This page contains the Parish newsletter for March 2011, details of Church support, Hall Hire. House Group and Hullbridge Scouts.
Click on sidebar to access links.
St Thomas’s Vicarage,
93, Ferry Road,
Hullbridge
Essex, SS5 6EL
01702 232017
Email revharveyreed@revharveyreed.plus.com
My Dear Friends,
The Church of England can be a frustrating and maddening institution at times, and I am being polite here, since there are times when I would use much stronger language. I therefore have every sympathy with people, in this country or abroad, who feel they have to move to another denomination or stop attending Church altogether. It depends what your priorities are doesn’t it? But I cannot imagine ever changing allegiances or ceasing to be a Church member. I have spent my life serving and promoting the Church of England as a true expression of the catholic faith and a living community of the Holy Spirit, and I see nothing in the developments of the last 40 years to change my mind.
In a short ‘Vicar’s letter’, there is no room to list all my reasons for wanting passionately to stay an Anglican and continue to worship, pray and witness in this particular part of God’s Church ( for make no mistake, this is only a small part of the whole), but I thought it might be helpful to set out a few of the main reasons for my peculiar enthusiasm!
Firstly, the C of E is the Church I was baptized into 63 years ago and I have experienced such love and met and worked with such wonderful people in the North East, in Birmingham, in London and more recently in Essex that I feel I have gained much more than I have been able to give and been taught more than I have been able to pass on. This may seem a strange first reason, but I have always believed and tried to teach that all Christians are family – brothers and sisters in Christ. Yes, there have been tough times and difficult people, but isn’t every family like that and yet we don’t leave the family because we find other members less than perfect.
Secondly, the Church of England tries very hard to be a Church for All people, with a welcome for all varieties of Christian and people of little or no faith at all. This is what some condemn as vagueness and lack of clarity, but I see the welcome, the invitation to join in and see where it goes, as being exactly what Jesus was doing in the Gospels. Jesus didn’t ask lots of questions or ask people to believe every word of a closely worked out set of beliefs BEFORE He welcomed them. No, He invited them in and met their needs in every appropriate way whether they had a worked out faith or were just desperate for His help. The only agenda was God’s healing love for individuals and society as a whole. This is what I see in the Anglican approach to ministry and mission.
Thirdly, there is room and freedom, within wide limits, to worship and teach as conscience or learning suggest to us, without breaking communion. In other words, Anglicanism is the original ecumenical experiment, a Church for the whole nation, and that means more to me than almost anything else. Jesus didn’t found a bunch of separate warring denominations, He called people into God’s Kingdom, into a new and living relationship with God and thus with each other. At the Last Supper, Jesus said ‘Drink this all of you’, not ‘those of you who are in agreement at this moment ‘. The very act of remaining in communion when we disagree about some things or find each other difficult to get on with, is a sign to the divided world around us that things can be very different if we trust God. After all our biggest disagreements are only about relatively small things compared with faith in God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and they are often the result of reading the Bible in different ways, or understanding the same text in a different way.
Fourthly, there is room for change and adaptation to new circumstances and new insights into the eternal truths of the Gospel. The Christian Church has changed and adapted throughout its history, and probably wouldn’t have survived this long if it hadn’t, yet there are those who insist that NOTHING should change and that the Church can learn nothing from the world around us. In a world of constant change it can be very attractive to belong to a Church which resists change, but it is a romantic delusion. The paradox is that we all change all the time and yet human nature remains the same and we make the same mistakes over and over again. We discover new knowledge all the time and we need to take it into account in our dialogue with other Faiths and those of no faith, or we just look old fashioned and irrelevant. Our Church may take its time in considering and adopting change, but it is always done by consent and after full discussion. I can see no other reasonable way to go about things.
So, there you are: a few of the reasons I remain a faithful Anglican. There are at least a few more and this Lent I will try to share them with you.
Your servant for Jesus sake
Harvey
The Lent discussion Group as in recent years will meet at the Vicarage on Tuesdays at 2pm for one hour followed by refreshments.
IF there is sufficient demand there will also be a Wednesday evening group, meeting at St Thomas’s at 7.30pm.
Both groups will use the latest York course, written by Bishop Stephen; ‘RICH INHERITANCE, Jesus legacy of love’. The booklets are £3.10 each and transcripts of the CD conversations are £3.00 each.
VACANCIES
There are, or soon will be, vacancies for:
EVENTS ORGANISERS – we have one volunteer but need 2 or 3 more to work together for social and fund raising events.
A HALL SECRETARY, to take and organize bookings when Phyllis takes a very well earned retirement in April
Flower arrangers, Cleaners, Servers, Pray-ers, PCC members
A CHURCHWARDEN, when Doreen Hill retires in April after sterling service. There are challenges ahead which mean we really do need two Churchwardens in place who have vision and organizing ability, as well as diplomatic talents!
If you are interested in any of these interesting positions, please have a chat with Harvey, Susan, Mark or Doreen as soon as possible and definitely before the ANNUAL MEETING on Sunday APRIL 10th at 3.30pm.
The Electoral Roll will be revised this month, which means simply adding the names of those who are not on it but would like to be, and removing the names of those who we know, now shouldn’t be, since they have died or moved away. Please see Linda Reed if you would like an enrolment form.
Hall Hire
Please contact Phyllis Gold on 01702 231190 for further information.
St. Thomas' House Group
A regular House Group is held at 45 Queens Avenue, Tower Park, Hullbridge. Please contact Pam Melvin on 01702 231104 for details.
SMALL CHANGE JAR (and other schemes!)
Just a little reminder of what this scheme is all about. It started in March 2001 when we were busy raising funds for the toilets and then for the driveway. We have continued the scheme since then as a small way of raising funds for the numerous miscellaneous items that are required by the Church.
What we ask you to do is to put your small change (1p, 2p, 5ps.) into the jar which is on the small table in the entrance hall on Sundays. As you can see from the running total of cash collected in this way, the pennies really do mount up – and hopefully no one feels the pinch in their pockets!
Many thanks to the people who have supported us over the years in this way.
There is another similar scheme which a few of us still contribute to – we save 20ps in a Smartie box (problems now getting Smartie boxes so any small container will do). This scheme goes even further back, to before the Rev. Harvey’s time – when we were saving to repair the roof! A full Smartie box will contain £14.00!! And again if you put just one coin in each day you hardly notice it! If anyone feels they would like to join this scheme please do so – you simply give the money to Beryl Soane when your container is full – and if you pay tax let her know as it is then possible to claim Gift Aid on the donation.
Yet another on-going fund raising initiative that we run is The Birthday Scheme, which has been in existence since 2003. To join this Scheme you register your interest with Linda Reed who will ask for your address and date of birth. When your birthday comes round you will receive a birthday card from St. Thomas’ plus a ‘Birthday Gift Envelope’. The gift envelope is then returned to church with a donation enclosed. The amount donated is entirely up to the giver.
Beryl Morriss
COFFEE MORNING
A Coffee Morning is held from 10.30am till 12.30pm on the last Saturday of each month throughout the year – with the exception of November (this month we usually hold our Christmas Fair) and December.
The March Coffee Morning is run by the Gentlemen of St. Thomas’ . This is always a special coffee morning and as well as the usual stalls we have a cake stall and a raffle – so please do your best to support our men folk – you will be pampered by them!
Beryl Morriss
HARP (HOME LESS ACTION RESOURCE PROJECT)
This is a Project which we have supported for many years (since 1993). We ask each member of the congregation (or friends of St. Thomas’) to donate one tin of food per month. These items are then taken each month to HARP in Valkyrie Road, Westcliff. There is a box under the large table in the church entrance hall for these items. They can also be left at The Council Office in Ferry Road (next door to the Opticians and opposite the Co-op).
The Centre provide food parcels for people in Bed and Breakfast accommodation and also cook lunchtime meals at the Centre for the homeless at greatly subsidised cost. All donations are very gratefully received.
We also send toiletries and bedding as the Centre provides washing facilities and the bedding is useful for the Night Centre in Southend.
TRAIDCRAFT STALL
St. Thomas’ hold a Traidcraft Stall on the second Sunday of each month following the Sunday service (which finishes at approximately 10.45am) when it is possible to buy a great many Fair Trade goods.
