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Parish Magazine Clergy Letters 2008
Rector's Letter - December 2008
Dear Friends,As you read this magazine, there will be many primary school teachers up and down the land working, like Trojans, in an attempt to get their somewhat over excited charges to learn their lines for the Christmas play.
Staplehurst Primary School is no exception and one of the joys of my role in the village is that I get an invitation to these superb productions, which require a great deal of work by a team of staff, who are coming to the end of a long term. Somehow they produce some stunning performances and the genius of our village productions is that all the children play a part in them.
And still somewhere in the weave of many such productions, we find that old, old story of the nativity. It's as much part of Christmas as singing “Away in a manger” and eating mince pies with mulled wine. There are, of course, many amusing stories about these productions.
Gervase Phinn, a one time schools inspector in North Yorkshire tells about these in his book “A Wayne in a Manger”. One I love is about the time he arrived at a Dales school one December afternoon, only to find all the children heading for home. He stopped one small boy who was loaded down with all manner of Christmas cards, calendars, decorations and presents. “Where's everyone going?” he asked. “Isn't there a nativity play here this afternoon?” The boy looked at him for a moment and then said bluntly, “It's off!” “It's off?” replied the inspector. “Aye” answered the lad “T'Virgin Mary's got nits!”
Perhaps our smiles are partly because the nativity story has, over the years, become pretty detached from the reality of what everyday life in first century Palestine was like. Christmas card and Advent calendar images never show Mary looking disheveled or grubby, or the straw of the stable needing a good clean out. We like it all to be a wholesome fairy tale, where all is fragrant, clean and attractive.
Yet I suspect the very point those gospel writers wanted to make, as they told the story, was about the nature of God. He was the God who saw fit to enter our world at that time and in that place, in a pretty humble way, where very few would have expected to find him. That surely is still the nature of our God. He often finds it mighty difficult to penetrate the places where life seems perfect, where people have everything, from the latest fashionable clothes and play things, to tables groaning with food and drink. The God the Christmas story reveals, is the God who reaches out to us in our ordinary everyday lives, with all its limitations and difficulties, who lives simply, takes risks and who makes himself vulnerable in order to show us how to love.
Now that surely is worth celebrating! Do have a very Happy Christmas!
With much love ..
Gill
Back to TopRector's Letter - November 2008
Dear friends,For many of us these are worrying times. However hard we try to put anxious thoughts “on the back burner”, the financial crisis looms as a constant concern for those who wonder if the place they have put their investments is secure, or if their pension fund is safe, or if they'll ever be able to sell that house they have had on the market for months.
Weathering the storms of life seems to be something most of us have to do at some time, whether they be financial insecurities, or personal grief and tragedy. Often our suffering seems unfair and I have known many who have asked me why bad things happen to good people, if I believe in a loving God.
I do not know the answer to that question. Its probably the first one I'd like to put to God, when I meet him face to face. (although I suspect he might want to challenge me about a few more important things first.) What I do know, however, is that my faith has never been based on the assumption that life will be plain sailing. As a post war child born into a family who had survived the London blitz, I heard much about human suffering. My mother's sister died from TB not long after she was married. Her death was on the eve of my mother's wedding day. I, like many of you, have known really dark times and found it difficult to see even a flicker of light in the darkness.
So my faith as a Christian is not based on the premise that “if you are on God's side, everything will be Ok”, but rather on the knowledge that God is there in all the darkest places we might find ourselves. This is the God who, in his son, suffered humiliation, rejection, betrayal and death, in order to show us his love. Remember that beautiful bit of the prologue to St John's gospel which is read at every traditional carol service and at the midnight Christmas service at “All Saints” each year. It reads “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it”
For many of us, God shows his love for us through the love of others. Others speak of a sense that however low they sink, there are the everlasting arms underneath before they fall into eternal blackness. In this month of Remembering, we might do well to look back over the dark times in our lives and see how we have been enabled to survive them.
The story of Jesus calming the storm on Galilee is more than a factual account. It has eternal significance and perhaps particular meaning for those of you who are feeling tossed about, for whatever reason, as you read this magazine. The storm will still. God fully understands when we get anxious, or angry, or cry out to him in sheer desperation. The psalmist did it. The disciples did it, Even Jesus did it with those memorable words, “My God ,my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But perhaps, in all the clamour of the tempest, we might just manage to hear the message of hope .......... after all, there is both death AND resurrection in our Christian story. Thank God!
With much love ..
Gill
Back to TopOrdinand's Letter - October 2008
Dear friends,It was about this time last year that I remember looking up into the evening sky just before sunset. The gathering gloom, the migrating geese and the slightly cooler temperature were all clear indications, as if I needed them, that Summer was well and truly over and I was about to embark on a new journey. The setting was Aylesford Priory and I was attending my first residential weekend of a three-year ordination course at SEITE (the South East Institute for Theological Education).
I now appreciate the feelings of trepidation and anxiety felt by our new students at Dulwich Prep as they arrived on their first day recently. Treading unfamiliar corridors for the first time, coping with all those new pencils and pens as they awkwardly tumble out of the brand-new pencil case onto the floor, and the fear of being left behind after the rest of the class has gone to Room 14 (wherever that is!) all bring back memories I'm sure for all of us of our own first day at a new school.
Like any journey, we make wrong turns, we occasionally need to take a break in a welcome lay-by and we sometimes desperately want to turn back to where we came from. But new journeys are also full of opportunity, discovery and the chance to make new friends - companions on the way. As I start the second year of my course, I can reflect on an amazing year behind me. In that year I have come close to giving up several times, longing for my life to return to `normality' without the pressure of essay deadlines, but at other times I have felt God's presence and reassurance more closely than ever in my life. I have made some fantastic new friends who have shared in the highs and lows. We have worshipped, prayed and sung together and shared more than a few pints!
Though we may not feel like it at times, we are all called to move on, to keep travelling, to encounter the unfamiliar. The disciples were called to leave their old lives behind and to embark on a journey full of risk and uncertainty. Every day, each one of us is called to walk with Christ as we carry on the work of those first disciples. Jesus is forever there to pick us up as we stumble and fall on the unfamiliar path and we answer his call when we help those companions on the journey who find the going tough. It's a good time to think about those starting difficult journeys - the new student finding it hard to settle in and make new friends, the neighbour facing a new life without a loved one, the friend about to start cancer treatment, the asylum-seeker struggling to build a new life in a strange culture...
We're also there to share in the good times, to celebrate, to laugh and to enjoy the well-paved road with its fine views. Whenever I feel a bit low and weighed down by it all. I remember the beautiful words of Horatius Bonar, a prolific nineteenth-century hymn-writer and Presbyterian minister:
lay down, thou weary one, lay down thy head upon my breast:”
I came to Jesus as I was, so weary, worn and sad;
I found in him a resting-place, and he has made me glad.
Yours in Christ,
Steve Bennett
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Curate's Letter - September 2008
Dear friends,Not soon had I arrived in Staplehurst that I was already packing my bags to spend an amazing three weeks in Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference. I had been asked to help as an interpreter and rapporteur for one of the “Indaba groups”. In these discussion groups, each comprising around 40 bishops from all parts of the Anglican Communion, I was asked to translate the thoughts and deliberations of the group throughout the conference. This was an arduous exercise as it required of rapporteurs to hold in tension the faithfulness of the scribe and the freedom of the poet.
Many came to the Lambeth Conference dreading a nasty and bitter confrontation. But most left with the strong sense that in a world where differences often spark hatred and division, the church can commit itself to rise to the challenge of unity and offer an alternative way of living out differences through beautiful disagreement.
Bishops at Lambeth felt that it was important to give adequate attention to specific internal concerns. There was, however, a much stronger imperative for the Communion to engage with the proclamation, in words and deeds, of the Gospel of life, love and hope to a broken and hurting world. As one bishop put it, the church needs to adopt a more comprehensive self-understanding and view itself as the oikos (household). This household is shaped around economic, ecological and ecumenical dimensions. The household is more than the bedroom. There are other rooms, the roof needs fixing, and outside the land is parched, flooded, and at risk and the neighbour is in need of help. Our vocation as the church is to attend to all those needs.
The debates were not always smooth as they contended with diversity in culture, context and psyche. There was however something potent and inspirational in witnessing bishops wrestle together in respect, selflessness and love with these difficult and polarising issues. They have not all reached a common understanding and will probably share diverging views for a long time. What then has the conference achieved you might ask? It has certainly not produced a series of clear resolutions that would solve once for all the issues. But this Lambeth Conference has created a permissive space for a variety of voices and opinions to hear one another. To use a Maori concept, the conference has allowed all to kick up the dust outdoors then let it settle before returning indoors.
The rift might not have been bridged, theologies might not have been changed, but hearts were transformed and new relationships established. Is it not what our Gospel is also about? The African concept of “Indaba” has brought all to realise that it is not about “them” and “us”, but it is about all of us as the people of God. It is not about arriving, but journeying. This is the beginning of an ongoing process. I have no doubt that the way ahead will be paved with many joys and challenges. However, I move forward with the knowledge that it will not be a solitary journey, but one that is shared with many, each bringing their own theological, cultural and spiritual specificity in this wonderful mosaic that our church is called to become.
Yours in Christ,
Lusa
Back to TopRector's Letter - August 2008
Dear Friends,I've almost missed the deadline for the magazine this month as I have been away at General Synod in York for 5 days, sharing in some of the debates which will make history for our church. Trying to live together in the community we call the church has never been that easy. As the Archbishop of York pointed out to us, there have been arguments and schisms in the church since the time of Jesus of Nazareth. As I write this letter we are marking the feast day of St Benedict who, in the sixth century, established a way of living which was to undergird monastic life down the ages. He is regarded very highly in many groups within in the church today. Yet we are told that there were those trying to poison him because they disagreed with him so fervently.
The debate over the issues concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of England, followed by that concerning their consecration to the episcopate, seems to have been rumbling on for a very long time. We just cannot agree. I have good friends who still do not think either move is right. They have a variety of reasons, some concerning the words of scripture or the tradition of the church. We cannot come to a common mind. So it was especially good to see Synod divide into groups on the first day to pave the way for how we might move forward together, before that 6 hour debate which was followed closely by the press. Our task was not to agree to having women bishops. We had already done that at an earlier synod. It was to agree on “how.”
Around two thirds of synod voted in favour of the House of Bishop's motion;
“That this synod
a) affirm that the wish of its majority is for women to be admitted to the episcopate;
b) affirm its view that special arrangements be available within the existing structures of the Church of England , for those who, as a matter of theological conviction will not be able to receive the ministry of women as bishops or priests.
c) affirm that these should be contained in a statutory national code of practice to which all concerned would be required to have regard; and
d) instruct the legislative drafting group, in consultation with the House of Bishops, to complete its work accordingly, including preparing the first draft of a code of practice, so that the Business Committee can include the first consideration of the draft legislation in the agenda for February 2009 group of sessions.
I do not agree with some reports that the debate was acrimonious. It was emotionally charged. It was hard work. But I believe there was honest and well argued debate. My great sadness about all this is simply that we, as a church need to move on and spend a proper proportion of time now, on the really important issues for the life of our world and its communities, instead of on internal issues. As our Archbishop challenged us in his sermon in York Minster. “Where will Jesus be at synod?..... in the middle of our discussions? Sometimes it's a good thing to look out of the window. You might just see Jesus going by!”
So let's do a bit of looking for him outside our church windows and structures, making his priorities ours, whether they be the care of our planet or its broken people. That's what discipleship really means and it's surely a task for all of us who claim to follow him.
With much love ..
Gill
Back to TopRector's Letter - July 2008
Dear Friends,Finding the right word has always been a bit of an obsession in my family. I think it all originates from my father, who was a great wordsmith. Indeed, one of the many losses for all of us, during my Dad's deteriorating dementia, is that we can no longer “phone him up” when we are writing something, or preparing a talk, and get him to give us just the word we are looking for.
So the other day, when someone I met described a friend of his as a “local luminary”, I was forced to use the dictionary. It's not a word I use and I wanted to be sure I knew exactly what he meant.
Luminary (according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary): “person of intellectual, moral or spiritual eminence, person of light and leading”.
I reflected on how an integral part of our baptism services these days is giving the child a candle with the words of exhortation “shine as a light in the world”. Being a “luminary” must surely be an aspiration for all of us and particularly those who try to live their lives following the one known as the “light of the world”.
Last month I went to see someone on stage, whom many would see as a luminary of yesteryear - Anthony Wedgwood Benn. Not all those in the audience shared his political stance but there was something compelling about that man's integrity as he spoke about today's world and his part in government over the years. Born in 1925, Tony Benn became a renowned left wing politician. When his father died he inherited the title of Viscount Stansgate and, much to his annoyance, he had to leave the House of Commons. It was only after the passing of the Peerage Act a couple of years later that he could renounce his viscountcy and return to the Commons. He went on to be Postmaster General, Minister of Technology, Minister of Trade and Industry and Minster of Energy.
But more important than all those titles was the ongoing challenges Tony Benn made to the status quo, something he still does today with gentle humour. He is also a shrewd commentator on his fellow politicians of all persuasions. Two of his comments, made during the performance have stayed with me as hints about what makes a luminary.
The first was “Be a signpost and not a weather cock”. In other words point consistently in the right direction, even when the winds of opinion or fashion could blow you all over the place. Don't be constantly blown off course. And secondly, as his final words of advice, “Be people of hope and anger for justice”.
Tony Benn most certainly would not call himself a Christian, but, in such advice, I could hear some clear echoes of the teaching of a guy from Nazareth who lived some 2000 years ago. He was most certainly a “luminary” and, for many of us, still is. As St John put it at the beginning of his gospel, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”
With much love ..
Gill
Back to TopRector's Letter - June 2008
Dear Friends,Thanks once again to all those who contributed so generously to my “canoning” present, which I have just spent on a new toy .... my very own satnav.
Some of you may, of course, share my son's concerns which he voiced recently at one of our Sunday evening youth group meetings, to much amusement. “Mum has two areas of life she really isn't any good at. One is driving and the other is technology. If you put the two together the combination could actually be very dangerous” !!!
But I would like to tell you that actually the satnav has revolutionized my long distance driving. Instead of struggling with map in one hand and wheel in the other, as well as trying to keep one eye on the road, I can now just punch in a post code and follow the voiced instructions. It is so different and so much easier.
In the past, I've tried AA route planner, typed out from the internet. I've tried jotting down the notes people give me to their homes and I've tried a simple map book. But the number of times I have got lost is legion.
I once spent most of an afternoon driving around East Grinstead, intermittently stopping to phone up the elderly lady I was supposed to be visiting. When I described a landmark I'd reached, she kept telling me I was nearly there but she could never quite work out which way I was facing and she apparently had no knowledge of any local street names in the vicinity in which I'd stopped. Those of you who drive alone will know the problems well.
I guess there are good parallels with following a Christian way of life. Trying to live by instruction manuals which are supposed to chart the journey is mighty difficult. Even trying to get instructions from others doesn't always work very well, if they don't really know where you are or which way you are facing. Yet the great joy about the Christian faith, is that the one we try to follow actually took a very similar journey He was an ordinary human being, facing all the hazards on route through everyday life and knowing about joys and sorrows. This was the one who promised not to leave us alone but to send us one who would lead us into all truth.
I guess the real question for us today is, “How do you hear the prompts of the Holy Spirit?” Few of us would claim to hear a voice as clear as the lady on my satnav. But most of us, on this particular journey, do feel that we have sensed a guiding presence at various times in our lives. It often seems to be when we are within our church community, at worship, or study, or prayer together, that the route seems clearest. Some would say that being part of the church gives their life direction.
And don't forget that I never knew what I'd been missing till I bought a satnav!
With much love ..
Gill
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Rector's Letter - May 2008
Dear Friends,Waking to the early morning news broadcasts over the last few weeks, one could hardly fail to be aware of what is regularly referred to as the current “global credit crunch”. Interest rates, mortgage availability and falling house prices seem to dominate our thoughts.
What a far cry from the concerns of the vast majority of our world! And I am not just referring to those living in Zimbabwe with its 100,000 per cent inflation rate as our magazine goes to press. What about those in other places, who still have to walk miles each day for water, who do not know whether they will eat today, whose nearest health centre is hundreds of miles away and whose children are unlikely to get even a basic education?
Are you aware that £9.8 billion is spent each year on cosmetics in the U.S.A.? .... more than double the £4.43 billion it would take to provide clean water and basic sanitation for everyone in our world?
Having worked in a developing country myself, I cannot speak highly enough of Christian Aid as an organization which helps some of the poorest people in our world. It does not just give aid. Their fieldworkers find really worthwhile local organizations helping people and then go into partnership with them, helping with the funding needed to keep them going. They range from helping women to set up their own market garden plots, to building wells, or funding relief programmes for refugees.
This year the first Sunday of Christian Aid Week falls at Pentecost. Christians across the globe will be celebrating the Holy Spirit's transforming of lives and empowering of communities by bringing them into the new life and liberty of the Risen Christ. What better time to remember those who are so disadvantaged.
Christian Aid's slogan has long been “Let's live more simply that others can simply live” So how about doing a couple of things this month.
- Firstly set aside the amount now, which you could spare this month, to help those who are fighting for survival while we have so much. Have it ready to go into that envelope which will drop through your door, rather than just putting a bit of loose change in the envelope (and don't forget to “gift aid” it, by writing your name and address on the envelope).
- And secondly, if you can spare just an hour or so somewhere in the week, pick up a packet of envelopes from the back of your church (all three churches in the village are involved) and get delivering.
With much love ..
Gill
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Rector's Letter - April 2008
Dear Friends,It's been good to hear recently from both Phil Osler and John Mackenzie, previously our curates here. They have both found life pretty busy over the Easter period, leading services and events in their own parishes. We have all been reminiscing about the days when we were all working together with the rest of you in the All Saints crew ,and how good it is to be part of a team, working collaboratively.
Of course in our church communities, teams are constantly changing and reforming. This month we shall definitely miss the part our sacristan Glenda has played over many years, preparing for the smooth running of all our services and keeping everything spic and span. Glenda is now retiring, as husband Ian also stops full time work, giving them some well earned time for enjoying family and, perhaps, even having a bit of rest and relaxation together. Thank you Glenda for all you have done and thank you all those of you who have agreed to help cover that long list of jobs she used to do. Please be patient everyone if there are a few hiccups, in the coming weeks.
And it was good to announce last month that, at the end of June, we shall be welcoming a new curate coming to train here for four years. Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy will be coming down from Durham where he is studying at present. He will be ordained deacon in Canterbury on Saturday June 28th.
He writes,
“Born in 1977 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (known at the time as Zaire), I spent the first 8 years of my life between Congo and the Central African Republic before moving to Belgium in the autumn of 1985 with my family. Both my primary and secondary education were spent in Belgium. In 2000 I took my licence at the Faculty of Protestant Theology at Brussels University and had qualified as a teacher in Protestant religion. I taught RE in Brussels for a year before being sent to serve as the minister of the French protestant church in Canterbury (Huguenot church). I arrived in Canterbury in the summer of 2001 and alongside my work with the French church,
I acquired a certificate in European business from Christ Church University Canterbury in 2002 and an MA in Christian Ethics from Kings College London in 2004. I'm fluent in French and English, and also speak two African languages. I'm a keen footballer and enjoy a number of other sports and outdoor activities. I enjoy reading, music, and a variety of cultural activities. Current affairs and international politics are at the heart of my interests.”
So we look forward to a new ministry unfolding here in the months to come. And, as we reflect on others ministries, it might be a good time to think about what part we each play in the team. After our Annual Parish Church Meeting (APCM) which is held on April 21st in the parish room, we shall be looking for people to help on all our sub-committees and working groups, developing the mission of our church. I wonder what God would like you to do here.
Do have a word with me if you have time or talents to share.
With much love ..
Gill
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Assistant Priest's Letter - March 2008
Dear Friends,Win or Lose?
“I hate to lose, and I do whatever I can to win, and if it is ugly, it is ugly” - Pete SamprasAnyone for tennis?
If so, is it only fun if you win? Writer James Alison tells a story about two families with a parent teaching a child to play tennis. They both adjust themselves to their children's level and gradually play harder and harder so that the children's strength and skill gradually grow. Neither humiliate them by thrashing them. But one wants to teach her child to win. She never lets herself be beaten and winds the child up to be really competitive by holding the prize of winning just out of reach. The other wants to teach his child to play. Sometimes he skilfully loses, without being patronising, so that the child can experience the joy of winning whilst learning that you don't have to win. That rivalry has limits. That the relationship is more important.“Live to win, take it all, just keep fighting 'til you fall, day by day kicking all the way” - KISS vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley
Anyone for living?
All species have a deep survival instinct. They do everything they can to secure their own survival chances. That's as true of humans as it is of the Siberian tiger or the lowliest of bacteria. And so we fear death. That's why we have to win. And by winning we create losers. Or victims. Not just in big ways, but in little, daily acts of survival. And not just as individuals. The pursuit of power and material wealth creates social, economic and environmental victims. Our dread of death affects how we live, yet winning does not remove our fear. We have to learn that rivalry has limits. That relationship is more important.“If you try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you give it up for me, you will surely find it.” - Jesus of Nazareth
Anyone for playing?
There is another way. Jesus tells us why Easter is so vital in Matthew 10:38-40. He likens the cross to the second parent who wants his child to learn to play. There, Jesus deliberately loses to those who had to win to show that it's the playing - the relationship - not the winning, that counts. To do this takes great power, the power of one who is not a rival at all - but the one in charge. And he likes those he's playing with so much that he wants them to learn to lose too. To be free from always having to win so they can just enjoy playing.And to know that there is no need to create victims in order to survive. For with the resurrection dawns the realisation that God has nothing to do with death. So that perhaps we can learn, bit by bit, not to be driven any more by the fear of death in our living. That rivalry has limits. That relationship is more important.
Love,
John
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Rector's Letter - February 2008
Dear Friends,One of our church newspapers had a good cartoon in it, in the week after Christmas. It was a picture of a small, balding man slumped over his desk with his head in his hands.. and the caption was “On Boxing Day, the Vicar sat down to prepare the Lent course”!
With Easter coming earlier this year than many can remember, the cartoon seemed very apt. We shall only just have got into February when Lent starts. February 5th is Shrove Tuesday, so come and get your pancakes in church between 6pm and 7.30pm. Then the next day we have two services (morning and evening) which mark the beginning of Lent (Ash Wednesday).
However, unlike the cartoon vicar, I have no worries about planning a Lent Course, because this year we are doing something different. Instead of having several courses running parallel, we are going to meet together in the Staplehurst School and anyone is welcome to join us.
Some months ago I invited the Canon Pastor from Canterbury Cathedral, Canon Clare Edwards to run our course and I was overjoyed when she said “yes”. Those of you who heard Clare some years ago at “Points of View” ,will know how well she speaks and those of us who have benefited from her reflections during courses and conferences, know just how helpful these have been. We are privileged to have her travelling all the way to Staplehurst each week from Canterbury, where she lives.
Clare has called her five week course “Dying to live”“. It starts on Thursday 14th February at 8pm and she intends to look at living Lent and life fully, exploring what makes up a Christian lifestyle and looking at different ways of praying.
Often, when we run courses we get the same people attending from our congregation. Perhaps you have never tried a church course or maybe don't attend church very often. You could be someone recently confirmed who has not found any way of nourishing their faith, or perhaps you're not even sure whether you are a Christian at all. Please take this letter as a personal invitation to join us. All are welcome to come and hear Clare and I can't think of a better way of preparing ourselves for Easter.
Do come... and bring a friend if you like!
With much love ..
Gill
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Rector's Letter - January 2008
Dear Friends,January is the month when Karen (our parish administrator) and I review all the weddings we have booked for the year ahead. I'm always reminded how preparing for a wedding is quite different from preparing for a lifetime's marriage. It's so easy to become preoccupied with getting all the details of the wedding right and everything else pales into insignificance.
That is why, some ten years ago, I trained as a facilitator with “Prepare/Enrich”, a marriage preparation programme. In our parish, and many others worldwide, couples are given the opportunity to take this short course. They then spend about an hour in the Rectory one evening, each working alone, responding to some 170 statements on a questionnaire. This is then sent away for analysis, (without conferring), and a week or so later I receive a totally confidential report on the partnership. The couple is known only by a number.
We then meet together afterwards, when I facilitate a dialogue resulting from the 12-page printout about their relationship. It is a programme that can be used at any stage in a partnership's journey. There is different paper work for each type of couple, including couples who are blending their existing families, to a couple who have been married many years and whose relationship has hit a low patch. How I wish such a facility had been offered to my ex-husband and I. Our story might have been quite different.
About half the couples marrying in our church use this opportunity. I know some have found it really helpful, enabling them to see where they and their partner differ, removing the tendency of accusing the other of “being in the wrong” when they do not see eye to eye. Some of the follow-up work is about communication and dealing with conflict.
The reason I'm telling you all of this, is that one good bit of the follow-up booklet each couple receive, is all about goals. It is suggested that a couple who are marrying might like to list three personal goals each and three couple goals, for the next one to five years. When people share their goals they talk about hopes and dreams and grow closer. Some of the couples I have married review their goals at each anniversary.
We know that celebrating New Year is great and making a resolution or two is fine, but both can be rather short-lived events (like a good wedding day). You, like our couples, might find it helpful to prepare for the longer journey by setting yourselves a few goals. They might be personal goals. couple goals or church goals. Striving to achieve our goals lends a sense of purpose to our activities and can add meaning to lives which often seem to be going nowhere in particular, a fact Our Lord pointed out to so many people he met on his focused journey.
So, do have a very happy 2008
Much love ..
Gill
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