ROUNDABOUT PAGE
On
this page we reproduce the Buckden Churches Together articles that appeared
in the
"Roundabout" - the Buckden Village Monthly Journal.
2007 |
2008 |
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| SEPTEMBER 2008 | |
A New Academic Year Begins It so happens that our School is not mentioned this month in our regular cycle which rolls on from year to year. So let us add to our prayers this month the schools and colleges which serve our young people as their new year begins. A
View from St Hugh's |
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| AUGUST 2008 | |
New
Arrivals in Buckden |
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| JULY 2008 | |
Festival Week |
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| JUNE 2008 | |
Welcome If you are new to Buckden Village, interested in knowing more about what it means to be a Christian or curious about what we believe, please do contact one of the Ministers listed here or any members of the congregations that you see involved with one of the churches. You can be sure of a warm welcome and listening ear. Pastoral Letter I tried to think of a witty joke to start this letter, as I sometimes try to do, but as I write, the news is on, telling of thousands of people dead in Burma in the latest tragedy to hit our planet. So maybe we should ask instead how Christians should respond to this? Well, we could investigate what kind of a God we serve; knowing him and how he works is crucial because that determines how we act in situations like this. So who is God? What is He like? We can only touch the tip of the iceberg here, because God is hugely magnificent. He created us, and so understands us, but is more advanced than us, and we can't fully understand him (many Christians today believe that God created the world, but may have used some process in which evolution plays a part, as modern science is discovering more and more - what science hasn't found is how it all started -the two can work together). He created all the natural things we see around us, so he is more powerful than anything else we know, and is magnificently clever and creative. Imagine the most beautiful parts of nature, and picture our God as more beautiful than that. To live in the physical world we live in would confine him too much. He is a spiritual being, which is why some find it hard to believe in him - because there is no physical proof (apart from miracles -an everyday occurrence in some parts of the world). And yet he is an active God. He moves, he is intimately involved in creation, and works for the good of us all -it's just us who mess up! Probably the most important thing to God is love. That may sound like a cliche^ but it's true. He loves us - every one of us, and desires and craves personal relationship whoever we are, though we often don't give him that privilege. He is patient and forgiving, waiting for us to catch up with his plans, and do the right thing - but he is also jealous and fierce, and this is why Christians speak of the fear of the Lord. We do the right thing not out of a scared, shaking fear, but a holy, reverent fear. Oh! There is so much more and not enough space!! So our wonderful, creative, loving, generous, holy, magnificent God calls us as his followers to be like him. So when we see disaster, whether the other side of the world or next door, he calls us to act. Our faith is not passive, and it is certainly not 'religious' - it is a life calling, to represent God in the time we are given to live on this planet. And it is worth it! Our reward is, as promised, a new heaven and a new earth - with no suffering, for those who are faithful. Yippee!!! Debbie
Newson |
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| MAY 2008 |
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Pastoral Letter Dear Friends I wonder if you know when the church's birthday is? I don't just mean 'St Mary's' or 'St Hugh's' or 'Buckden Methodist Church' or any other particular church, but the whole Christian church throughout the world. It can sometimes seem as if the church has been around for ever - so it can't possibly have a birthday! But it is at Pentecost (Whit Sunday), 50 days after Easter, that the church traditionally celebrates its birthday each year. So on 11 May, the Buckden Churches will be celebrating by holding the annual 'Pentecost Picnic' in the grounds of Buckden Towers, with a picnic, birthday cake, garden games, rounders, and a bouncy castle. All are welcome to come along for a fun afternoon. So what are we celebrating? As well as giving thanks for the way that the churches in Buckden work together (and renewing our covenant with each other), Pentecost is a time for remembering the very beginnings of the church, at a time when there were just a handful of ordinary men, women and children who had been friends and followers of Jesus during his life on earth, and who wanted to carry on his work after he had returned to heaven. But the world is a big place, and they were so few in number, it must have seemed impossible! But with God all things are possible, and Jesus had promised them that he would not leave them on their own. Although he wouldn't be with them in the same way as he had been, he would still be with them, in a new and special way, through the Holy Spirit. They didn't know what Jesus had meant, but when the Holy Spirit came a few days later, they felt so inspired and encouraged and full of joy, that they managed to communicate the good news about God's love to a whole crowd of people, who all heard clearly as if the words were being spoken in their own languages! It was a miracle, and the worldwide church was born. The idea of the
Holy Spirit is still a strange idea to many of us. Perhaps we can understand
God as a Father or creator, and Well, the Holy Spirit is God's way of still being with us. Even though Jesus is not still walking about on earth in human form, God has not 'gone' and left us alone. If we are open to God's presence in the world, then it is through the Holy Spirit that we will be aware of God walking with us in our journey of life and faith, through times of celebration and times of sorrow, in our greatest joys and in our darkest days. As the churches celebrate Pentecost this year - and as Christians around the world renew our commitment to work together — we pray that all people might come to know the comfort and joy of the Holy Spirit - God's way of being with us every day of our lives.
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| APRIL 2008 |
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Easter Day Many years ago, as a young lad up in Liverpool, I remember that we used to celebrate, if that is word, Spy Wednesday. This was the Wednesday before Good Friday and it was our way of re-living the terrible days leading up to Good Friday and the crucifixion of Christ. Judas had to make contact with the High Priest to arrange the handing over of Christ. The price was set at thirty pieces of silver. He would let the authorities know the exact whereabouts of Jesus after the Passover meal. The man they wanted would be the one he greeted with a kiss! On the Thursday of the week we call Holy Week we went to Church for a very special celebration of the Mass, when we remembered the night when Jesus led his apostles through the darkened streets of Jerusalem to the Upper Room. There Jesus did two things. He washed the feet of his disciples, a service normally carried out by a servant or a slave. Then he said those mysterious words over the bread and wine: this is my body, this is my blood. There was a re-enactment of the washing of the feet to make it all very vivid. One of the priests would wash the feet of his fellow priests. I must admit that for us young altar servers there was a special interest in this part of the service. Our main interest was to watch to see if any of the priests had a hole in his socks! It's not difficult to enter into the minds and hearts of the first followers of Christ. They watched from afar as they realised that Jesus was not going to do any miracles to save himself. They had come to see Jesus as the very focal point around which their whole life revolved. I
have often watched the members of a bereaved family as they walked by
the coffin of their mother or father. Almost without thinking, they put
out a hand to touch the wood that contains somebody so dear to them. Somehow
they want to express their desire to touch once more their loved one.
There were at least two followers who stood by the wood of the cross as
Jesus finally bowed his head and When Mary Magdalene saw Jesus on the morning of the resurrection, her first reaction is to touch Jesus. Is it really him? She seems to be saying. It was him and it is him. As children we all wanted the biggest and the best Easter Egg. The real egg is one of the very best symbols of the risen Christ. Imagine for a moment the baby chick inside that shell, finally forcing his way through the hard shell and into the great world beyond. Christ too breaks out from the cave where he has been laid after his crucifixion. The rock at the entrance is pushed aside and Christ triumphant stands before the world. His words are true, "I am the resurrection". Who will believe it! And still more demanding of our faith; that we too will rise again. The resurrection of Christ is not a one off. I don't know how it will happen, but happen it will. . Easter Day is the day par excellence to rejoice and be glad. The Lord has risen. Death has been conquered. Peter Wareing cmf What's
on in April? Every day of the year has a saint attached to it. The best known to the English should be that of St George on 23 April but celebrations of it are more conspicuous by their absence. Buckden
Churches Monthly Study Lunch
Newcomers to Buckden |
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| MARCH 2008 | |
| Dates and Periods in the Church Year - What do they Signify? Mothering Sunday - the fourth Sunday in Lent (2 March 2008) - Widely celebrated as Mothers' Day. Also known as Refreshment Sunday when those who are fasting may relax their regime. Good Friday 21 March 2008 - A service marking this day will be held at the Green at 11.30am. Everyone welcome. But what is Good Friday and why Good? It's the day that Jesus Christ was put to death on the cross after a vote by the mob who preferred to save a thief when given the choice, so how can it be Good? The Good part is that Christians believe that Jesus died to free us from sin and to be reconciled to God. Easter
Sunday 23 March Services
to mark this wonderful event are to be held in all our churches and
those throughout the land. *********************************************************************************************** Annual
General Meeting The BCTC Committee's Accounts for the year ending 31 December 2007 can be viewed by clicking here. |
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| FEBRUARY 2008 | |
Shrove Tuesday is on 5 February this year Shrove
Tuesday? It is the day before Lent begins. The name is based on the
habit of being "shriven" on that day in preparation for Lent;
that is, confessing one's sins and being granted absolution. Pastoral Letter Debbie Newson for Buckden Churches Together |
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| JANUARY 2008 | |
Epiphany (i.e. 6 January) and Twelfth
Night New Year - New Start God of all eternity, Eternal God To people we have yet to love, |
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| DECEMBER 2007 | |
Advent A View from St Hugh's So God chooses a tiny nation without great armies, wealth or political
power. What race should the Saviour be? If he is simply yellow, or black,
or white, might not this seem to be favouritism towards that race? In
the divine wisdom, God decides that Jesus should come into a line of
people who were racially mixed, who lived on the crossroads of the ancient
world, a land near Africa, in the Middle East, touching the Orient,
and connected with Europe by the sea routes of the Mediterranean - the
land of Palestine. |
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| NOVEMBER 2007 | |
All Saints Day -1 November All Souls' Day directly follows All Saints' Day and is an opportunity for Anglicans and Roman Catholics to commemorate the faithful departed. An All Souls Service will be held in St Mary's Church on Sunday 4 November at 4pm to which all who wish to remember their friends and relations are welcome. Please let St Mary's know the names of the departed via the list inside the entrance. |
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| OCTOBER 2007 | |
One World Week 21 - 28 October It is One World Week, when we are invited to reflect on the increasingly evident fact that all our natures on the single planet we occupy are inextricably bound together. Pollution and greenhouse gases do not remain within national boundaries. Depletion of fish stocks, loss of bio-diversity, destruction of forests are a loss for us all. Unsustainable and unequal consumption means that the world's resources are being plundered to support the lifestyles of the rich while almost half the world's population lives on less than two dollars per day. See www.oneworldweek.org and www.wdm.org.uk among others. Pastoral Letter "If you can't fly, then run. I cannot stop thinking about something that is really burning me up
at the moment. Here's a quote from a Burger King flyer from a few years
ago: This seems to be the thought in today's world - we can have whatever we want, whenever we want it. Great! But.. .did you know that 25,000 people died today because they have no food? The World Food Programme needs £118 million to feed 3 million starving Zimbabweans right now, and get this — in 2005 hi this country we spent £9.58 billion on Christmas - when 43% of people don't even want Christmas! (www.eauk.org). They can't wait for it to be over! I can't seem to get this right in my mind. We are happy to let thousands die each day, and not seem to pass them a thought, while we go on spending? Humm. The thing is, when you or I hear statistics like that, we tend to think
it's too much to do anything about — what difference can I make?
Well, there was the story of the boy with the starfish — a man
was walking along the beach one day where thousands of starfish had
been washed up. There was a young boy throwing some back into the water,
and the man comes up to him and says, 'what you're doing is ridiculous!
There are thousands here, what difference can you possibly I always wanted to be a hero. I always dreamed of saving someone from a fire, or saving someone's life in some way. You may have felt the same; I guess it makes you feel good! But you know, you or I can be a hero today! In this country we seem to have an insatiable appetite for more Play stations, Ipods, satnav; none of which brings happiness because we invariably want more when we have got what we think we always wanted! However, there are thousands of charities working to save lives in all sorts of ways. Giving away money, time on short term charity projects, selling unwanted items to generate money to give, giving money to charity this Christmas instead of buying presents for people — all make us feel like we're making a difference, rather than just getting that thing I always wanted. If you're a Christian, do it because God tells us to. If you're not -do it anyway! It will make you feel good! Do you want to make a difference? I do. Don't forget — whatever you do, keep moving. Debbie Newson |
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2007 |
2008 |
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