Planning for mission

We've hit the ground running after Easter.

A busy week has included the school beginning of term service in church (providing another outing for Simon Hughes's lawyer's wig), wedding preparation for two couples, a deanery meeting about the use of church buildings at the Norweigan church, a funeral visit on the eighth floor of a Rotherhithe tower block, a colourful wedding in church with guests from Turkey and India, and the first two sessions of our new Bermondsey Christian Training course, Ready to Serve, on the theme of 'discovering your gifts' concluded with today's annual meeting at St James and a sermon by Adrian on the verse 'as the Father sent me, so I send you.'

Being a United Benefice of two parishes means we have two annual meetings. St Anne's took place on Palm Sunday, St James's was today. At both I shared a bit about a draft Mission Action Plan, which the PCCs will shortly consider in detail.

Then the MAP needs to be presented to the Bishop. Then it needs to be implemented - and that will be the theme of our joint PCC day at the Salmon Youth Centre on 17th May.

In the meantime the annual meeting heard just the beginning of our Mission Action Plan, the bit dealing with values, the kind of church we wanted to be. Our aim, I told the annual meeting, was to be two churches that were: (1) Bermondsey-focussed; (2) Bible-believing; (3) Disciple-making; (4) Compassion-sharing.

In due course there is more to come.

Resurrection on trial

Easter Day at St James had a sort of legal flavour this year.

We set up a kind of courtroom scene presided over by 'Judge Adrian', wearing a barrister's wig borrowed from Simon Hughes MP (thanks Simon). The congregation were the jury and I presented the evidence for the defence (of the resurrection).

The Judge fired off a barrage of questions: (what happened to the body? Was he really dead? Did someone steal the body? Did the disciples make it up? Was he just a ghost? Were there any witnesses etc?). I did my best to come up with Scriptural answers backed up by the testimony of Mary Magdalene and the Captain of the Roman Guard who happened to be sitting in the congregation.

At the end I said to the congregation: you are the jury. You must decide.

Just to get us thinking on an Easter theme I had constructed an empty tomb in the narthex of St
James, just as you enter the building.

We'll keep it there all through the next weeks of the Easter season as a silent witness of the resurrection to visitors to the church during the week - and for the children of St James's School who are coming to the church on Tuesday morning for their beginning of term service.

I've got a few bible verses and other messages that I am going to add for a week at a time all through the Easter season, beginning with today's verse which is now on display: 'He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him'

The Lord's Table at St James decorated for Easter by the children of St James's School

Holy Week in Bermondsey

Holy Week began for us last night on Maundy Thurday when St Mary's, St James, and St Anne's (The Bermondsey Group Ministry) got together for a service of Holy Communion in the context of a meal in St Anne's Hall.

The St Anne's team did us proud with a wonderful meal. It was just like one big family, one person said, which was of course was what Jesus was setting out to achieve.

For Good Friday itself St James and St Anne's started off together with a Family Service at St Anne's with Paul speaking about how the Temple curtain was torn in two at the moment Jesus died.

A large curtain (right) suspended in the chancel, dramatically fell to the ground at the appropriate moment, to applause from the congregation.

Next we walked behind the cross along Southwark Park Rd (above) to the Blue marketplace where we met up with the St Mary's contingent for an open-air service, led by St Mary's Rector, Charlie Moore.

Here Paul demonstrated the truth of the verse 'though your sins be scarlet, they shall be white as snow' with a bowl of water, a bowl of a mystery chemical, and a handkerchief stained with iodine. Clever stuff. It was a good visual talk which kept everyone's attention especially the kids.

Simon Hughes MP was with us and as well as reading the lesson he brought us news from his recent visit to the Christians of the Ukraine. Later at Charlie's request he came back to the microphone to lead us in prayer for that troubled country. 

It was good to be out in the centre of Bermondsey on Good Friday, with our sister churches, sharing the Good News of Christ.

The day wasn't yet over, we then walked behind the cross to St James for lunch together, followed by a Good Friday meditation for the adults led by me and a children's workshop for the kids.

Nearly back at St James

Lunch together

And the Marathon, too

While your blogger has been out of the country life at St James's has been busy with a large congregation filling the church last Saturday for Snowy Davoll's memorial service, following hot on the heels of the school service the day before.

The galleries were in use again that evening for the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Choral Society's performance of Verdi's Requiem, and the next day we had the baptism of six children from four families, with Paul preaching at a packed family service.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the day of St Anne's Annual Meeting, and - of course - the London Marathon with large crowds, as usual, thronging Jamaica Rd (above) as the runners, thousands of them passed through Bermondsey in brilliant sunshine.

In church we prayed for them, but we also remembered the crowds who lined the streets of Jerusalem two thousand years ago. It was the beginning of a climactic week that changed the history of the world. It was the beginning of the week that we remember this week, and we call it Holy Week.

St James in the springtime sun on Marathon Sunday

The man with the hat

It was his first visit to St James's School, but today Michael Ipgrave, the Bishop of Woolwich (left) came to our end of term school  Easter service in the church and afterwards toured the Key Stage 2 building at Alexis Street, meeting the children and the teachers and looking at their work.

The children had worked hard to decorate the church for Easter with a colourful display of work that the congregation can continue to enjoy throughout the Easter celebrations.

'Have you ever felt really sad' the Bishop asked. What do you do when you're sad?

 'Cry' they chorussed.

'Have you ever felt so happy that you can't stop telling everyone what had happened?' he then asked, before going on to talk about Mary Magdalene coming to tend Jesus's tomb. She was sad. She was crying. Then she met Jesus.

He was alive. She was filled with joy and she rushed off to tell the others what she had seen.

It was a gripping and effective way of getting to the heart of the Easter story in a way everyone could understand.

Earlier in the service I had interviewed Michael. 'Tell us about your hat' I said.

'It's shaped a bit like a flame. It reminds us of the Holy Spirit coming like flames of fire at Pentecost' said the bishop and went on to say 'it reminds me that I need to be dependant on the power of the Holy Spirit.'

'What about the staff that you are holding?' I asked. It reminds me that I am a shepherd, said Bishop Michael, and I have to look after God's people and feed them spiritually.

Today Bishop Michael did both of those things for us at St James's School. It's was a good day and a fitting conclusion to the term before we broke up for Easter.

To the end of the Northern Line

A day that began with the school prayer meeting at St James's School ended at the Empress of India in the parish of Morden where I was down to give a talk at the men's curry night on 'What's good about Good Friday?' as part of the mission, Passion for Life.

This was something of a return fixture, as Morden Team Vicar, Les Wells, came to Bermondsey last month to speak at our men's breakfast.

At that event Les told how he delivered his fifth child on the living room floor. I was pleased to see that 'baby', now a strapping 20 year old, along with quite a few of his mates, among the 40 or so men who just about took up every seat at the Empress of India.

It was a really good evening and a really good time to share a bit of personal testimony and to talk about what is good about Good Friday, namely, the achievement of it, summed up in the words from the cross 'It is finished!'

Remembering Snowy

As a new boy in Bermondsey there is one name I have heard over and over again: Snowy Davoll.

There were many tears on Sunday as our two congregations learnt of the death of a local hero, a Bermondsey legend, and a dedicated servant of the Lord.

Today we have published on the church website an appreciation of Snowy's life by Adrian Greenwood. You can read it here.

On Saturday 5th April at 12 noon there will be a memorial service for Snowy in St James's Church, followed by refreshments at St James's School, as we meet to remember and give thanks for a life well lived.

Introducing to love

This morning we were thinking of Jesus's encounter with the Samaritan women at the well, as related in chapter 4 of John's Gospel.

He spoke to her of the life-giving water that he alone could give which would lead to eternal life and said 'whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst.'

He was introducing her to a whole new dimension of life. My friend Richard Dormandy (vicar in Tulse Hill) had the same idea, I suggested, when following the vandalising of the church noticeboard, he put this banner outside his church:

Introducing people to love - the love of God who so loved the world - is what the church is for. Its what Jesus was doing around that Samaritan well. They've done it brilliantly in Tulse Hill and become a Facebook sensation in the process, and its what we are trying to do here in Bermondsey, too.

The boxing vicar in Bermondsey

Twenty four men sat down for a full English at St James's this morning to hear the Reverend Peter Allen, aka the Boxing Vicar, talk about his work as a sports chaplain in Sheffield at our latest men's breakfast.

Some people come to faith slowly. Some people have a dramatic overnight conversions, like Paul on the road to Damascus, or like Pete, a twenty-year old scalliwag working in a Sheffield greengrocer's who had a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

Since then he's had a passion to share the Gospel with others. That led to training with the Church Army, ordination in the CofE, and his work amongst the sporting community in Sheffield, including professional football and, as we heard today: boxing.

There used to be an advert about the beer that reaches the parts other beers cannot reach. Pete has moved on from Sheffield now but the sports ministry he began continues, reaching the parts of the community that church usually doesn't reach

Not quite the end of the world

It wasn't quite the end of the world but it was the end of our Big Picture course tonight and the theme was the end of the world - or, more properly, the Day of the Lord, the return of Christ, the end of this world and the beginning of the new improved version of the creation that God will usher in on that day.

Christians believe in getting stuck into this world, and that's why it was good that while the Big Picturers were meeting in the south lounge, we were playing host in the main body of the church to the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Community Council, bringing together councillors, local people, churches and societies and agencies with a concern for the local area. But whilst we believe in fully getting stuck into this world, we also look forward to the completion of God's big plan and the eventual re-creation of all things. That's why we are people of hope.

The day had begun, however, with an educational theme.

First up were two assemblies for St James's School, and this being world water week (the whole school is thinking about water), our focus was on Jesus words about life-giving water to the woman at the well in John 4.

This was followed by a meeting of the Faith Group of the governing body, charged with overseeing
the Christian distinctiveness of the school. Today we were looking at the policy for Religious Education, a legal requirement for any school, and a vital component of the curriculum for a church school.

The children are getting ready for a special focus on Easter in the last week of term, culminating with Bishop Michael's visit to our end of term service in church on April 4th and his first visit to St James's School.

Young and old

To Bluegrove Care Home in Southwark Park Road for our monthly service. A good number of residents joined us to sing their favourite hymns (they chose All Things Bright & Beautiful; Amazing Grace; Praise to the Lord Almighty, and I chose What a friend we have in Jesus to fit in with the theme of the talk, which was based on Jesus calming the storm from Mark 4).

Bluegrove is a wonderfully bright and cheery home, with a friendly welcoming staff to match, who always join in with our services, and it is good to have this link with them (also with nearby Rock Grove).

Later it was back to St James's Church for a visit from a year 5 class at St James's School. We climbed up to the very top of the church to see the Pauper's Galleries (now hidden from view), where the poorest of the poor would perch to view the services from their location just below the ceiling. We descended to the depths of the crypt to see where Bermondsey families sheltered during the Blitz.

We went to the font - where one of the teaching assistants has been baptised as a baby - to learn about baptism and do a mock baptism (Any volunteers, I asked? Thirty hands went up).

Several of the children had themselves been baptised at St James's and at least one of them said their parents had been married there.

And we learnt about the Holy Communion and the children had the chance to handle the silver Chalice (above), Paten, and Flagon (below), given to the church when it was built in 1829, and used every week since as we have eaten the bread, drunk the wine, and done 'this in remembrance' of him.

Royal priesthood

Today we had the last but one of our Big Picture evenings as part of our Bermondsey Christian Training Programme.

Thinking tonight, in our overview of the whole book, of the gift of the Spirit, and the life of the church, we concluded with this Powerpoint slide (left).

We had just been considering what Peter says about the church in 1 Peter 2.9-10: 'you are the chosen race, the king's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.'

That is our high calling. That's who we are in God's great plan.

We mustn't forget who we are.

Next week, our last in the course, is the end of the world, or rather, how everything ends up in God's big plan.

Before that I shared with the group the letter Bishop Cyprian wrote to his friend Donatus in AD 248:

"This seems to be a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden under the shadow of these vines. But if I climb some great mountain and look out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see -- brigands on the road, pirates on the seas, in the amphitheatres men murdering each other to please the applauding crowds, and under all roofs I see misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it, I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted but they care not, These people, Donatus, are Christians and I am one of them."

Battersea boy goes home

To St Mary's, Battersea, on the banks of the Thames, this evening for their Lent Course where I had been asked to speak on the contribution of the evangelical tradition to Anglican faith and spirituality.

As a Battersea boy this was a deeply nostalgic experience.

Here in 1954 my parents were married, and in the mid-sixties we lived overlooking the church on the nineteenth floor of the newly-built Selworthy House (to the left of St Mary's in the photo).

Just round the corner I was a pupil at Sir Walter St John's Grammar School, endowed in 1700 for 'twenty poor boys of the parish' by the Lord of the Manor, after whom our school was named, and whose family motto, Rather Deathe than False of Faythe, was our motto, and the subject of our school song.

By the 1970s there was more than 500 of us and we could all just about squeeze into St Mary's, filling its Georgian galleries, for our Christmas carol service each year.

School entrance

I was pleased to find two 'old Sinjuns' in the congregation tonight (besides me) and to see various references around the church to Sir Walter's bequests to his school.'

As for the evangelical tradition, I didn't know much about that as a youngster, nor did our family ever visit St Mary's (except very occasionally for weddings and funerals) but it was at Sir Walter St John's School - or 'Sinjuns', as everyone in Battersea knew it - that as a sixth former I came to faith in Christ through the witness of a teacher.

There were many things I learnt at that school, not least a love of learning itself, but, best of all, I learnt Christ, and it was good to be back in Battersea to speak about the tradition of faith that means so much to me, that loves to speak of Christ, that honours the Scriptures as his inspired word, and takes delight in his saving death and resurrection.

St Mary's elegant 1777 interior

Praying through Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and as well as joining in with the united Ash Wednesday service at St Mary's, Bermondsey, this lunchtime at 12.30pm,  we are beginning our special Lent focus on mission in the united benefice of St James and St Anne's.

Prayer at Ten
The idea is that every member of the church stops at 10 o'clock to pray every day during Lent. Ten in the morning or ten at night? It could be either.

On Sunday everyone in both churches received a copy of the 'Prayer at Ten' prayer card (left).

With our two church councils poised to draw up a MISSION ACTION PLAN, it seemed a good idea to pray for God's mission here in Bermondsey.

Let's pray for the Spirit's inspiration for the church councils in their deliberations and let's pray for our great goal: that God's love can be shared with every man, woman and child in the parishes of St James and St Anne's.

Welcome to Bermondsey

The newest residents of our parish - in the latest part of the Bermondsey Spa development to open (left)  - have now all received our new 'Welcome to Bermondsey' card (below).

We have plenty of cards left for the remaining parts of the Bermondsey Spa development in the parish which are still being built and for the flats which are at present under construction at Chambers Wharf.

In the meantime, we are handing out the cards to visitors to open church at St James on Mondays and Thursdays.

Inside the card are some words of welcome from me and some details of church events and activities.

Communion at Boutcher

To Boutcher Church of England Primary School in our neighbouring parish of St Mary's, Bermondsey, for the weekly service of Holy Communion for Key Stage 2 ( the juniors, in old money).

Every year those children in year 5 who would like to be admitted to communion, following participating in a course led by Charlie, the rector, are admitted to communion by the bishop at a special service, so that week by week as the school celebrates communion, children from years 5 and 6, together with the teachers can receive the bread and the wine.

It was a very moving event - good simple, child-friendly liturgy, a dramatised bible reading brilliantly presented by year 5, lively singing, prayers led by the children, communion distributed by Charlie and two of the teachers to the children who filed up to receive.

The service finished with 'birthday blessings.' Those celebrating birthdays during the week came forward and everybody sung to them: 'happy birthday to you, to Jesus be true..'

Afterwards two year 6 children came up to me and said 'would you like a tour of our school?' and then showed me around all the classrooms, the playground, and their beautifully tranquil 'peace garden'.

I was impressed that there was a prayer corner in every classroom, and lots of references to the Christian character of the school in the displays in classrooms and corridors.

'We are a Christian school', one of my year 6 guides told me, by way of explanation.

The Boxing Vicar is coming to Bermondsey

Rev Peter Allen, a.ka. the boxing vicar, formerly Sheffield Sports Chaplain, and now vicar in Essex is coming to Bermondsey on Saturday 22nd March for our next Men's Breakfast at 8.30am. Get your ticket this Sunday.

Watch the BBC's report on a ministry that definitely packs a punch

Spot the difference

Huge changes are taking place all around us in Bermondsey. The latest stage of the 2,000 flat  Bermondsey Spa development is now open, with the new residents moving in (we are hoping to distribute a 'Welcome to Bermondsey' card from St James's to them), and the final two blocks in the project are now under construction.

Meanwhile 700 new flats are being built at Chambers Wharf and more will follow on the biscuit factory site and the Southwark College site.

Just near to the Salmon Youth Centre, at the junction of Old Jamaica Road and Marine Street (left) is this six-storey block of council flats from the 1950s.

On the other side of Salmon, just round the corner from where this photo was taken is the latest part of Bermondsey Spa to open (pictured right).

Can you spot the difference?

Social housing 1950s-style included plenty of grass and trees. The 2014 blocks are much taller, built more closely together, and have virtually no green space around them, unlike most of the 50s and 30s blocks in the parish.

The economics of social housing in the 21st century and the pressure of space in inner London may make this inevitable, but it does mean that the community open space that we do have, such as the Churchyard, needs to be treasured and preserved (and three cheers for Southwark Council for all they do in that regard), and the new 'public square' near to the new Tesco needs to be, well, a square for the public, and not just another car park.

Together Southwark launched at Canada Water

To Canada Water Library (interior shot below) for the inaugural meeting of Together Southwark, a new partnership between the Church Urban Fund and the Diocese of Southwark.

Clergy of the most socially deprived parishes in the Diocese had been invited to this first public meeting.

The CUF website explains:

"If you are born into poverty you are a lot more likely to stay and live in poverty and to die younger. Today in Southwark:

• Nearly half of the parishes in the diocese are among the most deprived in England. Only seven other dioceses in England have a higher proportion of deprived parishes. 
• Parishes in Southwark suffer from very high levels of pensioner poverty, with 32% ranked among the worst parishes in England.
• In the most deprived parishes in Southwark almost half of children are born into poverty.
• A boy born in the poorest parish in Southwark will live 11 fewer years than a boy born in the richest parish.
• Men and women living in the borough of Southwark also suffer from a high rate of long-term, limiting illnesses, affecting their employment prospects. Women in the borough are far more likely to be unemployed, with 26% having no educational qualifications.

Together Southwark is a joint venture between the Diocese of Southwark and the Church Urban Fund that
promotes mission, ministry and practical action to tackle poverty across South London and East Surrey.

Together Southwark focuses on identifying ways of working that empowers the poorest individuals and families in the parishes. We want to ensure that they are able to build stable and healthy lifestyles that overcome the debilitating effects of poverty.

Together Southwark seeks to raise:

• financial support for projects in parishes that are tackling the effects of poverty and transforming the lives of the poorest and most marginalised.
• awareness of work that is being undertaken across the diocese and to encourage the development of new work when appropriate, so that every church in Southwark is involved in tackling poverty through giving time, money, action and prayer. 

The work of Together Southwark is underpinned by the gospel imperative of working with the poor to build a just and righteous society where every individual is empowered to reach the highest level of personal fulfilment."

Canada Water Library

Bermondsey boys remembered

According to Councillor Anood, it had taken longer than the Boer War itself, but the Bermondsey Boer War Memorial has finally moved to its new home in St James's  Church and today it was officially unveilled by the Mayor of Southwark (wearing the chain of office of the old Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey) at a service of dedication attended by councillors, Simon Hughes MP, the Pearly King & Queen, military representatives and local historians.

The Mayor laid a weath of poppies inscribed 'from the people of Bermondsey' at the foot of the memorial.

Originally unveilled in Bermondsey Town Hall in July 1903, the memorial spent some time in the open air (where it deterioriated quite badly), before being placed in a council store for several years, before the project finally got off the ground to have it properly restored and relocated in St James's Church.

Interestingly, it is not a memorial to those who died in the war, but to those who served. Happily, we understand that all but three of them returned home afterwards.

In my address I read out some of the names.

They were Bermondsey boys, I said. Their families missed them. Their families prayed for them.

They were made in God's image and loved by him. It is good that they are remembered more than a hundred years after they first heeded the call to serve king and country on the other side of the world.

I mentioned the riverside sculpture (sadly stolen, soon to be replaced) of Dr Salter's Daydream, and how the good doctor and his wife had dreamed of a better Bermondsey and had worked for it. Then, from Revelation 21, I spoke of how the Bible ends with a dream or vision of a whole new, better, world that God will bring into being.

It is not pie in the sky, but God's solid plan for the future.

I spoke, too, of the old BBC2 programme Playschool , where each day viewers would look through the round window or the square window etc. We were going to look through the Revelation window to see God's future of a new heaven and earth, I said, where there would be no more war, or death or mourning or pain, and where God would wipe away every tear from our eye.

On a day when we look back with thanksgiving for the past, it is good, too, to look forward with expectation and hope, to the world to come.

(Thanks to Pat for photo top, and to Gary Magold for those below). Click on them to enlarge.

The Interpretation Panel which accompanies the memorial