From the Vicarage

 Dear friends Has Summer finally arrived? Having just spent a gloriously four day VERY hot break in Venice with Margaret where temperatures were in their 30’s I thought that it had, but then Sunday morning came and it is back to the jumpers and we are trying very hard not to put the heating back on. What a strange mixture of weather we are having at the moment.

The end of June in the church is always a time of change as it is the season of Ordinations and Priesting’s and this two of our Deanery colleagues are being Priested in St George’s, Altrincham and so my prayers are with Mike and Karen as they continue their journey of ordained ministry.

Let us hope that we will still see them around the area helping out for holiday cover etc.

At a clergy meeting a few years ago one of my Priest friends came with this poem to help us all remember and realise that change happens all the time:

Prayer of Sir Francis Drake Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life; Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love

Perhaps this is a prayer that we should all use, as we are all guilty of becoming very comfortable with the familiar things around us, the familiar cycle of prayers, and the church’s seasons - and I wonder if we all take things a little too much for granted, when actually our Lord’s ministry was entirely about change, challenge, and was disturbing to those who heard the message – are we also disturbed when we too read the message of Jesus in the Bible? or do we think that it does not apply to us today as we are comfortable where we are?

In order for any of us to grow we have to be challenged and stretched beyond our comfort zone, just imagine an education system that did not challenge the students – would the students grow in knowledge?

I personally think that the answer to this question is NO, instead the students would lose interest, they would switch off and cease to come to school. Is that what we want to happen with our faith? or do we instead want to deepen our understanding of scripture and what God has planned for us?

If our answer to these questions in YES (and I pray that it is) then this means that we do have to change, we have to learn more and more about our Risen Saviour so that we can truly live out the Gospel in our daily lives.

Yours in Christ Robert