Monthly Archives: August 2020

September events

Friday September 4th

5.00pm Inaugural 100 Club Draw, on the grass, Lincoln Fields, followed by Guided Walk, 5.30pm meet Glazeley Church, to Chelmarsh and back; bring a sandwich to eat en-route.

4 miles, easy walking, back by 7.00pm

100 Club numbers still available!

 

Sunday September 13th

6.00pm Billingsley Church; Harvest Festival.

Lead by Mary Rayner

 

Sunday September 20th

8.00am Billingsley Church: Holy Communion

 

And for the real enthusiasts, our AGM takes place by Zoom at 7.30pm on Thursday 3rd September; email David Poyner for details

 

David Poyner, assistant curate, Severn Valley Benefice.   Tel 01562 68638, email  D.R.Poyner@aston.ac.uk

Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BillingsleyChurch/  or our websites, www.st-marys-billingsley.org.uk ,  https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/10415/

 

Friday 4th September – First draw of the 100 Club

The numbers are ready for the first draw of the Friends of Billingsley 100 Club. The first draw will take place at 5 pm on Friday 4th September on the green at Lincoln Fields. The top prize is a guaranteed £50 (minimum) with two further prizes of at least £25 each. Many thanks to the tremendous support that has been shown by the local community, friends, family and supporters from further afield. There are still numbers available for those who wish to join the club.

The draw will be followed by another of David’s guided walks which will start from Glazeley Church at 5.30 pm. Bring along a picnic tea to enjoy en route.

Thought for the week 24th August, ‘On facing Evil’

 

Let’s call the person N. I first met him about 25 years ago, when he was the secretary of an organisation of which I am a member. He was energetic and well organised; he did very good work. I got on well with him; he was a somewhat larger-than-life character, perhaps with a short fuse but I was happy to accept the occasional eruption from him. I did notice however that the tantrums started to get more frequent as the years went by; he was starting to become something of an embarrassment to us all. I put this down to ill-health. At this stage, my only contact was via emails and I tried to avoid those. Then suddenly he resigned. At that point we learnt the truth; he had been downloading indecent images of children onto his computer. That resulted in a year in prison. Our paths never crossed again. I was pleased to learn from others his wife stood by him and I hoped that it had been an isolated aberration; that he would reform. I was keen that the organisation did not write him out of its history; he had done good work for us. Unfortunately, out of prison, he reverted back to his former ways; more convictions for the same offence followed. His wife died and his health was clearly failing. In jailing him again, a judge observed that he was past any prospect of reform. Then the truly appalling crime came to light; some years before he had raped a child. A few weeks ago, he died in prison, shortly after starting a lengthy sentence for this act.

Cases like this bring into sharp focus two opposing strands in Christianity. On one hand we are called to love, to show forgiveness and mercy. On the other we are called to work for justice. I cannot offer forgiveness to N for crimes he did not commit against myself; I would not presume to tell his victim that she should forgive him. She is a victim who needs support and part of this is that she gets justice; the prison sentence that N was serving was just. But what is not possible for humanity is possible for God. If N admitted his wickedness (for his actions were wicked) and truly repented, then he would be forgiven by God. I have no idea if this happened; even if it did, the church has learnt the hard way that sex offenders can easily revert back to their evil ways. We can minister to these people as best we can, but always aware that we cannot fully trust them. Safeguarding protocols are important. In any case, for myself it is irrelevant, N is dead. But what is not irrelevant is how I respond in prayer to this event. All I could pray was that God would deal mercifully with him. In the face of evil, I am not sure there is much else we can do, but to trust in God the just judge, for whom all things are possible.

 

Thought for the week 17th August – Education and Wisdom

Thursday was A-level results day; the time students find out their grades and whether they are to be part of the 50% of 18 year olds who now go to university. I was doing my bit at Aston University where I work, conducting telephone interviews with students who wish to join us. I was in the happy of position of being able to give good news to everyone I spoke to.

However hard we try with interviews, it is always hard to know what motivates students to come to university. Some are keen on the whole undergraduate experience; they want a taste of independence and a chance to make new friends. Some are after qualifications that will allow them to have a secure and rewarding job. Others want to study because they love a subject. Probably most have a mixture of all of these and each is a valid reason. For a professional academic like myself, it is the love of learning for its own sake that I most identify with; that thirst for knowledge which continues to drive me, both in my professional life as a research scientist, but also in my spiritual life.

Traditionally the church has always distinguished between the proclamation of faith to those who do not share it and the teaching of faith to those who identify as Christians. I find it hard to make this distinction. The disciples called Jesus “teacher” and I try to explain what I believe and why whenever I speak, regardless of what the individual may or may not believe. Often it seems that I am trying to help individuals find their way through their own spirituality, perhaps helping them to find the language to express and make sense of this, the very deepest emotion that we all have. Somehow in that process, I believe the Holy Spirit is at work, knocking at the doors that guard all of minds. The Bible speaks of this process as gaining wisdom; not learning of facts (the writer of Ecclesiastes perceptively comments that too much study wears out the student!) but rather listening to our inner thoughts and hearing God, whatever we call him, whispering to us. This the Bible calls this (perhaps unhelpfully) fear of the Lord; in modern language, we would call it knowing God. This is the deepest education.

 

Weekly events and services 10th August

Dear All,

Details of events this coming week are below: all are welcome! Please pass these invitations on to anyone who you think might be interested.

 

Live Service and event

1) Sunday August 16th, 10.00am at Glazeley (not on Zoom; turn up if you can…).

 

2) Thursday 6.30pm Billingsley Church. Walk to Sidbury Church

Everyone welcome, bring your own refreshments for afterwards

 

Zoom services

 

1) Wednesday evening catch-up

August 12th, 2020 07:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3592851895?pwd=cksyL0t5TlhFUURRenpxMG9yQTVhUT09

2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am

August 14th, 2020 09:00 AM London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3592851895?pwd=cksyL0t5TlhFUURRenpxMG9yQTVhUT09

Service at https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-in-daily-prayer/morning-prayer-contemporary-friday-14-august-2020

3) Friday night prayer

August 14th, 2020 09:00 PM London

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3592851895?pwd=cksyL0t5TlhFUURRenpxMG9yQTVhUT09

 

Service at https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-in-daily-prayer/night-prayer-contemporary-friday-14-august-2020

 

 

 

Thought for the week 10th August – A Time for Everything and VJ Day

We have just had a service to celebrate some of the music of the 1960s which can point us to God. I’ve had great fun, looking at black and white video clips and reliving music I first heard as a child (born 1961, so 9 when the 60s ended!). One song I kept playing was “Turn, turn, turn”, “written” by Pete Seager in the late 1950s and made popular by The Byrds who released a version of it in 1965; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCcFyR0MITQ

I say “written” because the song is almost all taken from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3; “There is a time for everything and a season for everything under heaven”. Seager invented the title and contributed the last line. Ecclesiastes consists of a series of meditations by a writer traditionally known as “the teacher”. He observes the world and ponders why it seems so arbitrary; the Godly and ungodly both ultimately die and their works pass away. In the final chapter, the teacher concludes with what can seem like a cry of despair: “Meaningless, meaningless… everything is meaningless”. But the book needs to be seen in context of attempts by religious leaders to make sense of Israel’s history; a depressing story of failure and foreign occupation. Time and time again, the thinkers concluded that the failure was due to a failure on the part of themselves; if only they tried to reform their religion, God would restore them. The writer of Ecclesiastes would not have this; whatever God was doing, he could not be won over by ever more heroic acts of worship and obedience. His message was that we had to live our lives in a muddled, fallen world where good and bad both happened and to follow God despite that. I think he would have understood Jesus as God coming alongside us in this world.

As part of living in a muddled, fallen world, it becomes hard to make clear decisions. This is perhaps the message of the lines in Chapter 3 that Seager took for his song. Some of the lines are disturbing; “a time to kill and a time to heal…., a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace”. To that last phrase, Seager added the words “I swear it’s not too late”, which in 1960s USA with the Vietnam war in full flow, touched a cord with many. And yet I think the teacher recognised a grim truth about a muddled, fallen world. On August 15th, we mark the 75th anniversary of the ending of the 2nd World War, with the surrender of Japan. Victory came at a terrible price; not only Allied lives lost but two atom bombs. But I, for one, wish to give thanks for the allied victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, for the courage of those who fought for right. The teacher reminds us that the generation of the 1940s were right to choose war over unjust peace.

A gift for St Mary’s Church

Last November a beautiful knitted tribute was created by many friends of Billingsley for Remembrance Sunday. It was displayed over the alter. Whilst it was in place throughout November the church received many visitors one of which was a very special neighbour, guide dog Val and her owner Barbara.

Inspired by the photograph Nigel, Barbara’s husband who is a keen amateur artist who specialises in drawings of dogs, completed a picture of Val’s visit. He very generously donated the art work to the church. Now that the church is now open once more the picture is on display for all to see.

 

On-line events and services week beginning 3rd August

Dear All,

Details of events this coming week are below: all are welcome! Please pass these invitations on to anyone who you think might be interested.

 

Live Service

Sunday August 9th, 10.00am at Chelmarsh (not on Zoom; turn up if you can…).

 

Zoom services

 

1) Wednesday evening catch-up

August 5th, 2020 07:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3592851895?pwd=cksyL0t5TlhFUURRenpxMG9yQTVhUT09

 

2) Friday Morning Prayer, 9.00am

August 7th, 2020 09:00 AM London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3592851895?pwd=cksyL0t5TlhFUURRenpxMG9yQTVhUT09

Service at https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-in-daily-prayer/morning-prayer-contemporary-friday-7-august-2020

3) Friday night prayer

August 7th, 2020 09:00 PM London

Service at https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-in-daily-prayer/night-prayer-contemporary-friday-7-august-2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

Events for August

Sunday August 9th

6.00pm Billingsley Church: God and the Sounds of the 60s

Listen to some of classic hits of the 1960s (and early 70s) and explore their spirituality. Flowers in your hair optional….

 

Thursday August 13th

6.30pm Billingsley Church; guided walk to Sidbury Church.

4 miles, Refreshments afterwards

 

Sunday August 23rd

8.00am Billingsley Church: Holy Communion

 

Don’t forget to join the 100 Club; just £1 a week to support the church and the chance to win prizes every month! See our websites for details. The first draw will take place on Friday 4th September 2pm Lincoln Fields grassed area

 

David Poyner, assistant curate, Severn Valley Benefice.   Tel 01562 68638, email D.R.Poyner@aston.ac.uk

Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BillingsleyChurch/  or our websites, www.st-marys-billingsley.org.uk ,  https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/10415/

Thought for the Week 2nd August – ‘Touch’

Thought for the week, 2nd August; Touch

This week, one of the chaplains at my place of work (Aston University), led a meditation on a story of how Jesus healed a man from leprosy. In this story, Jesus reaches out and touches the leper. This was a remarkable act; touching a leper would have exposed Jesus to risk of getting the disease. The leper would have been considered both physically and ritually unclean; by his actions, Jesus himself would also have made himself unclean. The story has particular resonance for this time of Covid, particularly with the unwelcome but necessary slowing of the release from lockdown announced over the last couple of days. It would have been the equivalent of Jesus kissing a patient with Covid. Nor was this an isolated event; we are told in the Gospels of other occasions where Jesus defied both convention and common sense to touch those he to whom he was ministering.

We are not Jesus; the one lesson that we most certainly should not draw from this is that we ought to abandon social distancing and rules on contact! To do that would be an act of self-importance not service. But there are two things that are worth our attention. Firstly, these stories remind us of the power of human touch. Touch can of course be unwelcome or threatening, but in the right context, it is a very powerful and intimate means of showing support. In this current period, its absence may remind us just how much we miss it. But what we cannot do, God does. This story reminds us that God reaches out and embraces all of humanity, whatever form their and our leprosy takes. Thanks be to God.