Remembrance Sunday 2020

 

Remembrance Sunday 2020 will be different for many of us this year as we commemorate it, not with others in church or beside a war memorial, but at home.  Patrick, who creates the posters for the Woodside Road board at AFC, has redesigned this year's accordingly.

We are so grateful to Michael and Sara Autton who have chosen various elements of previous Remembrance Sundays (from the AFC sound archives) that have now been incorporated in to this coming Sunday's audio service.  The recording of this was completed yesterday, and if you wish to play it on Sunday arriving at the Two Minute silence at 11.00am then we suggest you start the service at 10.38am.  Of course, whenever we play the service, the moment of silence we keep will be personal and precious.

Initially this Act of Remembrance took place every 11th November.  Then after the Second World War it was transferred to the second Sunday of November, Remembrance Sunday, as it was felt the 11th was a date solely connected with WW1.  Since 1995 our country had returned to holding commemorations on both 'Armistice Day' and 'Remembrance Sunday'.

This year sees the 100th anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior being established at Wesminster Abbey. The idea came from the Anglican clergyman and chaplain to the forces, The Revd David Railton.  He saw a cross in France dedicated to an 'unknown soldier' in 1916.  After the war he wrote to the Dean of Westminster with the idea that a national memorial in such a form might be created in the United Kingdom.  The Dean shared the idea with an enthusiastic Prime Minister, Lloyd George, who eventually won over the King.  Today there are similar national memorials in almost every capital in the world.

On Sunday in our thoughts and prayers we will remember with thanksgiving and commit ourselves once more to both work and pray for peace.

On the Eve of Lockdown

Tomorrow England goes into its second Lockdown of this world wide crisis.  

A hundred years ago, in the so called 'Spanish Flu' pandemic there were no less than four 'waves' of outbreak, three in 1918 and the final one in 1919 all faced without a vaccine.  I find it incerdible that our world lost 40 million people through World War One and then, straight after, another 50 million through this influenza virus.  We are so grateful for the advances in medicine and health care that has so far meant the worldwide fatality figure is around one million.  With the prospect of a vaccine drawing ever closer let's hope the days before us, in the medium term at least, will be more hope-filled than the ones behind.

For the short term, however, there will be no 'in person' worship at AFC on Sunday mornings.  Many of us have appreciated the services we have been enabled to have over these last four months, but for a time they are suspended by order of the government.  Yet, I'm sure, we will all be grateful for the continuing Audio Services that have been such a sustaining feature of our life together since March.  Our thanks go out to Michael and Sara Autton who help put them together for us week by week.

The new guidelines have made it clear that churches can open for Private Prayer, so we'll be doing this at AFC every Monday for the rest of November from 1.00pm -2.00pm.  Just as in June we invite you to come and go as you please.

I'll also be posting a daily blog here on Mondays through to Fridays in the next month - just one way of seeking to 'stay in touch'.

The picture on today's blog is the table decoration that we assembled at The Manse over the weekend. It graced our meal times.  We all loved it and it seemed to remind us, in its vibrant autumn colours, that there is still so much for us to be grateful for during this Season of Thanksgiving.

May you know God's blessing of strength and peace in all you do this day.

The Joy of Meeting/s

Today at AFC we are holding three meetings.  They will, for a time, be the last ones at which we sit down and talk face to face as from Thursday we'll fall back to Zooming.

I never thought I would speak with such appreciation of the prospect of attending, for example, a Finance and Property Committee!  Yet, the truth is, it's often what goes on 'in the room' that's so important; the atmosphere, the facial expressions, the moment of shared laughter or sighing; all these form the dynamics upon which we base our decision making and, for all its positives, these crucial elements are sometimes missing when meetings are held remotely.

Today our friends in the United States of America elect their next President.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to them on this tremendously important day for them, and us.

I was struck hearing the North American author of the Gilead novels (one of which we are currently reading in the AFC Book Group), Marilynne Robinson, being interviewed on the BBC recently.  She described herself as a very committed Congregational Christian.  That is, her style of faith (one inspired by that which was practised by The Mayflower settlers from Britian) is that which is expressed not through episcopal authority (top down) but in congregational church meetings (bottom up).

Robinson made the profound point that the essence of government in the United States is based on that Congregational principle embodied in the traditions and disciplines brought over by the Pilgrim Fathers.

Well, we could spend all day debating the health of 'bottom up' democracy in today's world, but on a day such as this - as I attend three meetings at church, all based on the congregational principle, and later on watch the results coming in from the election being held on the other side of the 'Pond', I still get a shiver up my back when I recall the opening line of the US Declaration of Independence....We the people...

May you know God's blessing and joy in all you do today.

Remembering Melva

Today, on Monday 2nd November, the Feast of All Souls 2020, we are saying 'farewell' to one of our church members, our good friend Mrs Melva Judd.  Her funeral service is being held this morning at The Chilterns Crematorium at 10am.

Melva started attending AFC on my first Sunday here eight years ago.  She had just moved into the area and intended to go to another church that frosty morning, to a service which started at 10 o'clock.  Failing to leave enough time to scrap the ice off the windscreen (we've all been there!) she decided to 'try' us out instead as our worship began thirty minutes later at 10.30!  She came and, thankfully for us, she stayed.

Melva was a great supporter and encourager of our church and played her part in attending weekly worship, sharing in LunchBreak, supporting the Hands Together Group and serving at the Fun at One parent and toddler afternoons.  She made friends here, as she did in other town groups, and we'll miss her.

How fitting then, that her service should be on All Souls Day.  A time for us to recall with thanksgiving those we love but who now dwell 'upon another shore and in a greater light'.

In these strange times we are, perhaps, valuing the gift of life differently.  We have always known that love and companionship transforms life and on a day such as this we give thanks once more for the lives of family, friends, colleagues and fellow pilgrims - lives that have touched ours and made our journey through life that much deeper.

For all the saints, who from their labours rest - Alleluia!

'For nothing changes here...'?

There is a hymn line which goes 'for nothing changes here'.  It describes, rightly in my view, a sense of permanent faith in a trustworthy God.  It's similar to that other hymn line, 'Thou changest not..'  Both refer to God's faithfulness and a belief in eternal values which can give life a sure and stedfast foundation.

However, in terms of 'how we get there', life is constantly changing.  Our pathways, strategies and experiences continuously evolve because that's the only way to survive and thrive in life.

For example, today as I read the headlines on the BBC News website ( a morning routine of mine), it was interesting to learn that for the first time in its long history the Royal Mail will soon, for a charge, not only deliver but also collect parcles, in an attempt to catch up with their new rivals.  The website also had a feature predicting that by 2025 half of all industriualised tasks will be undertaken by some sort of 'robots'.  

As Bob Dylan might have sung: Times, they are a changing.

Of course the Church also evolves.  

There was a letter in The Church Times last week explaining why a previous correspondent was finding it so difficult to track down what sort of hymns Anglicans sung in their Parish Churches in the 17th Century.  The answer was simple, Angliscan didn't really start singing hymns until the 18th Century, before then it would have been a said service with some chanted Psalms.  Yet things change!

It sometimes feels to us as if we live in a swirling chaos.  Change is an inevitable consequence of both the aging process and the product of meeting challenging surprises.  Faith, however, seeks to affirm that there can be a calm, secure centre to our life and that's the nature and character of a trustworthy and dependable God.

Blog Holiday next week.

Church Life Focus

We have received a letter of appeciation for our harvest gifts made to New Hope in Watford.  The organisation tell us that their Haven Centre assists 36 homeless people with food every week and that from April to June 215 people have received support.

This week the audio and 10.30 service will be lead by our church secretary, Mrs Janet Reid with The Revd Erna Stevenson as the preacher.  There will not be a recording of the video service this coming Sunday.

The service at church on 1st November will be Holy Communion for All Saints Sunday.

This year, instead of making up shoeboxes for charity, we will simply be collecting 'items'.  These will be put into shoeboxes made up by the charity Link to Hope.  Their work has been featured in two recent Family News articles.  Ann Parker will be 'collecting' these items - which are listed below.  She's asked that they be left by her porch during the last week of October and she will take them to Link to Hope.  We hope that next year we'll be able to return to our more normal custom of individually making up shoeboxes for a Christmas distribution to disadvantaged folk.

Needing our Support

 

One of the ways we seek to be 'outward looking' at AFC is in our financial and prayerful support of the charities selected for our monthly Communion Offerings and our annual Christmas Offerings.  Our Partnership in Mission Committee organises this part of church life for us and they recently met, in person, for the first time since The Crisis began in March.

In light of the fact that Communion Offerings were not taken up between April to August this year it's been decided that all those charities who missed out on a collection will be 'reinstated' in the list for next year.  This will be our way of honouring the brilliant and often vital work they do.

Recently we've held our Harvest Offering for 2020 and we've received something of a 'record' sum of around a thousand pounds.  Wonderful evidence, I believe, of the generous beating heart that is AFC.

The October edition of Reform, The URC monthly magazine, has an article outlining the current crisis facing Charities.  It points out that Christian Aid expects a shortfall of £6m this year and that the loss of the London Marathan was a blow to the sector as it raised £66m in 2019.  On average it's expected that charities will see their income fall by 24% this year, even as 52% of them say they have 'delivered' more services in lockdown than before.

With that in mind, at AFC we will be making a special effort (as we did last Sunday) to highlight our 'Charity of the Month' at our services both on-line and in-person.  They do a great work in the name of God and compassion, and merit our support.

Church Life Focus

This Tuesday we'll be holding a Team Meeting as the Ministers, Secretary and Treasurer come together to talk about our life together.

Also on Tuesday there's another 'first' for AFC as our Book Discussion Group gathers on Zoom to discuss 'Sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus'.

Next Sunday's services will be led by our Church Secretary, Janet Reid with our Associate Minister, Erna preaching

One Congregation - three different ways of worshipping

Ever since returning to 'in person' worship at AFC at the beginning of July, we have tried to emphasise that we are still 'one congregation, now worshipping in three different ways'.  For us that means we access 'coporate' worship through the Audio Service, the Video Service or the '10.30' Service.  We know we are not unique in this and that many churches have taken this approach of providing a variety of worship opportunities seeking to encourage folk to 'attend' the service which is 'right' for them.

Just maybe, some of the lessons we have had to learn quickly in these days of Pandemic, will stay with us in the future.  For example, live streaming the service might one day be a natural successor to the rather 'makeshift' video recording we currently provide.  It will require significant financial investment but might be one way we show commitment to 'housebound' members who are becoming increasingly 'computer literate' - we'll see!

I thought Blog readers might be interested in seeing our viewing/listening'attendance figures for September.  It's good to read them in the context that before the crisis our average number at morning worship was 90.  Here are the stats....

Date              Audio Service          Video Service       10.30 Service         Total
6th Sep         55                              37                          47                           139
13th Sep       45                              65                          46                           156
20th Sep       45                              40                          47                           132
27th Sep       48                              51                          51                           150

We are so grateful to everyone at AFC who works hard behind the scenes to make these services possible.

None of us imagined this would be the way our worshipping life would develop in 2020 and it's quite a thought that this Sunday's Audio Service will be our 30th!!!

Church Life Focus

Our Elders were able to meet in person, socially disatnced, in The Sanctuary on Tuesday and it was good to be together and talk about church life.  

After lots of debate we have decided to plan for a Church Meeting to be held on Zoom on Tuesday 24th November 2020 at 7.30pm.  We'll ensure the Agenda and Briefing Notes are available a fortnight before, thus giving people without internet an opportunity to look through the issues and write to us with their thoughts if they wish. The Charity Commission and our two denominations have told us that Zoom Church Meetings are an 'acceptable' way forward in the current circumstances.  At that meeting our Treasurer will give a full update on the financial position of AFC.

This week the ministers of the Central Baptist Association will be holding their annual conference on Zoom instead of gather at High Leigh in Hoddesdon.

This month our Mission Focus is WorkAid.  There will be a specific basket at church in which you can put your pink mission envelopes or a cash gift for WorkAid, and that will be available every Sunday.  Or you can send your gifts direct to Bob, our Treasurer.  Whatever way we choose to give, thank you for your support.

And finally, Churches on The Hill, Amersham, known among us as COTHA, will hold its AGM on Zoom this Wednesday evening at 7.30pm.  This meeting is open to everyone in our three churches and you can access it using this code:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84338473946?pwd=RFM4TDV1ZXZmUi90WFU4UHh4cXBVQT09

 

 

Meeting ID: 843 3847 3946

Passcode: cotha