Church Family Weekend Preview!

Revd Ian Lewis, the vicar of St Bartholomew’s, will speaking on 21st Jan. This is a chance to a preview of meeting and hearing Ian before he is our guest speaker at our Church Family week end away in June 2007.

Men’s Breakfast #3

Sat 20th January 8.30am – 10am. Please put this date in your diary and watch for details of where we will be meeting.

First Sunday of the Month is ‘Family Sunday’ at St. Swithun’s!

In the New Year the 10am service on the first Sunday of each month will be for all the family, from 1 to 101! The service will last less than an hour (that’s our guarantee!), include a mix of well-known hymns and newer songs children (from 1 to 101!) enjoy, sometimes played by our young people’s band, a short talk which makes sense to people of all ages, fun and laughter, and refreshments afterwards with a chance to meet old friends and make new ones. Everyone is warmly welcome!

From January to Easter we will be following the baby Jesus as he grows up, and seeing how he can be relevant to our lives today.

January 7th Jesus as a baby
February 4th Jesus as a boy
March 4th Jesus as our friend (10 minutes longer as includes baptism celebration)
April 1st Jesus as our rescuer
April 8th Jesus as the King (Easter Day)

New Year Resolutions

Dear Friends,

The other day I came across some celebrity New Year Resolutions from three years ago, New Year’s Day, 2004 :-

Paula Radcliffe: ‘I want to stay fit and get ready for Athens’;

Tim Henman: ‘I’ve been injured and so I want to climb the world rankings again’;

Matthew Pinsent: ‘I want to savour Olympic Year and do all I can for the London 2012 bid.

As New Year resolutions go, these seem pretty good. They are optimistic, challenging and, in their own terms, very worthwhile aims for the coming year.

But looking back from the future, they make rather sad reading.

You probably remember what happened to Paula Radcliffe in Athens; Tim Henman couldn’t resist the march of time and he continues to fall in the world rankings; and even the euphoria of winning the 2012 bid has now been replaced by wrangling and recriminations over contracts and costings.

So as I look back at these resolutions from three years on, I find them deeply challenging. What am I aiming at in my life right now that won’t look a bit silly a few years from now? And how about at the end of my life? Which of my aspirations will still look as worthwhile then as they do now?

A man was reading the details of another man’s will in The Times. His friend asked him, ‘How much did he leave?’ ‘All of it,’ he replied. It’s an old joke but still true.

Jesus would say to us, ‘Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.’

He would say, ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?’

Jim Elliott was a young American who with four friends went to South America in the1950s to try and bring the message of Jesus Christ to the Auca Indians of the Ecuadorean rain forest. They were murdered by those they were trying to befriend. He once wrote,

‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’

That sounds like a good New Year resolution to me.

Happy New Year!

Tim Ling

Vicar, St. Swithun’s Church Bathford

Looking forward

When I was at school our RE teacher was always late to lessons and often never turned up at all. The longer we waited for him to come, the wilder behaviour in the classroom became. (Ideal preparation for being a vicar!)

Two thousand years ago, Jesus said that he was going to return one day to establish perfect order in the world. Unsurprisingly, by now behaviour in the classroom is pretty wild.

How can we take this seriously today? And if not this, why should we believe anything that Jesus says?

As you read this there are barely three weeks until Christmas Day and there is an enormous amount still to do to get ready. Those three weeks are going to disappear in a flash. But for any children you may know, every hour is going to seem like an eternity as they wait for the great day. The experience of time is very different depending on your perspective. Rather like children waiting for Christmas, the first Christians were already beginning to get impatient before the end of the first century, and others were giving them a hard time for it, saying, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?”

But God’s perspective on the timing of Jesus’ return is somewhat different: ‘With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.’ So perhaps a better question is not ‘When will it be?’ but ‘Am I ready for it?’ How do we know if we are ready for that day?

The first step is by asking ourselves, ‘Am I looking forward to standing in front of the One who knows everything I have ever done or said or thought?’ And, if not, ‘Have I thought much about why He came the first time?’

Advent is a great time to reflect on these things: to think about what there is to do to get ready, all there is to enjoy as we wait, and all there is to look forward to when the Great Day comes.

With best wishes for Advent and Christmas,

Tim Ling Vicar, St. Swithun’s Church Bathford

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Christmas card tree.

This year instead of the notice board we have a tree. Small cards are available to complete with Christmas greetings to one another and then hang on the tree.

Christmas/New Year’s Eve Services.

Services on Christmas Eve, Sun 24th, and New Years Eve, Sun 31st, will be at the usual times of 8.15am and 10am in the morning but Evensong will be replaced by Midnight Communion on 24th and will start at 5pm and not at the regular time of 6.30pm Sunday 31st Dec.

Impromptu Nativity.

On Sunday 17th Dec there will be a short family service with Nativity. All children are welcome to take part. Just come ready dressed i.e. as a shepherd, angel, animal or king (we have a Mary and Joseph) or arrive at 9:45 and we will try and dress you. The children will sit with their parents/carers during the service and will be called out and led into place by helpers when it is time for the nativity. PS. If you have access to any small costumes that can be lent then we could be very grateful. Please contact Heather Chilcott.

Church Family New Year’s Eve Party.

We are planning an informal party for new year’s eve. From 7 to 12ish (the evening service is earlier that evening). There will be a variety of events so you can come to what ever suits you. The beginning will be particularly child friendly. The evening will be likely to include a film, games, bring and share finger buffet etc. Finished by 10 mins of prayer and praise at 11:45 then party poppers at midnight!

Tinnabulation (the sound of ringing bells).

St Swithun’s Tower will be hosting the quarterly Branch Practice of the Bath & Wells Diocesan Association of Change Ringers on Tues 5th Dec at 7:30 to 9: 00. After a 3 year lapse our own practice night will normally be on Wednesdays at 7:45 to 8:45. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Nativity Talk…

A talk by Robin Child is to be held on Sat 16th December, 7pm at St Bartholomew’s Church Centre King Edward Road. Pick up a flyer for full details.