Stainglass window
Christmas 2011
3rd Dec Advent Party
12th Dec @ 2pm
Carol Service at Oak tree Court
16th Dec @ 2.30pm
Carol Service at Stratford Court
17th Dec @11am
Carol Singing outside Co-Op
18th Dec Nativity and Christingle Service and Carol Service
24th Dec @ 11pm (Service starts at 11.30pm
United Service at URC Etwall Rd
25th Dec @10am
Christmas Day Service
"One Step Enough For Me "
Dear Friends,
As I write this, I am still waiting to go into hospital. By the time you read it, I hope that I will be well on the way to recovery (It does remind me to offer my apologies to you if you think I haven't given you enough "pastoral care" over the past few months!) That situation makes writing this letter very difficult: I don't know what's going to happen over the next few days and week. I think I know, I hope I know, I wish I knew - but to be honest: I don't know! That comes very hard for people like me who like everything sewn up and planned well in advance (I'm sure you've realized what an organized person I am- I need Sharron to introduce a little chaos into my life now and again!)
But actually, of course, that is the situation we all live in all the time. we like to think we know what our coming week is going to be filled with, but the truth is that no one really knows. all sorts of unexpected things, good as\ well as bad, can happen to us and to our loved ones.
Much as we might like it, God never promises to give us a detailed plan of our lives. What he does promise is far more worthwhile: he promises to be with us, whatever happens, and never to leave us. If you were in Church on Easter Sunday, you may remember me talking a bit about this, and how even when we are not aware of him, God is still there.
Allow me to share with you three pieces of writing which have helped me tremendously over the past years. Perhaps through them God will speak to you.
The first is a little anonymous poem on a card, which someone gave me nearly 25 years ago, when I was going through a particularly difficult time;
God would never send you the darkness
If he felt you could bear the light.
But you would cling to his guiding hand
If the way were always bright:
And ou would not care to walk by faith
Could you always walk by sight?
The second are the very famous words of Minnie Haskins included by King George VI in one of his wartime Christmas Day broadcasts:
"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year: Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. n And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way".
Finally, a hymn, which no longer makes it into our hymnbook: "Lead kindly light". I chose it for my very first induction service- which didn't go down too well, since it talks about the "encircling gloom" - which some of the members took as my opinion of their church! Written by Birmingham hero, Cardinal Henry Newman, it is a prayer for God to lead us, and includes within it the lines: "Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me"
May we all make that our prayer.
Your Friend and pastor,
Jonathan Calvert