Letter from the Rector – Sept 2009
September 1, 2009 by Andrew
Taking a look at our new programme card, I think we are in for a great autumn! The highpoint will be the Celebration Service on 29th November when the Bishop of Exeter inaugurates St. Andrew’s as a Minster, an occasion intended not for patting ourselves on the back but to call us to engage with renewed confidence with the life of our community and the wider church. Around that weekend we are planning concerts, services and events to help us mark a notable milestone for our church.
There will be a fresh feel to our staff team as we welcome Steve and Katy Nichols this month. Steve has just completed a PhD through Bristol University and will be ordained at Exeter Cathedral on 13th September (10.30am). He comes as our new curate and another Steve, Steve Carkett, becomes a ministry assistant alongside Gemma-Louise, to help particularly with school’s work and with our youth and children’s activities. Steve C has been a relay worker with UCCF this last year and is already a favourite with the children in Climbers. This may go a little way to filling the gap left as Andy Bowden leaves us to train for ordination. We shall be saying tearful farewells to Andy on 6th September and wishing him well as he heads for Oxford.
Two new sermon series start this month. In the mornings we shall be looking at the disturbing words of Jesus that we know as the beatitudes, where he speaks of how the poor in spirit, the meek and the merciful know God’s blessing. There could hardly be a greater contrast with many of today’s values. And in the evening services we look at the life of Jacob, later called Israel, one of the great Old Testament patriarchs. We shall find him a complicated character, struggling at many times in life, but discovering the faithfulness of God in the midst of an eventful life.
The autumn would be a good time for those who might like to explore a new part of church life. I would be delighted to point people towards one of our homegroups, which provide opportunities for study, prayer and fellowship, and which this term look at the letter to the Ephesians. I shall be taking a Christianity Explored course, a straightforward introduction to the Christian faith from Mark’s gospel, and Andrew is leading our ‘Theology to Go’ course on Monday evenings. And then there’s God@Work for those in the city centre on Thursday lunchtimes, Noah’s Ark if you have small children, ‘Who Let The Dads Out’ on Saturday mornings for Dads, and ‘In Stitches’ should you have a propensity for needlework…not to mention the Mothers Union, lunchclub, TNT… Why not discover a new activity?!
When Jesus calls his disciples it is that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have authority to drive out demons (Mark 3:14-15). He then prepares them by his teaching and example until, in Mark 6, they are sent out in his service. To be with Jesus, to be taught, and to be sent out are all part of Christian discipleship. May this autumn be a time when as a church we grow in love, in understanding and in service to the One who gave everything for us.
Nick McKinnel