and eventually impossible to achieve – effectively ministering as an underseer. (I think I just invented a word.)

I was reminded of this as I crawled over the line this summer, a bit like the injured Olympian I’d seen on the BBC who bravely chose to finish the race even though one of her leg muscles was clearly shot to bits. Breaks from work this year had been curtailed because of significant pastoral matters and early-August was an oasis that couldn’t come soon enough. I was beginning to think that in the Kingdom of Heaven the out of office reply is always on and the answer machine whispers soothingly ‘leave that call to me, you go back to that nice dark room, vicar.’

But two weeks later I have height again. Was it the day on the beach, the lengths in the local pool, the new instalment in the Batman trilogy, or even the theology I enjoyed reading on a sunny, peaceful afternoon? All really, I guess. I think this regained height is a form of the practical, prophetic wisdom which the monk Thomas Merton references:

Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace,
it destroys the fruitfulness of our work
because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

Although we don’t really do ‘frenzy’ in Wiltshire I like his point. His 'root' is my 'height'. I feel taller, I can see differently and I remember two bits of advice which I pass on. First, Bill Hybels saying that the best gift a leader can give to their church is a fully rested and energised self. And secondly, Jason Bourne in Robert Ludlum’s the Bourne Supremacy who points out helpfully to those of us engaged in a spiritual battle that ‘Rest is a weapon.’

Monday 6 August 2012

Olympic Highlight


Getting quite tired of the constant Golds and Silvers being hung around the necks of GB athletes – this ruling the world is so tedious – and resisting the temptation to call family and friends in Australia and say ‘na, na, na, na, na’, I was surprised and delighted to find a deep but quirky joy in the first round of the women’s 400m hurdles.

London 2012 Logo

Yes, I liked it a little that one of the fastest qualifiers from Jamaica was a Melanie Walker (54.78) – who clearly didn’t, walk that is. I also chuckled that the Liberian athlete who didn’t qualify for the next round, Raasin McIntosh (57.39) clearly wasn’t, racin’, that is. But my joy in the misfortune of another, which is obviously a dark side that I must address at some future point, was taken to higher giggly level altogether by the Bulgarian athlete Vania Stombolova – who did, at the 4th hurdle. With a surname like that I would have chosen a seated discipline.