April 2022Dear Friends in the Uttoxeter AreaAs I write this Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe has just been released after 6 years some of them in prison some in house arrest. It is fantastic to have some good news about freedom. We have lurched from news filled with Covid statistics, and now perhaps like me you can hardly bear to watch the news bulletins and the devastation that is happening in Ukraine, so it was particularly good to hear of Nazanin’s release.How do we react, how do we pray and how do we respond to items on the news?Having travelled to Kyiv when my brother lived there, Kyiv doesn’t feel so far away. It is somehow easier to deal with tragedy which feels a long way off, but this Russian invasion of Ukraine is far too close and the pictures that we see from the brave reporters of innocent civilians are particularly harrowing.A letter in the Guardian the other day suggested that prayer was making no difference to the situation, but the very next day a correspondent said how much worse it might be if we weren’t praying. You could try praying using a map of the country, praying for those pictured on the TV and those in similar situations. Being shot at or bombed is a horrendous type of captivity, a loss of life and precious freedom.Perhaps it doesn’t matter how we pray but it matters that we do.Freedom is often taken for granted, publicity was crucial in securing Nazanin’s release and yet she may find her new choices and her fame challenging to deal with. Let’s pray that she and her family get the support they need, and the lack of attention that will feel like normality.The Bible talks a lot about freedom and Jesus proved the ultimate freedom by rising from death on the cross. Here are some well-known quotations - encouragements and challenges: 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 1 Peter 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.As we celebrate Easter let us appreciate our freedoms, and praise God that we can turn to God in prayer through all the tragedies of the world, and will ultimately experience the complete freedom that God offers us through the resurrection of Jesus by the power of the Spirit.Happy Easter to Uttoxeter Area - we are free indeed!LucyLucy Toyn Reader Uttoxeter Area
Hello,I was born and brought up on the east Suffolk coast, in a village called Kessingland, nestled anonymously between Lowestoft and Southwold, in turn the most deprived and most affluent towns in the county. One of the features of that coastline is that it is changing shape over time, sometimes dramatically overnight during a storm, sometimes almost imperceptibly at each high tide. One of our traditions as teenagers was to race down to the sea at midnight on New Year’s Eve to greet the waves in the way that hopefully only teenagers do. The distance was anything between 10 metres and 0 metres, as the waves crashed up against the sea wall at high tide. My brothers and I did it again in our early 30s and only one of us made it without stopping, as the sea was now 100 metres further out, as the sand washed up from down the coast had built up against the groynes. A few miles walk along the beach is a village called Cove Hithe. In 1672 the parishioners decided that they could no longer afford to maintain the 14th century church building and so got permission to re-use the stone to build a smaller chapel within the old walls. I didn’t realise this until last week when I watched a programme called Kate Humble’s Coastal Britain on My5. To be honest I hadn’t given it much thought at the time and just assumed that the building had collapsed over the years and something smaller built inside. But no, the parishioners (and by that it may only have been the few who probably attended) made an active choice to change what they saw as church.Today, 340 years later, the church still has a service every week, served by a House for Duty priest who has three other churches. She will retire in December and what will happen then is unknown. The Churches Conservation Trust own the ruins and the Tower, so it is only the small nave chapel which is owned by the Diocese. People gather from up to 25 miles away to keep worship alive.In 2022, St. Andrew’s, Cove Hithe faces an even greater threat to its existence than affordability. The sea is encroaching at a rate of 3 metres every year and the church sits just 100 metres from the cliff. The path I walked along as a youth has been washed away. What will the churchgoers do once the actual building no longer exists? Will the gathered church gather at another church nearby, or individuals go to their local church? Will that particular church community still choose to worship together as a house church? What will ‘church’ be in 30 years’ time when the stones and mortar have washed up onto Kessingland beach?What inspires me about this story is that 340 years ago churchgoers made an active decision to remain ‘church’. They made a realistic decision about what they could afford and used what they had (the larger building) to make something new.We are facing questions about our existence today, partly because of COVID but also because of a fall in church attendance over many decades and overly ambitious church building over several centuries.What decision will we make as individuals, as individual churches and as an Area? How can we try and ensure a community of faith exists in our villages in 340 years’ time, due to decisions we make over the next few years? How will the people ensure that ‘church’ remains where they live? Because in the end it is the people, not the Church of England governing bodies who will be church. Priests come and go, as do bishops, but in the apocalypse, when Synods and diocese no longer exist, it is the people on the ground who will have power – if they have the courage – to be a community of faith.This is not a letter championing the closure of churches. Indeed, that is not what happened in Cove Hithe. This is a letter championing brave decisions, imaginative and realistic thinking and local people making local decisions both for themselves and for generations to come.Peace and prayers, JoeRev Joe Cant, Team Vicar UAP.
Our Area Staff letter for December 2021Dear friends, As I sit writing this letter to you all I am reminded by the weather of how the seasons progress through our lives. Last night we put our clocks back an hour rising this morning in expectation of a light and bright morning. But no, it was dark and dismal until ten thirtyish. All of a sudden the sun shone brightly through the church windows dazzling everyone inside. All this helped me to focus on this December letter. As we approach the celebration of the arrival of the Christ child into our world, and probably more importantly into our lives, we spend Advent preparing ourselves to greet Christ. In preparing any letter or talk about Jesus I always try to place myself in his time so that I can attempt to understand something of what he was talking about, in the context of the world as it was then. How would the people of Jesus’ time have seen today? Would they have been able to comprehend the freedom we have? Would changing the hour on the clocks make them smile and say “you cannot change the weather or the happenings of the seasons”? Could they take on board the busyness of our lives? As the people struggled under the weight of the Roman occupation the promise from the Prophets of better things to come must have seemed like a bright beacon before their eyes something to look forward to, a promise of freedom, a promise of light and the fulfilment of God’s covenant with his people. When you read this letter will we be in similar circumstances? Listening to the experts on the news and in the papers it would appear we are heading for a time of severe shortages. With the aftereffects of the pandemic still hovering over us are we in a similar position to the people of Jesus’ time? The threat of another lockdown looming over us. The rising numbers of infections. Seeing the nurses and doctors straining to cope. The times of darkness seem to be all about us, but, as Pip says in Dickens novel, we have “great expectations” in the fact that God has never ever turned away from us and always pours out his unconditional love on us all the time, in the sending of his Son, Jesus, born in a dark and oppressed time, in a dark and dismal stable to bring us all hope and love, not just over the Christmas period but in all our lives.All God’s blessings. Chris.Revd. Chris Brown
AREA LETTER FROM THE RECTORY. 2020/2021 has been unprecedented as we have faced the uncertainty, anxiety, changes and grief caused by the Covid pandemic. Much has been lost – people, jobs, schooling, freedoms, routines and perhaps even hope. This year, the Season of Remembering, from All Souls’ to Remembrance Day, has an added poignancy and there is special need in our communities to pause, reflect and remember. What this looks like will be different in different contexts. Loss is often compounded and any specific service or activity will remind people of unresolved past or present loss and pain. There is often a need to ‘do’ something and to ‘mark’ a loss to help to bring closure and healing. This year why not take a moment to specifically think about the losses that you have had over these past couple of years. In most of our Area churches an All Souls’ Day service will be taking place on or near 2nd November, ask at your local church when theirs is. At this service we will remember those who have died at any time and in any way, especially those who have died during 2020/21. There may be a Remembrance Service around 11th November which will be specifically about people who have died in the world wars or armed service. If you are not able to go to a service there are other ways to remember someone. A virtual candle can be lit on www.churchofenglandfunerals.org/lightacandle Or you could stop for a moment somewhere and remember someone close to you and use this prayer, you may want to light a candle at home as you say it. God our Father, we thank you for the person we knew, the years we shared, the good we saw, and the love we received. Turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life, and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven. Amen. Blessings Rev Margaret
