St Johns and Clayton Brook Churches

Our Vicar, The Rt Revd Alan Winstanley has moved to a new Parish in North Devon. Our prayers go with him and Viv in their new Parish. During the vacancy please contact our Curate : Revd Tom Donaghey   01772 497687

Church Wardens          St Johns -- Jean Grindrod       Clayton Brook -- Janette Digney

Verger        Don Harris



The Curate scribbles...

‘If you think God may be calling you to do something different with your life or if someone else has suggested that He might - what should you do?’ (Diocesan Website)

In the past week or so you may have heard some talk about ‘vocation’ and the calling of God. For me the relevance of vocation is all about being in a relationship, being with God, his church and community in which we exist to serve, work and love. It’s a relational venture that begins through faith and lasts a life time where paths of righteousness and paths of humanness collide, confuse and entangle one another in the pursuit of truth and destiny. However, it’s not a venture we work through alone, or set off on without due care and consideration. It is an endeavour in which we enter into a binding covenant with God, where willingly our lives are given to him, and his church, as a living spiritual sacrifice of ourselves.

When God call us, we always live in the extraordinary grace of God to respond to his call or not. That doesn’t mean that when we say ‘no’, or decide that for whatever reason the time is not right for me, that God stops calling. He always calls out to us, sometimes for a brief moment that might last the course of the event, or a lengthy time that sees the experience span from one season to the next. But in whatever term we are ‘to be with God with the people upon our heart’ (Michael Ramsey).

When God calls us we are God’s gift to his church and the community, and God will empower us through his Holy Spirit. However, the depth of that call, the expectation in the gift, and responsibility that comes with empowerment, the vocation suddenly can seem a little more daunting as we try to hold onto what we know and believe about ourselves - Is divine providence constantly frustrated by human decision? (Graham Badcock)

Thus I reasoned like a child whose innocence and ignorance proceeded on through the gate of vocation without really knowing where I was going. I was a child who never held his Father’s hand, but saw him in the distance and made cautiously toward him, not fully appreciating how or why his arms were out stretched to me in his own anticipation, of the great and wonderful plans he had for me.

So as I try hang on to all that I am, I Am calls me to empty myself so that he can fill me with himself, his Spirit, to allow his inward working grace to expose outward working love, to set us free. Giftedness that is ours for others is therefore not selfishness, but service that is perfect freedom. Freedom where God can become central to our calling, our vocation, where the relationship with God, church and community shifts enough to free our spirit and have an openness to see what God really wants to do through us if we trust him enough.

Consequently as we submit to the call of God in our lives we begin to invest our time with people, just as Christ did to the world. As we consider our vocation in comparison to Jesus we must perpetually offer ourselves over to death, where the old me is being emptied and learning to be the new me in him, being embedded into Christ where we embody the characteristics of Christ. This does not mean that we will ever accomplish the complete model vocation, but that’s the course the venture takes over and over again for a life time of servitude. It has been a long trek so far for many of you, with both positive and not so positive encounters, which continue to merge into that eternal question of ‘what now should you do?

As you consider your vocation with God and the world about us, it will not provide you with instant peace and comfort, but I hope will, instead, deepen your desire to learn more about God and yourself, and will equip you to seek the answers that chisel out a life of searching and learning, of servitude and humility, of life and love.

If you are anything like me you may have tried to ignore the feeling or hoped that it would go away and leave you in peace, or assumed that God could not really mean you. If you have that nagging feeling, don’t ignore it because it will only keep on coming back until you confront it. In confronting it there are a couple of things you should do – firstly, pray a lot but also talk to someone else about it. (Diocesan website)

Rev Tom
.................................................................................................................................................................................

 

>Click these links to our two Church Schools for information and events

www.whittle-le-woods.lancsngfl.ac.uk                               www.clayton-le-woods.lancs.sch.uk

                                                               

Thought for the week

     With All I am :- Hillsongs

 

Noticeboard

-------------------------------------------------------