Hampton Methodist Church News February 2018 Hampton Methodist Church Percy Road Hampton TW12 2JT Hampton Methodist Church is a member of Churches Together around Hampton. Church website: hp://www.hamptonmethodistchurch.org.uk Magazine editors: Liz Windaybank and Willem Sandberg 1 Brothers and Sisters Welcome to the first Hampton Church Magazine of the year and I hope that you had a blessed Christmas and New Year. One of my New Year’s resoluons was to try to simplify my life and I have been using a system called the “easy ten”. The idea is that every day you get rid of ten things in your house by donang, recycling or throwing them away. Somemes I am quite shocked to discover that I have several versions of one thing (for example, why did I think I needed three can openers?) but then there are other things that I would not get rid of for love nor money, so it is also an interesng way of discovering the things that maer for you personally. For example, I am quite happy to get rid of spare can openers, but very possessive about books and music. Of course, that is the raonale behind all of this, that the less “stuff” there is in a person’s life the easier it is to focus on the things that maer. In the Chrisan faith, we too live with this concept of discarding the things that cluer up our lives to focus on the important. We discard lack of self-control to have beer health and a richer prayer life; we discard judging others to focus on loving them; we discard anger to focus on healthy relaonships and so on. In Biblical language, we would use words such as sin, repentance and redempon but ulmately, whichever language we use, the leng go of the things that get between us and the life God wants for us and the focusing on the things which are truly important are messages coming to us from the Bible and secular society. How we help secular society to understand this underlying truth to the Gospel message – that sin is the cluer that stops us seeing God, and Jesus helps us to remove that cluer from our lives – may well dictate the growth or decline of the Church in the coming years. With every blessing for 2018 Vicci A Word from the Stewards Why do we use funny words at Church? You know the sort of thing: we talk about pung something in the Narthex or checking the Leconary or using the Collect for the day. Now, I know that you, dear readers, know exactly what these words mean, but try them on a non- church goer and they probably will not have a clue what you are talking about. Somemes these ‘churchy’ words are easy to understand but hard to define. Take the word ‘sacrament’ for example. In Church we oen use it; but just try (before you read on) to give a simple short definion. My Concise Diconary of Theology claims it comes from the Lan meaning a “public pledge of fidelity”. Hmmm, I’m not sure that helps! It goes on to s ay that a sacrament is a visible sign instuted by Christ which reveals and communicates Grace (sll with me?). Now we know about Grace, don’t we? It is an undeserved gi or help freely and lovingly provided by God, and above all else it is the uerly basic gi of being saved in Christ through faith (Romans 3:21-26.4:13-16,25). But you see what I mean about the problem of geng a short definion! Perhaps if we think about examples of sacraments, it will all become clear. However, there is a bit of a problem here too. You see for our Roman Catholic friends there are seven sacraments: bapsm, confirmaon, eucharist, marriage, holy orders, anoinng of the sick 2 and penance. But for Methodists and indeed most Protestants there are only two: bapsm and the Eucharist (or Holy Communion as we tend to call it). I was mulling over the idea of what we mean by the word ‘Sacrament’ when at a recent “Insights” Bible Study, Vicci led us in Holy Communion. It was a delighul piece of Chrisan remembrance and devoon, and well suited to a group undertaking Bible study. But the odd thing was that the book in the Bible we were studying was the Gospel of John, and John’s Gospel does not menon the Lord’s Supper at all! So why did we have Holy Communion? Well, we were studying the amazing Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel which starts with the feeding of the five thousand plus; and some scholars argue that John is hinng that this huge outdoor event was a form of sacrament. This is quite an interesng idea. What if we were to think about our very popular Breakfast Church and Friday Focus as a form of Johannine-style sacrament. Yes, I know we don’t get five thousand aendees, but we do have a gathering of Chrisans, sharing food together, with Worship or devoons. Worship and devoon which are a reminder of the free gi of salvaon on offer to believers in Christ. This lis the meaning of these Church events to another level, and takes them from an enjoyable, fun and tasty fellowship to a sign of God’s Grace. Our humble acvies have a part to play in the global message of Chrisanity. When we worship, sing, pray, talk and eat we find me to reflect on God’s love for all of humanity. And we can call that a sacramental lifestyle. Mark Gilks Christmas at Hampton Methodist Church Christmas probably seems like ages ago now but there was a lot going on at church, some things we usually do, as well as new acvies. On Remembrance Sunday Vicci blessed the 34 shoeboxes we had filled for Operaon Christmas Child. This year they went to Liberia, which has a populaon of 4.7 million of which 44% are under 15. It is a low-income country with 54% of the populaon living below the poverty line and it has one of the highest rates of primary school aged children not in educaon. Just think how much they must have loved receiving the pencils, felt ps, colouring books and paper that we included! A UK visitor to Liberia said, ‘There is no doubt that those boxes are an incredible blessing and an indiscriminate sign of love to those children – whatever faith they do or do not have. They were overjoyed. I remember watching one child take the photo of the family who sent the box (included in the box) and stare at it and then dance with it and then show their friends – even before they got to the gis! It meant that much to them that somebody would send them something.’ Food usually features in our celebraons and it started with the Ladies Guild Christmas meal at Piazza Firenze in Hampton Hill. The food was very enjoyable and there was much mirth about the paper hats and how they were worn by some of us. At Tea and Memories we enjoyed singing carols instead of the usual songs and it was good to see David joining in without looking at the words whilst endeavouring to finish the parcularly tricky puzzle we were doing. The last me we were to see him before his unexpected death the following week. Next was the Friday Focus Christmas lunch. Hazel as ever excelled herself with fesve napkins and crackers, prey table decoraons an d a lile ed bundle of sweets for everyone, as well as the 3 delicious Christmas dinner itself. (We did miss Alan’s usual sausages though.) It was great to welcome old friends Joan and John Hart, and Gwen and May who now worship at Teddington Church and aer the meal we again enjoyed singing the tradional carols. The Extra Mile had a very hecc few weeks before Christmas but appeals via social media brought in the resources we needed for the families. We somemes use the stage to store larger items l ike cots and buggies but had to clear this area for Messy Church, so every available nook and cranny of the church buildings had to be used as temporary storage. People may have wondered why there was equipment for babies around the place but it is a sign of the commitment of Hampton Methodist to meet the needs of local people in Jesus’s name and that the church is not just for Sunday morning. 25 children came and had fun at Messy Church, firstly with the cras and then taking part in or watching the Messy Navity in the church, where the angels looked adorable and a brave dad very ably took on the role of several innkeepers and Janice excelled as a Wise Man! The children all le with a lile ‘bauble book’ featuring one of the characters in the Christma s story. Special thanks to the whole Sem family for all of their input. The following day was the carol service by candlelight with packed pews. The music was superb with Bronwen on violin and her friend Roger on piano, Rebecca on flute and solos from Mark and Vicci and the unexpected duet of ‘Away in a manger’ from Issy and Struan. Fortunately, Hazel had the presence of mind to take a photo, which is worth including here even though it is not of the best quality.