April Update (2025)

 

Welcome to April.  A busy month for the Church this year as we will remember Holy Week & celebrate the risen Jesus on Easter morning.  Both churches will also host their APCM.  A huge thanks to Janice and Janet who have been encouraging folks to fill in electoral roll forms.  Please make every effort to attend your APCM and, can you also entertain the thought that you could be the one to fill a particular task, which will enable church to flourish as we journey with God.  There will be vacancies on both PCCs and people will be needed to take on some of the specific offices.  Please, please pray and please speak to me if you wish to know more.

Christenings – there are a number of Christenings coming up in the next few months at St Marys.  It is important that the church family knows when these are taking place & I know I haven’t been good at giving you enough notice, for which I am sorry and I seek to rectify.  I do love a church christening within the regular service but, sadly, the families I’m speaking to feel so out of their zone that I would rather make it more awkward for me and allow the family and their friends gather in church when they’re ready.  I’m reminded here of the children coming to Jesus, when he & the disciples were tired (Mark 10).  Despite being tired Jesus welcomed them and blessed them.  The opportunity to bring the Gospel message to dozens who don’t know Jesus is a real privilege and sometimes means looking at things a little differently.  We’re all invited to come along to these short services and it was even suggested to me that perhaps some people might find it a way to provide a service to these guests.  When I was at the church in Kendal there was a team who helped to welcome & hand out the service sheets as the baptism party arrived.  If anyone feels this is something they could help with please get in touch.

In April little Florence Winters-Fleming is being christened at noon on April 6.  Other dates will be listed in future Updates

Daily Prayer - For anyone who struggles with knowing what to pray I’m setting out below some simple 1 minute prayers for every day of the month.  Please feel free to use this for a few minutes each day.  Let us live more nearly as we pray.  It isn’t perfect, you may have your own systems for daily prayer …but for anyone who needs a prompt)

 

Dear	Lord	today	I	pray	for..
	1  Someone I love	2          my church family	3       our World	4              our school	5             our Government / leaders	6             this village
7            an end to war	8            a local business	9       local politicians / MP	10 nursing homes	11    disaster areas	12           the emergency services	13       global leaders
14    friends in hospital	15   Andrea & the Youth Trust	16       our Network Youth minister	17     the people I speak to today	18            the local Churches & communities	19          how I can play my part?	20      Easter, the Resurrection
21 persecuted Christians	22     child or young person	23  spend 5 minutes in silence	24 Mission Partners	25             all who minister	26           the lonely +/or afraid	27            the national church
28      those searching for work	29 events in the past month	30       the new month

 

Mid-week Meeting: Last Autumn I spent a couple of hours each week in both churches.  From March I will be doing something similar

Apr 9 - 10am ‘More T Vicar’          11am Holy Communion - St Johns

Apr 16 - 10am ‘More T Vicar’        11am Holy Communion – St Marys                    

(‘More T Vicar = simply means a chance to meet/chat/pray & drink tea(!) with Mark in church if you wish. 

 

 

Trying not to bombard you with too much so I will finish with this.  In 2018 I went to Rwanda with Tear Fund to see how reconciliation strategies are helping the communities involved in the genocide of the 1990s.  Our guide on that trip has recently been in touch with me to see if anyone in my church communities might be willing to help in some research.  I have given you a flavour of his email explaining the reasons behind the research.  If this is something you feel you might respond to please simply follow the link to the questionnaire.

 

“2025 marks 80 years since the end of the Second World War and the setting up of the UN with its aim, to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. This seems like an opportune moment to pause and reflect on our attitudes as people of faith towards violence and the use of armed force. We in the peacebuilding team at Tearfund are therefore researching how Christians in the UK and abroad think about security, what security means to them, how they define it, what they see as the major threats to their security and the priority for spending to ensure their security. We are hoping to combine the data from this research with data from the countries within which Tearfund works to present a global perspective on security at a conference in London in January 2026. 

I am therefore trying to contact as many people as possible to ask whether they and other members of their church would like to complete a short survey on their attitudes towards security. This is an online survey and takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete. We will then analyse the data and share the results with you in a short report and set of slides as well as adding into the wider UK and global report. 

 

Any contributions or support that you can drum up would be really helpful. 

 

The link to the form is here: https://ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/rsC7RLaN and submissions are welcome at any time.”

 

I pray, as Lent ends and we move through Holy Week towards that Beautiful Scandalous Night of Good Friday and onwards to the joy of Easter Morning that we draw close to God at all times, that we pray his name and we celebrate his victory over death.  In anticipation of what is to come may I wish you all a Happy Easter.

Mark