All Saints and St James

Welcome ! 

Are you new to the parish? Please sit wherever you would like! All are welcome at God’s Altar – either to receive Communion or to receive a blessing.  Children are very
welcome at any worship and please don’t worry about them making a noise.  There are toys and books available. Coffee is usually served after the main Sunday service and we would all like to make you feel most welcome. 

Prayers
For the sick and infirm: Marise Lancaster, Derek Wolton, Esther Restall, Jean Allen, Brian Johnson
For the anniversaries of the departed: Leslie Plumb, Edward Church

All Saints Diary

6 May – 10.30am Family Eucharist, Rev Peter Littleford

17 May 7.30pm Ascension Day, Sung Eucharist at St James

19 May – 4pm Welcome to new Bishop of Bedford at St Paul’s

21 May – 7pm Eucharist then PCC meeting

27 May – 4pm Pentecost Praise

3 Jun – 10.30am Jubilee Open Air Eucharist outside church hall

7 Jun – 7.30pm Corpus Christi sung Eucharist

9 Jun – 4pm Paul Fricker licensing as a reader at St Mary’s, Luton 

St James Diary

6 May – 9am Family Eucharist, Rev Peter Littleford

6 May – 6pm Holy Eucharist, Rev Jo Spray

10 May – no 10am service

16 May – 7pm Eucharist then PCC meeting

17 May 7.30pm Ascension Day, Sung Eucharist

19 May – 4pm Welcome to new Bishop of Bedford at St Paul’s

20 May – 9am Baptism of Brodie Hyland

27 May – 4pm Pentecost Praise at All Saints, no 6pm service

3 Jun – 5pm Jubilee Open Air Service in churchyard

7 Jun – 7.30pm Corpus Christi sung Eucharist at All Saints

9 Jun – 4pm Paul Fricker licensing as a reader at St Mary’s, Luton

Going Deeper into God and Making New Disciples

Evening services:

1st Sunday: Holy Eucharist at St. James

2nd Sunday: Evening Prayer at All Saints

3rd Sunday: Evening Prayer at St. James

4th Sunday: Evening Prayer at St. James

5th Sunday: Choral Evensong alternating between All Saints and St James.

Evening service: Acts 8.26-40; 1 John 4.7-end;
[Gospel: John 15.1-8]

Review of evening services:
Please give feedback to the Churchwardens

Diocesan Synod:  Elections for 7 places. Forms available.

Welcome for the new Bishop of Bedford 4pm 19 May at St Paul’s, Bedford.

Transforming Communities

All Saints Youth Group: Play games, eat, and learn something new!  Vikki(843669).

All Saints Lunch club: All welcome 12.30 pm, Wed 16 May at The Half Moon, Kempston High Street. Please inform Sue Martineau (852447) susan@edmart.plus.com

Biddenham Christian Aid Week 2012: Sun 13 May – Sat 19 May Can you help? urgently needed: collectors. Please contact me asap – janglanvill@btinternet.com Jan (62955)

Jubilee Tea Party at Kempston Church End Mon 4 June 3-6 pm See magazine or posters for details. If you’d like to come, list at back of church or please register on www.allsaintskempston.com/jubilee-party or phone Sue (852447)

Anita and Alan Coffee Morning, Thurs May 24 10.30am 26 The Elms, Kempston. All proceeds for All Saints Fabric Fund.

Trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park via Southwell Minster. Sat 26 May. Depart
All Saints church 9am. Elaine Huckle(852241).

Kempston and Biddenham International Music Festival Fri 11 May 7.30pm in the Music Recital Hall, Bedford School. Louis Alvanis £10 (students£4), or including Buffet £15 (students £7). Brian Garner (327750) Box Office(269519)

St James Jubilee Exhibition – We need stewards for church and volunteers for refreshments on Mon 4, Tues 5 June. We also need scones, biscuits and cakes. Please sign lists at back of church so that we know the help we can rely on. Thanks, Ann & Sue.

Contacts:

Clergy team: Stephen Huckle
(852241) huckles@fsmail.net  Christopher Dawe (363890)

All Saints: www.allsaintskempston.com,

Churchwardens:
Alan Lowe (857212), Sue Martineau (852447)

St James: www.stjamesbiddenham.com

Churchwardens:
Laurie Hurn (364251), Ann Morrish (266644)

St James website: jonsmith278@btinternet.com

Pewsheet: madeleinefone@hotmail.co.uk

Recently, I was watching the debate at Oxford University on
the Internet between Professor Richard Dawkins and Archbishop Rowan Williams on
the nature of human beings and their ultimate origin. It was a fascinating
debate which can be seen on YouTube. However, one of the things that struck me
was the Archbishop’s assertion that the Christian belief in the resurrection
and eternal life cannot really be satisfactorily grounded in reason but relies
almost entirely upon an appeal to faith. Of course, out of body experiences can
offer us a tantalising glimpse of the life beyond death, but they could not be
said to offer us any logical foundation for believing in immortality or eternal
life. The Ancient Greeks divided man into body and soul and the soul was held
to be immortal and Aristotle understood the soul to be the form of the body,
but this line of thought has fallen into disfavour.

So as Christians, we are left with faith as the only sure
foundation for believing in eternal life. Thus it is important to consider what
that faith rests upon especially with regard to the resurrection of Christ,
which we celebrate at Easter and which remains the corner-stone of the
Christian Faith. First of all, we must note that all four Gospels contain the
story of the empty tomb with minor variations. Such unanimity points to the
fact that something significant happened and that cannot be the stealing of the
body, because the grave was guarded. But another very important factor is the
witness of S.Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, which was written only about 20 years
after the event:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn
had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more
than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still
alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the
apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.

This is an extremely important passage on a number of
different levels. First of all, it is clear that S. Paul is referring here to a
tradition that is older than the letter to the Corinthians itself and that this
tradition comes from eye-witnesses, many of whom were known to him personally.
He knew Cephas, or Simon Peter, and James, the Lord’s brother, personally. He
also knew that some of the five hundred witnesses of Our Lord’s Resurrection
were still alive in 52/53 AD, when he is writing his letter, and so we can
safely assume that he had spoken to some of them about this life-transforming
experience. Finally, he tells us that the Lord appeared to him, presumably a
reference to his experience on the road to Damascus.

This brings us naturally to the consideration of another
question in relation to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. What kind of
experience was it? From the resurrection appearances in the Gospels, it would
seem that the apostles and Mary Magdalen had some kind of visual experience of
the risen Lord in which he spoke to them. In Paul’s conversion experience he
sees a blinding light and hears the voice of the risen Christ speaking to him.
But the fact that Paul puts his experience of the risen Lord in the same
category as that of the disciples is itself revealing. Fundamentally, he is not
speaking of a physical Jesus, like you and me, or indeed of a ghost, but rather
of a religious experience of the risen Lord as a spiritual body that has been
utterly transformed into the glory of God by what we call Resurrection.

This experience was so powerful that it convinced the
apostles and other members of the early Church that Jesus was not simply a
great prophet or religious teacher, but that in some sense he partook of the
divine nature and could be properly addressed as Son of God. Moreover, they
acted on the Great Commission given to them by the risen Christ at the end of
Matthew’s Gospel: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and
teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.’ The New Testament
writers understand the resurrection in various different ways. On the one hand,
through baptism into Christ and his resurrection, it offers them the hope of
eternal life, but equally it holds out the prospect of the complete
transformation of the created world and the establishment of a heavenly city
here on earth.

And so at Easter, we can be confident that death will not
have the last word because Christ has won a great victory over sin and death
and that we can look forward to the prospect of new and eternal life. Moreover,
we can also look forward to the transformation of the world and the
establishment of the Kingdom of God with its values of love, truth, justice and
peace here on earth. As the one seated on the throne puts it at the end of the
book of Revelation, ‘See, I am making all things new.’

May I wish you all a very happy Easter, a season full of hope and new life.

Stephen.

Richard Baxter, 1615-91

We begin the observance of Lent on Ash Wednesday, which
falls on 22nd February this year, and we will mark this with a united Sung
Eucharist at St James’s at 7.30pm, which will include the imposition of ashes,
a symbol of penitence. Lent originated as a fast in preparation for baptism at
Easter, and forty days naturally suggested themselves as being the period of
Jesus’s fast in the wilderness. In the Early Church and throughout the Middle
Ages, fasting was taken very seriously as a spiritual discipline. People
abstained from eating meat and also eggs and milk products and usually did not
break their fast until the evening, although this was gradually brought forward
until the afternoon. For us, fasting before Communion and on Good Friday may be
just a distant memory. And yet the idea of a thorough review of our Christian
life and discipleship is just as relevant today as it was in past ages.

We need to consider the traditional Lenten disciplines of
fasting, prayer, almsgiving and study. We may find it helpful to give up some
luxury or a meal once a week or eat more simply and perhaps donate the money we
have saved to some worthy cause. This is a sign that we are not slaves to what
we eat. Alternatively, we should review our rule of prayer and worship and make
sure that we worship regularly on Sundays and receive Communion at least
monthly. Personal prayer will be different for all of us but we should all make
time for prayer and to be silent before God in order to hear what he is calling
us to do, because this is the source of the inspiration for the whole of our
Christian life. Equally, Lent is an opportunity for us to review what we give
to the church and what we give to charities in order to help those in need.

This year, both churches, as part of their Mission Action
Plans, have pledged themselves to conduct an audit of the time and talents
available within the two congregations. If our two churches are to prosper and
to fulfil their mission it is absolutely vital that we harness the gifts and time
of the laity in what is called ‘Every member ministry’, because the resources
of ordained ministry are going to be much thinner on the ground in the future.
We are hoping that a pioneer minister will be based in Biddenham in 2012/13,
subject to availability, to work across both parishes with a special brief for
the new housing developments, but to be fully effective we need the gifts of
every member of our two congregations. I hope that you will use this
opportunity of reflection in Lent to discern what you can offer in your
particular congregation. If you have an idea about this, however small it may
seem to you, please do approach either the churchwardens or myself and mention
it to us.

Finally, sacred study is always a part of our Lenten
observance and this year we are following one of the York courses, ‘Handing on
the Torch’, featuring on the CD Clifford Longley, Roman Catholic journalist and
broadcaster, Rachel Lampard, responsible for the Methodist Church’s engagement
with political issues, Archbishop Sentamu and Bishop Graham Cray, Missioner and
Leader of the Fresh Expressions team. There will be five sessions: A Christian
Country? A Secular Society? A Beleaguered Church? Competing Creeds? Handing on
the Torch.

We will be joined for this by members from the Shalom Group
of Churches and the study groups will be held at All Saints Church Hall on
Mondays at 7.30pm starting on 20^th February ( but omitting 12^th
March) and concluding on 26^th March. They will also be held at St.
James’s Barn on Thursdays at 2.30pm starting on 1^st March and
concluding on 29^th March. There will be a list to sign up for this
in each church. This course is open to everyone, not only to church members. I
very much hope that you will join us for this opportunity to share our insights
and deepen our faith.

I hope that Lent will be a time of renewal in faith, in life
and in prayer for each one of you.

Stephen Huckle

Some of us from both parishes were present at the launch in St. Albans Abbey on 15 January of the new Diocesan initiative, called Living God’s Love. Those of us in church on 16 January will have seen a DVD about this and if you would like to borrow this or the sound version on CD, these are available from the Churchwardens in both parishes.

There are three aspects to the vision of Living God’s Love and we will be reflecting on these during 2011 and coming up with plans as to how best to implement this vision. The first part of it is called Going Deeper into God. This will involve us in examining the spiritual side of the life of the Church – our forms of worship and how we present them in an accessible manner, Bible study, Emmaus and other study groups, our own life of prayer and the provision for prayer groups, creating a better focus for personal prayer in our churches and the possibility of exploring alternative acts of worship or more reflective services on a Sunday evening or on weekdays, for example using Taize or Iona material.

The second part of the vision is called Transforming Communities. This is all about getting more involved in the political, social, educational, artistic and charitable life of the community and helping to build the Big Society. We need to see how best we can contribute to the life of the community both as individuals and as churches. By listening to people and to what is going on around us, we may be able to identify needs in our two communities that are not being met and which we as churches can help to satisfy. Clearly we have to recognize that we only have limited resources and we could probably only tackle one problem at a time. There are obviously various needs in our communities associated with isolation and frailty and also with the needs of young families, but we would need to do some research and real listening before identifying such a need.

The third strand to this vision is called Making New Disciples. We must remember that the Church exists for the sake of those who are not yet its members and therefore we should develop an outward-looking attitude to new people that welcomes them into our midst. Too often, whether we like it or not, we are in danger of giving the impression that the church is run for our benefit as a club of like-minded people. We already have a strategy of making the first Sunday of the month a more accessible Family Eucharist and of focussing our energies on a few important occasions during the year, such as Christmas / Christingle / Nativity / Carols, Mothering Sunday, Good Friday / Easter, an Open Air Service in the summer and Harvest Festival, when we go out of the way to invite newcomers to worship. I think that is a good strategy, which ties in with the fact that there are a lot of people who do not have much time and do not want to be committed to worship every Sunday, but nonetheless want to keep in touch with their faith and their church on special occasions. We will review this policy but I suspect that we will continue with something very like it. The occasional offices offer us golden opportunities to forge links with people we do not know very well or perhaps have never met before and we must offer them the best service possible for their baptism, wedding or funeral. We will need to review our annual services for the bereaved and for wedding couples and our policy for remembering the anniversaries of baptisms. We need to consider what we can do for those newcomers who are interested in exploring the Christian faith, perhaps through an enquirers group and our provision for those who want to be confirmed.

Living God’s Love is encouraging us to embark on this process using something called Mission Action Planning, which has been adopted successfully in other dioceses. In a nutshell, this is a process of looking and listening, leading into planning and establishing priorities and seeking to form a vision for a five year period, with priorities for each of the five years. Each parish will be invited to work with a Mission Accompanier from another parish to produce a Mission Action Plan. The first stage, which can begin right now, is for all of us to listen to what is going on in our community and to see what the needs are. Later on, we might look at this in a more structured way in the light of the Seven Marks of a Healthy Church and begin to establish the values that we want to enshrine within our church, maybe using the Five Values of a Missionary Church. The second stage involves formulating a vision in the light of the three themes of Living God’s Love and then setting priorities for each year with specific measurable and achievable goals. The third stage means planning how all this is to be achieved and who is going to be responsible for carrying it through. Finally, the action begins and we will need to review how things are going. Alongside all of this, we need to be involving everyone in praying for and thinking about what we are doing and we will need to communicate this to everyone in the congregation.

For us, we will begin thinking about Living God’s Love during Lent when I want to encourage as many people as possible to participate in the Lent Course written by our bishops on passages from St. Matthew’s Gospel. Then in the autumn the process of Mission Action Planning will begin in earnest, probably with an Away Day in September for the two PCCs and for any others who are interested and then we will continue the process with some open meetings in the parishes probably in October and November. That is all I can tell you for now, but we do need your prayers that this process will help our churches to grow and deepen in their discipleship.

Stephen