We have been very fortunate in the recent donation of a wonderful grand piano and to take advantage of this gift, Sally Wigan, a local professional pianist has offered to perform in a series of monthly recitals. She recently played for the Friday Play Café and it was well received by adults and babies alike!

Sally was born in Chester and gained her Masters degree from the Royal College of Music in 2009 under Andrew Ball. She then studied with Kalman Drafi at the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest, as winner of the 2009 Joseph Weingarten Scholarship.

Sally has performed across the UK, Switzerland and Hungary in such prestigious venues as Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, Symphony Hall Birmingham, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Kings Place Concert Hall and the Franz Liszt Concert Hall in Budapest and has been selected as a Park Lane Group Young Artist for the past three consecutive years, to great critical acclaim.

The inaugural recital will take place on Monday 18 November at 1:30pm in the church and will consist of works by Bach, Debussy, Liszt and Gershwin.

It will be a short recital of about 30 minutes and refreshments will be served after the concert. Future recitals are planned for 16th December and 20th January.
​
Please come if you can. These are free concerts although donations to cover costs would be appreciated.

www.sallywigan.com

Group 1
Meeting monthly after morning worship at Woodford Green URC
Facilitator: Suzanne Corney

Group 2
Tuesday 8th October at 10.00am
June Colley (Host & Facilitator)

Group 3
Wednesday 16th October at 10.00am
Louise Woodcock (Host)
Jean Wyber (Facilitator)

Group 4
Monday 14th October at 3.00pm
Sandra Millan (Host & Facilitator)

Group 5
Tuesday 8th October at 7.30pm
Eileen & Geoff Packe (Host)
Margaret Brown (Facilitator)

Group 6
7th October 10.30am
Gerald & Mariana Lee (Host)
St James URC, Buckhurst Hill
Isabel Bala (Facilitator)

Group 7
Currently not meeting – members would be very welcome at other groups

Group 8
Sunday 27th October 5.00-6.30pm
Helen and Kevin Haigh (Host & Facilitators)

Since the Church Room at St James' URC was refurbished earlier this year, we now have set aside a space for listening and prayer.

Each Friday from 1:00 - 2:00pm, someone from our congregation will be there for anyone who happens to pass by, who wants to talk or pray.

This doesn’t have to be a stranger - anyone from our church or the Forest Group, is welcome to come and pray or just sit quietly and enjoy the peace and quietness of that place.

Maybe we will see you there!

Isabel Bala

Thinking Globally, Acting Locally was the theme of the week I signed up for at Othona, Bradwell-on–Sea this summer. It was led by Malcolm Hardy, a Trustee of Essex Wildlife Trust and a biology teacher at a sixth form college in Hackney. He is a wildlife enthusiast and a keen conservationist.

The week was split between talks about wildlife, excursions and practical activities. On the first day we had a guided walk around the environs of Othona, looking at the reed beds where waste water is
filtered and looking at the habitat of the Shrill Carder Bumblebee, which is the rarest bumblebee in the UK.

In the evening we had a talk on the birds and insects of Othona which was very informative.

The next day some of us began making bird and bat boxes and I attempted making a bug hotel with some difficulty!

In the evening we had a talk on the Marine Environment around Bradwell, which may be affected, if plans for a new nuclear power station there go ahead.

The folllowing evening Tim Sapsford, from Essex Bat Group, came to talk to us about bats and then took us on a bat walk which was exciting. We heard lots of bats flying overhead near the car park and in a woodland area. They made quite a loud rattling noise and flew so quickly I only saw one, I think. Most of them were pipistrelles, although there are ten species of bats in Essex. 

Our final excursion, the next day, was down to the seashoe where we identified plants which can live in that salty environment and checked the different types of seashells on the beach. We also looked for male and female shore crabs under rocks and found lots of them!

I learned so much about wildlife in that week and how we must care for the environment.

One of the things I enjoy most about being at Othona is going to St. Peter’s Chapel twice a day to attend the services led by different people. There is no electricity in the chapel, so in the evening it is lit by candles, and walking there in the evening, watching the sun set with a panorama of sea and sky all around is amazing.

Inside the chapel, founded by St. Cedd in 654AD, there is a beautiful crucifix designed by Francis William Stephens, installed there over sixty years ago and St. Cedd is depicted at the foot of it, holding his bishop’s crook.

Three stones are set into the altar, one from Lindisfarne, where St. Cedd was trained as a monk, one from Iona where St. Columba founded a monastery and where the Celtic mission of St. Cedd began.

The third stone is fom Lastingham, where St. Cedd died of the plague in 664AD.

It is over seventy years now since Revd. Norman Motley set up the Othona Community, hoping to promote reconciliation between German and British people after the Second World War. He encountered considerable opposition and derision, but he was a very determined person and his vision bore fruit with many German people still coming to spend time at Bradwell each year along with people from many other countries.

While I was there there were seven VAPS (Volunteer Action for Peace) students from France, Spain, Italy and Mexico who helped out with various tasks during their two week stay. They all got on very well together considering they had never seen each other before.

Another of the good things about being at Othona is seeing old friends and making new ones, meeting a diverse mix of people, old and young, able and disabled and gifted in different ways.

If you have never been to stay there, or even to visit for a day, I would recommend it. You can check the website at www.othona-bradwell.org.uk to find out more about the community and its
programme of events.

Isabel Bala

Our next Holy Habit is “sharing resources”. We are told in Acts Chapter 2 that the first believers had everything in common, and that they would sell land or property from time to time and offer the proceeds to anyone in the group who had need. This is radically different from the world’s way of doing things, both then and now.

Down the centuries, monasteries would emulate this, but most of us in contemporary churches would not go that far. 

We see a more detailed description of this in Acts 4:32-37, but we also see this go spectacularly wrong in chapter 5 (Ananias and Sapphira).

I suspect that the early Christians shared resources partly in expectation of the imminent second coming of Jesus and partly because of the strong sense of unity and friendship they had within the group. As the numbers in the group increased so rapidly, it would have been more difficult to sustain.

However, it is still beneficial to think about what we can share with one another. After all, everything we have is a gift from God, and so we can honour Him by sharing, but only if we do it voluntarily, by faith, and not out of a sense of duty.
​
Kevin Haigh

We are now moving onto the fifth of our Holy Habits topics and here is the introduction from the booklet:

​“In Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-37, Luke presents pictures of the early Christian communities of disciples supporting one another and those in need in the wider community by the generous sharing of their resources. They shared and sold possessions to create a common fund which could be used to support those in need of income or resources.

The fund may also have supported the apostles and, later on, the deacons and others.

​It was a powerfully prophetic, counter-cultural expression of community then. It remains so today.

Much of 21st century Western culture encourages us to live separate, independent lives protecting our individuality, our privacy and our belongings. The same attitude is also becoming more prominent within the politics of nation states.

In Acts 2:44 we hear that the disciples were together and had ‘all things in common’.

As you explore this habit of Sharing Resources, you may like to reflect on what having all things in common meant to those early Christians, and how we relate that to our lives today personally and collectively in holy living.

This is a particularly challenging habit. It is not about offering others what you can spare. Nor is it about taking from others what you fancy. To share something requires us to change our relationship with that item, perhaps relinquishing our power over it, or taking more account of how we use it.

Sharing roles or gifts may mean accepting that a task is not completed to your own exacted standard. Sharing ideas or thoughts may make you vulnerable. True sharing is about working together in an open, honest and thoughtful manner without any hidden agendas.

Sharing can be costly and demanding but it is a way to life-giving and transformational experience.”

Andrew Roberts (ed) et al, Holy Habits. Sharing Resources, pg. 6

​My husband’s first cousin once removed was ordained as a priest serving with the Society of Jesus on May 11 at St Paul’s Basilica, Toronto.

His parents and I assumed Young Ted (as he is known in the family) wanted other family members who were also ordained to attend (although I don’t think they would recognise my own ordination as an Elder of the United Reformed Church) so we travelled with Richard’s cousin Anne who never misses a family celebration if she possibly can.

There had been a chance that Anne’s first husband (another CoE clergyperson) might attend which would have been problematic since they divorced in order for him to marry Young Ted’s aunt, but he was not well enough to travel so awkward meetings were avoided.

The service came in at under two hours which was pretty good for an ordination service. Ted and another Canadian were being priested and five men were being deaconed (with priesting next year). They came from the US, Nepal and the Antilles.

Training for the Jesuit priesthood takes 11 years and includes such exercises as being dropped into an unknown city with virtually no money and told to get by. Ted had worked in slums in South America and on the Monday after ordination was going to a conference in Rome on the subject of refugees as the representative for his Province. 

On 12 May we went to Our Lady of Lourdes (OLOL) to Ted’s first celebration of mass in the morning.

​This was far more informal with far fewer saints included in the Litany of Supplication (I lost count at
the Ordination maybe they named all the Jesuit saints) and I was delighted that we sang a John Bell hymn and Bernadette Farrell’s “Longing for Light” which we sing each year at the Ecumenical Advent Carol service.

I thanked Ted for choosing two British hymns but he said he had no involvement in their choice and had been concentrating on getting his sermon across.

In the evening we went to Choral Vespers at the Anglican Church of the Redeemer near to where we were staying which included Bach’s Cantata no 31 “The Heavens laugh the earth rejoices” and “Urlicht” from Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.

It was very well done with choir, soloists and orchestra. I think the church might be part of the University of Toronto or Ryerson because as well as two named clergy there were five Honorary Assistant clergy. Donations were invited at the end to help with the cost.

We moved on to Ottawa where Richard’s Canadian cousins are based but stayed in a central hotel where we found an Anglican church two doors away which offered Morning Prayer at 8am.

This had been started to offer a service for people working in the banks and insurance offices etc.

The church was in the process of being renovated and we had to bypass building materials and found the Sanctuary unheated and only one other person there who said he had only just started coming and that the service would probably be said by another layperson if the priest didn’t turn up.

The other layperson turned up but priest didn’t so Richard took that part and I resorted to my Kindle for the reading from Acts. Judging by the size of the building and the work going on, on Sunday it must be a very popular church but not on a cold wet Thursday morning.

Then to Chicago – no family apart from Cousin Anne and the 10.45am at the Church of our Saviour at Fullerton – sorry another Anglican one - on May 19. The Greeter said she came to London about once a quarter – I asked and learned she was an Insurance Lawyer visiting clients.

Richard felt at home immediately- there was lots of incense and they censed the Pascal candle which the OLOL thurifier had failed to do (High Anglicans notice these omissions).

It was the end of the Sunday School year and the children and their teachers were paraded and congratulated on their progress. The preacher had distributed a visual aid in the shape of a triangle with Soul, Body and Personhood on one side and various “fold here” instructions and comments on the back which I shall give to Ulrike.

The congregation was not large and they are starting a discipleship programme. The after church gathering was going to be focussed on the End of the Sunday School year so we did not linger. I wanted to suggest to the priest that he look at “Holy Habits” but he had announced he was going to the airport immediately after the service to start his holiday. We sang one Brian Wren hymn which I didn’t recognise from Rejoice and Sing which impressed Cousin Anne and I was able to say the writer was a URC minister. 

I nearly forgot – we did visit another church in Ottawa but in the middle of the Canadian National Museum – a small wooden Ukrainian Orthodox church which had been transferred there and which was still consecrated and occasional services held.

I could go on about the museums and concerts and how we eventually found a Currency Exchange to cash in our pre-Millennium Travellers Cheques but that is enough for now.

Jean Wyber 

Gladness and generosity are intimately linked because each one springs from the other. Our gladness arises naturally from the generosity of God, and our gladness will naturally lead to generosity towards others.

Generosity does not necessarily relate to money, but can instead relate to time spent with someone, words of encouragement or any other way of fulfilling a need.

The gladness that springs from God’s generosity does not depend on our circumstances, but comes from a deeper, richer source, namely, the knowledge of our ultimate security in our relationship with God, made possible by the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour.

Paul tells us of an impressive example in 2 Corinthians 8:1-3

“And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability.”

Generosity should not be forced, but should be from the heart, in order to give honour to God. In 2 Corinthians 9:7 we read 

“Each man should give what he has decided to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver”
​
Kevin Haigh

As we continue with our Holy Habit of Biblical Teaching, I would like to suggest that the Bible is a bit like a school mathematics text book. In the front of the text-book are all the problems, and in the back are the answers.

However, in the case of the Bible, there is only one problem and one solution.

The problem is sin and the Old Testament describes this in terrible detail, and the answer is Jesus’s death on the cross, which we see in the New Testament.

A drastic solution to an intractable problem that only God Himself could solve.

In the Garden of Eden, as soon as Adam and Eve sin, we start to see consequences. It had never bothered them before that they were naked, they experienced fear, they hide from God, and enmity is born, pain is increased, work becomes toil. In the next generation, we see envy and murder (Genesis 3 and 4).

All of the world’s problems are ultimately the result of sin. Ever since then, men and women everywhere have been unable to return to that original sinless state which is necessary for a relationship with a perfect God.

Before the creation of the world, God had planned the solution to the problem that He knew would come. He knew what it would cost, and only Jesus could carry it out.

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” Matt 20:28.

We cannot even believe without the Holy Spirit within us, we are so helpless to save ourselves.

Let’s worship God for His gracious kindness in rescuing us.

​Kevin Haigh

In our Holy Habits home-groups, we are starting on the topic of Biblical Teaching. At the time of Acts 2, none of the New Testament books had been written, so they were being taught by the Apostles and this teaching was later written down in the pages of the New Testament.

Much of this teaching explained how the Old Testament was pointing to God’s Messiah and how Jesus fulfilled the prophesies.

Jesus himself read from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth and claimed that He was the fulfillment of it (Luke 4:21).

This would have been dynamite to the Jews. All through the gospels, you can see the excitement building with its climax in the Acts as people became convinced of Jesus’s identity as God’s promised Messiah, and the church spread like wildfire, despite ferocious opposition.

Why should we place so much importance on Biblical Teaching, rather than on church tradition and authority, on our own spiritual experiences, or on our own unassisted reasoning?

It is because it tells people what they need, but do not want to hear.

How many attempts have there been to discredit, twist or soften the words of the Bible, so as to avoid the conclusion that we each of us need the forgiveness of sins that only God can grant through the barbaric means of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross? Do we ourselves soften the teaching, because we are afraid of making ourselves unpopular or ridiculous? We would never have come up with teaching like that on our own.

The Bible is precious treasure, and we need to be on a lifelong quest to learn its secrets. It is how we come to know God and receive life from Him.
​
Kevin Haigh