Hello everyone,
Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Our newsletter is sent out regularly to share reflections from services, Bible readings and church news with our church family. You can find previous issues on our church website here.
We would love to hear from you and are always looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter. If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)
During the school summer break, Look-In will be produced fortnightly. The next issue of Look-In will be on 30 August.
Opening Prayer
Lord of all, you know our hearts, our hopes and our fears.
Please give us your wisdom to know what is best and to serve you and those around us as best we can. Amen.
(Taken from Roots)
Reflection from 4 August
Readings – Psalm 139: 1-18, 23-24; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 and Luke 21: 1-4
We’re going to do this reflection in three chunks, looking at each of the Bible passages in turn, starting with Psalm 139. This Psalm reminds us that God knows everything about us: every situation in our lives, our thoughts, our feelings, our strengths, our weaknesses, our fears, our hopes and our dreams. But one of the phrases that stood out to us as we were preparing this reflection is the phrase that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God created us as we are. God knows us inside out.
We may not be perfect by the world’s standards, and we may need to have a few rough bits knocked off us from time to time, but we are intrinsically not made wrong. We’re made right just as we are, and we should see ourselves as God sees us, through God’s eyes. We may have stuff in our lives that we have to deal with along the way, but we are not made wrong. We are made right.
There are those in our community – and this is why we work at being an inclusive church – who have felt excluded from church life over the years. They may have had an experience of being told that they were not fearfully and wonderfully made, that the person they are is unacceptable. But if God made us fearfully and wonderfully, how can it not be acceptable? This is where Inclusive Church has its roots trying to express that this is not the case, and we are still all made wonderfully, and we all can be fully included.
For many of us, church has always been somewhere. We have felt that we fitted in. Many churches are very much white middle-class, and if you’re white and middle-class, you fit in quite nicely, but that’s not everybody. We’re given the message that we’re all welcome. But for some people that feels very hollow, because their experience isn’t that they’re welcome. What Inclusive Church tries to do is to redress the balance. And for those people, sometimes we have to shout it louder and bigger and more obviously that they are included. So that they know they are included and we can start to pick apart decades, maybe even centuries of exclusion.
Some of these things that people have felt excluded by are things that they have been born with; that is intrinsically, then, that has been with them from their very beginning. Sometimes it’s occurred later in their life, maybe an illness or some sort, or circumstances, like redundancy, that has changed their social standing. And for many, we’re just a few clicks away from something that will make us very different from what we are today. Something like redundancy, losing a job, or maybe having a car accident can suddenly make our lives change completely.
For those who have not felt welcomed in the church, the message that they are truly welcome in this place needs to be even louder. It’s easy to feel welcome when you look and sound and act like the other people. But it’s much harder if you don’t. So we need to keep reminding people that yes, they are welcome. They are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we’re not going to tell them that God made them wrong. The person that they are is the person that God created them to be. The situation that they find themselves in doesn’t matter, they are still welcome and valued here. You won’t be excluded from anything. Just by those things alone. You are loved, just as you are.
It’s easy to welcome those that are like ourselves, but it can make a real difference, although it can be really hard, to welcome somebody that’s different from you. But we need to try and do it. We need to try and keep shining that torch that says: “You are welcome. Wherever you fit, however you are made, wherever you find yourself, you are welcome.” And remember that that difference is something that makes us beautiful in God’s eyes.
Moving on to our reading from Corinthians, we talked about us all being one body made-up of different parts. We’re all very different. Some of us might have similar attributes to each other, but we are all different. We all have different things to offer, and that diversity is a really, really good thing because we need to have difference within the church, just as we have different parts of the body. If you had a body with five heads and one arm and seven legs but no heart or brain, it might look very interesting but I don’t think it would work very well. And similarly, a church with twenty preachers, but nobody to listen and nobody to make tea and coffee wouldn’t function very well either.
We need people who have different skills, different gifts, different qualities. Think of all the different things that make up church life. Preaching, music, youth work, making tea and coffee, prayer, Bible study, admin, welcoming, chatting to people, making people feel welcome, sitting and listening to somebody, being a pastoral visitor, having a vision for the future, being someone who is a forward thinker or is good at future planning. We need people that can offer all sorts of different roles within the church. As I said earlier, we had a church full of people who were absolutely wonderful at preaching, but not very good at sitting and listening or making people feel welcome, we wouldn’t survive very long as a church.
Sometimes the things that make us different are the things that give us particular qualities. For example, some companies actively recruit people who are neurodivergent because they have traits that make them good at certain roles. For instance, my son might not be very good at sitting still in church and listening quietly. But if you ask him what 140 x 32 is, he can give you an answer incredibly quickly because his math skills are phenomenal and that skill is something that will be very useful to him one day. Somebody who sits quietly in church and just listens might feel a little bit inadequate because the person sitting next to them has a wonderful singing voice or is really knowledgeable about the Bible and they might feel a little bit inadequate because they don’t know their Bible very well or they don’t really know the hymns. They might not have a good singing voice, but they might be somebody that is incredibly good at just sitting and listening. There’s a huge gift in being that person who can just sit and hold a space for somebody who needs a listening ear. There are people in this church who are absolutely wonderful at it and I’m very thankful for them.
All of these things contribute to church life. All of these things make us who we are. Whatever the gifts we have, we have a role to play in church life. And even though sometimes we might feel that we actually don’t have very much to offer, we still do have something to offer which leads us into our third reading about the widow’s gift, and it is a reminder that we all have something to give, no matter how big or small we perceive it to be.
Margaret Dudley talked a lot last week about the different gifts and things that we can all do as part of the church. For instance, we may not feel we have much to offer, but something like making tea and coffee after church can be an opening for other people to use their gifts of sitting and listening, and is very important. We need to share and listen and be inclusive in that and that’s part of how this whole idea of using our gifts and being part of the body plays into the whole idea of inclusive church. These things pull together and make us inclusive.
It’s all very well me putting in the window that everybody’s welcome and that you’re welcome if you’re this, and you’re welcome if you’re that. We’ve gone through the Inclusive Church statement of belief which hones down on different bits that are inclusive, but it’s no good if the only thing we do is to put together a nice window. We need the rest of the bits of church to pull together to make the whole thing inclusive.
Equally, we need to recognise that people’s gifts change over time. Maybe people in their youth would be running around doing maintenance on the church, and welcoming, and putting the tables away and all the rest of it. But now in their later life, they’re not as physically active and the things that they used to do, they can’t do any more. Perhaps that’s a time to explore what God is now calling you to do, and that might be encouragement or listening. Maybe you’re in a better financial point of view than you were years ago, and you can give more financially to the church. Maybe you’re the sort of person who can think and come up with some of those ideas that will keep the church moving forward.
Those of us who are busy, like Louise and I as part of the eldership team, making sure the church runs each day, each week, don’t always have time to think about the long term. We don’t have the headspace left. We’ve got other responsibilities, other things going on, and having other people come to us with ideas can be really helpful. I’m sorry that sometimes if we say to you, “it’s a great idea, but we can’t do it right now” may feel discouraging, but there’s still great ideas and some of them we will act on and we will take forward.
But it’s a reminder that the little things count just as much as the big things. Sometimes just picking up the phone and speaking to a friend or another member of the church, taking time to listen to them, can be just what that person needed at that point in time. Something that makes them feel included. The welcome we create from our little acts of kindness and service go a long way. There is always something we can offer. No matter how small it may be in the eyes of other people, it matters hugely to God. It’s our faith, it’s our heart, and it’s our actions that matter. And it’s those faith and actions that will make us the inclusive church we strive to be.
Joanne Mackin & Louise George
Reflection from 11 August
Readings – 1 Kings 19: 4-8; Ephesians 4: 24 – 5: 2 and John 6: 30-51
The writer of the Gospel John took a slightly different take than the writers of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel of John is known for being quite Messianic in its theology. In other words, the gospel writer is clearly telling us that Jesus is the divine Son of God, he is the Messiah, he is the one who has come. In the other gospels that’s more something that’s revealed as you go, whereas in John’s gospel it’s very clear. The particular bit we’re looking at here where Jesus is saying “I am the bread of life.”
If we just back up slightly, what previously happened at the beginning of chapter 6 was the feeding of the 5,000 by turning small amounts of bread and fish into huge amounts and feeding thousands of people and at the end of that, after the people saw the sign that Jesus performed, they began to say, “surely this is the prophet who has come into the world” and Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew and hid away from the crowds. After that we have the Jesus walking on the water scene – another remarkable miracle – and then the crowd catches up with him again, and in this discourse he says, “I am the bread of life.”
This is the first of several sayings in John which follow the pattern ‘I am’. It’s quite an interesting phrase which is quite specific and unique to John. He offers several of these sayings beginning with ‘I am’. The actual Greek that is translated is ‘egō eimi’. It’s a very rare phrase in the in the New Testament and it’s only really used in John. The pronoun ‘egō’ is unnecessary as it’s implicit in the verb. You don’t need to say it twice, so it sort of would be translated as, “I, I myself, am”. It’s incredibly emphatic on the ‘I’ and is a remarkable echo to something else. If you looked at the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the part in Exodus where Moses is encountering God and is asking God, “you want me to go and do all these miracles, who shall I say is sending me?” and God’s answer is, “tell them I AM sent you. I am who I am” so Jesus is very intentionally being given the words that echo the definition of God, the Yahweh, the I am who I am.
Why would Jesus use an analogy of bread for himself? He spoke in very many terms in very many parables and he often connected things to what people would have understood, so I think it’s incredibly likely that the audience of the time, the Jewish people that he was speaking to would have understood, especially in the light of the Passover and the stories of manna from heaven in the wilderness. They would have known what he was saying with this reference to bread was “I am God who’s providing for you. I am the provision of God.”
In terms of physical need, bread meets our physical need and addresses our hunger, but Jesus is recalculating that and saying, “I meet every desire. I meet not just your physical needs, but your spiritual needs, your emotional needs, every need I will be there for you. They will be satisfied in me” and he goes even further to say, “I am the only way to the Father.”
But why bread? Quick experiment: could everybody put their hands up for a moment in the room and could I ask you to put your hands down if you’ve eaten bread in the last day. Could I ask you to put your hands down if you’ve eaten bread in the last three days? So, virtually everybody. How about in the last week? There is just one person who’s not eaten bread in the last week in the room, so bread is a remarkable thing that we are frequently eating. I searched on Google and it tells me there are 200 kinds of bread currently being produced in the UK, from butter-rich brioche and crisp baguettes to farmhouse loaves and focaccia, soft ciabatta and crumpets to chapattis and flaky croissants. The Global Bread Market was estimated at USD 218.28 billion in 2022 – so more than the GDP of Hungary, or Kuwait and around that of Greece.
According to the UK Flour Advisory Board 99% of households in the UK buy bread each week and equivalent to 12 million loaves of bread are sold each day. I find it hard to imagine what 12 million loaves of bread would look like. I’m going to suggest that if our chapel is 12.8m wide and 12.8m long and it’s about 2.5m up to where the pyramid starts. We could calculate the volume at around 760 cubic metres. Taking the average size of a Warburtons loaf to be 28cm x 12cm x 14.7cm, I think you’d fit about 153,694 loaves in this chapel, so we could fill it 78 times with the number of loaves sold in the UK each day. That is a lot of bread.
Bread is one of those incredible staples of life, and it has been a staple of life for thousands of years. If we go back to the time when the Israelites were in the wilderness. Moses had led them out and they were being looked after in the wilderness. God provided manna from heaven every day; miraculous bread that appeared that they went out and harvested. Enough was given to them to meet their needs every day, but they couldn’t keep it to the next day because it would spoil. There’s something about the immediacy of it, that we need to connect with God on a day-to-day basis. It didn’t last so they were required to trust God daily for their manna, and I think Jesus imploring believers to put your full confidence in him, trusting that he will provide on that day-to-day basis. He’s overturning this traditional Jewish belief by referring to himself as the bread, the one who provides.
I want to touch on the Old Testament reading. The bit we read was out of context. So just to fill in the previous episode. Elijah has just had this huge set-to with the prophet of the gods of Baal at Mount Carmel. He’s had this huge scene where they challenged each other and agreed whoever’s gods could burn up the altar would be the real God. Elijah had been teasing the prophets of Baal to shout louder get their God – ‘maybe he’s asleep’ – and nothing happened, the gods of Baal didn’t come down and consume the sacrificial offering. Then it was Elijah’s turn. What a huge pressure moment. Elijah invited them to drench the entire altar, all the wood, all the food, everything twice with pails and pails of water so it’s all totally sodden. He then prays quietly and God comes down with fire, consumes the sacrifice, consumes the wood, the stones and the soil. It’s an absolutely massive outpouring of God and a huge vindication for Elijah. Then he’s confronted by Jezebel and he flees for him life and in the reading today we find him exhausted and wanting to die.
I think it’s an amazing kind of manic transition. With the modern view of mental health, we might be thinking some sort of manic-depressive episode or a neurodivergent person being hugely overwhelmed by this huge crowd scene where he was at the centre of attention and is now absolutely exhausted and in a desperate state where death is his preferred option. I love that verse because of God’s grace to us when we hit our low points. God’s sends an angel, and he meets Elijah with the very basic human need, with a cake (I suspect it was a cake of bread) and with drink, and with reassurance, and Eliah rests and the angel meets him again with more food and drink and more rest and sends him on his way.
Back to the gospel reading. John has Jesus making these really Messianic claims, saying he is the one the Father sent, that he came down from heaven, and we hear the grumblings of the Jewish audience saying that they know he is Mary and Joseph’s son, so how can he claim to come down from heaven. Jesus then claims “I will raise up those drawn to the Father on that last day, on the day of judgment. I, Jesus, will raise them up and no one has seen the Father except the one who is sent from God” and that the bread is his flesh that he gave for the life of the world. Jesus is very specifically and very clearly positioning himself as the Messiah, as the one sent, as the one with the words of eternal life.
I’d like to contrast the ordinary and the extraordinary so in the Ephesians reading we’ve got advice for life, perhaps quite ordinary life. Ordinary advice like “don’t let your anger fester overnight”, “be kind to one another”, “use your words to build one another up”. We saw riots this week in our country and we saw the response on Wednesday to 100 riots being threatened. Maybe many who feel an incredible injustice about the immigrants who’ve come to live in our country let their anger boil over, maybe they fed on anger rather than feeding on the bread of life, but we also saw a huge response from the crowds saying, “not on our streets, no, we won’t let you riot on our streets in this way.” In London, lots of people turned out on the street, so much so that the police had to protect the protesters. The original ones who were planning to riot ended up being the ones with the police protection, but what an amazing way of showing kindness, to go out there and be there for one another. On the news coverage there were even shots of people going out into the streets to find those of colour and hug them, just to reassure them and to let them know they are welcome here and it’s a lovely ordinary kindness being shown.
There’s a real ordinariness about the Ephesians guidance for Christian living and there’s a real simple ordinariness about bread, and yet there’s also that extraordinary nature of the Divine in our lives. If we think about the Eucharist for a moment, the meal we have together, that sense of the very real presence of God in the Lord’s Supper. It’s a real tangible reminder that Jesus is our life-giving bread. As we partake the bread, we’re reminded of our physical need of bread to sustain our bodies, then Christ sustains our souls, and we remember that Jesus is the only food that truly satisfies.
When Jesus at that last supper with the disciples said, “as you do this remember me” I wonder was he meaning do this every time you create that set piece liturgical event in your services with the rituals and the words that you use, or did he mean every time you eat together and eat bread, like every day that you just be together. I actually think we can have the richness of both and so my suggestion to you is whenever you eat bread, think about Jesus, think about Jesus’s claim to be the bread of life in that way.
Neil Mackin
Readings for 18 August
John 6: 51-58
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Further readings from the lectionary this week are as follows:
- Proverbs 9: 1-6
- Psalm 34: 9-14
- Ephesians 5: 15-20
Readings for 25 August
John 6: 56-69
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Many Disciples Desert Jesus
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Further readings from the lectionary this week are as follows:
- Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18
- Psalm 34: 15-22
- Ephesians 6: 10-20
Our worship
We meet at 11am for our Sunday services, which are also live-streamed on our YouTube channel. If you wish to view our services online, you can find them at https://www.youtube.com/@christchurchuxbridge
You can also view a recent service on our church website. Our service this week will be led by URC preacher, Jeremy Day. You can find the order of service here.
If you are unable to join us in person or online for our Sunday services, but would like to receive a recording of them on a memory stick to watch at home, please let us know.
Forthcoming services
18 August – Jeremy Day (URC preacher)
25 August – Revd Dr Claire Potter (Methodist minister)
1 September – Revd Dr Claire Potter (Methodist minister) – Holy Communion and covenant service
8 September – Christ Church worship group
Induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani
Saturday 21st September, 2.30pm at Christ Church
The induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani will take place at Christ Church on Saturday 21st September at 2.30pm. The service will be led by Revd James Fields and refreshments will be served following the service. If you are planning on attending this service, please let Joanne know.
There will be a sign-up sheet available at church for providing food items for the refreshments after the service, please do sign up. We are also looking for a volunteer to manage the kitchen and ensure that the tea and coffee flow and the washing up is done, and a member who would like to read some prayers during the service. Please let Joanne know if you are able to help.
The church halls will also be in use that afternoon, so parking will be limited to the church car park only for those with disabled badges and access needs, or those who are bringing large and heavy items for the event. If you need a parking space at church, please email Joanne. There is parking available nearby in the Cedars, Grainges and Chimes car parks.
Holy Communion arrangements for August and September
There will be no communion service on the last Sunday of August as the following Sunday’s service on 1 September will be a covenant service with a kneeling communion and will be led by Methodist minister, Revd Dr Claire Potter. The September communion service will be on the 4th Sunday of September (22 September) instead of the last Sunday, and will be led by our new minister, Revd Wilbert Sayimani.
Top 10 hymns at Christ Church
I keep a record of the hymns we sing each Sunday at Christ Church as we have to report which hymns we use under our church copyright license. Someone recently asked me what the most popular hymns were at Christ Church. Here’s the stats from 12 April 2020 – 11 August 2024.
Number of different hymns sung: 454
Most popular hymns:
1. Will you come and follow me (used 16 times)
2. Be still, for the presence of the Lord (15 times)
3. I, the Lord of sea and sky (14 times)
4. In Christ alone (13 times)
5. Lord, the light of your love (Shine, Jesus, Shine) (12 times)
=6. From heaven you came (The Servant King); Longing for light, we wait in darkness (Christ, be our light) (both used 11 times)
8. Be thou my vision (10 times)
9. The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want (9 times)
=10. And can it be that I should gain; Brother, sister, let me serve you; In the bleak midwinter; Let us build a house; Lord of all hopefulness; Love divine, all loves excelling; Take my life and let it be; Thine be the glory (all used 8 times)
Are any of your favourites in the top ten? If your favourite hymn isn’t listed and you’d like to know where it places, do feel free to ask me on a Sunday morning!
Louise George
Children’s Corner
Dates for your diary
| 4 September | Welcome Wednesday |
| 8 September | Congregational Meeting |
| 18 September | Welcome Wednesday |
| 21 September | Induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani |
| 24 November | Congregational Meeting |
Praying for other churches
August
Throughout August, we hold in prayer the churches in the Circuit, LAG and around Uxbridge.
Closing prayer
King of kings, you have all the wisdom, the glory and the majesty. Continue to give us your gift of wisdom each day so that we might serve you in all that we do. Amen.
(Taken from Roots)
