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It’s that time of year again when the harvest has been brought in and we begin to think about the festival that follows.  Next to Christmas and Easter, the Harvest Festival is the most popular festival in the year. It’s a custom that goes back millennia – celebrating that the abundance of summer’s produce has […]

These six parishes in the Shingay Group have been without a full-time vicar for nearly a year now and during that time there has been a great deal of thought and discussion about how we would like to go forward.  It can be revealing to compare and contrast other churches and congregations visited in the

Do you remember as a child, kneeling down by your bed, hands clasped, to say your prayers? I can just about remember that far back but I do have fond memories of encouraging my own children to do the same, gently introducing the ideal of daily prayers to them by snuggling them into me and suggesting

One of the privileges of my role in the church is that I get to walk alongside people at some of the really important events of their lives. At the birth of a child, there is much to celebrate. There are often many things to think about, and for some families having their child Christened

Easter in Guilden Morden this year was very special, because, after three years of pandemic restrictions, we were finally able to return to some semblance of normality. It was a moving experience to walk with the cross through the village on Good Friday, singing hymns at various points. A week earlier, our Palm Sunday service

“He who moves not forward, goes backward.” (J W von Goethe) Change.  We so often resist it. Sometimes passively, just hoping that by doing nothing, the call for change will disappear.  Sometimes actively, by pushing against it, fighting all that compels us to be different. Yet often, a different approach can have beneficial consequences. When

“See how these Christians love one another!” By the time this edition of Prospect has been distributed but after the time of writing, the 2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (WPCU) will have been and gone. Officially it runs from 18-25 January and most services take place on the Sunday, but this year the

The Season of Advent is here again. It includes the four Sundays before Christmas and this year began on Sunday November 27th.  Advent means “coming” or “arrival”.  Special hymns are sung and Bible  verses read that prophesied Jesus’ coming; describe his birth; and speak of his return – the Second Coming.  For Christians, this is a

I wonder how many people remember the famous line from the film, the Blues Brothers, where Elwood Blues, played by Dan Aykroyd, tells everyone, “We’re on a mission from God!” I have had a strange sense of needing to paraphrase this constantly, ever since I committed to becoming a Licensed Lay Minister (a role more

Do you ever stop and think how very privileged we are to be living in this country? It’s very unlikely that anyone here wakes up in the morning, finds a bucket and then walks a mile or more to fetch water. Unfortunately, huge numbers of people in the world have to do just that. Most