Rooted in the parish, in scripture & sacrament and a love of proclaiming Christ.
When I first arrived in the parish just over two years ago it was clear that we needed to focus on the most important things in our life as a community of Christians.
I told you that we should be rooted in the parish, rooted in scripture & sacrament and rooted in a love of proclaiming Christ.
As we have journeyed together we have kept to this simple vision and everything we have done has been rooted in either parish, scripture & sacrament or evangelism.
Through these very simple things we have seen our congregation grow – quite significantly over COVID – then shrink as the omicron variant came for us – and now grow again as we step out in faith once more.
We have attracted new people not because we have a new flashy building or because have new flashing initiates or a new flashy Priest!
No, we have grown because we have kept to the simple love of Christ around us, concentrated on the parish, concentrated on our bibles & our daily prayers and mass and concentrated on simply telling people how amazing a relationship with Jesus is.
As we step forward into the next phase of our life together, as we welcome a second Priest and look to the future we must not lose site of these simple truths.
We are a growing and loving family of Christians who care for one another and those around us because Jesus calls us to do so. It’s that simple.
Fr. Matthew
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Other news
Next Sunday there will be no 10am Mass in order to give you an opportunity to come to the 4pm Evening Prayer & Benediction service for Fr. Josiah. There will be an 8am BCP Mass in the Lady Chapel.
2nd October at 4pm – we will be licensing and commissioning Fr. Josiah into St. Anselm at a special service of Evening Prayer & Benediction with Bishop Jonathan. I’d like to throw a huge party for him afterwards – Can you please sign up to help provide food on the sheet at the back of church or let Fr. Matthew or Susan know what you can do to help.
Please make sure you’ve given Susan your photo and a short description of who you are for the book she is preparing for Fr. Josiah.
With our new organist starting we need to look to our giving. Strictly speaking we can’t afford Alexander, but we step out in faith and I know that you will look to increase your weekly giving to enjoy his amazing music here at St. Anselm. A small increase of £2.50 will enable us to continue to have live music on a Sunday morning.
Keep an eye on weekday services this week as they’ve moved around a little.