Listen now

Please find here the link to our April 2020 magazine:

Obviously with Covid-19, and all the restrictions, the magazine is a bit different to normal. There’s not much ‘what’s on’ to tell you about! But it does give us more space for reflections and prayer. There are also suggestions for worship from home.

But with all that’s going on, let’s not forget it’s Easter!

We will try our best to get hard copy versions of the magazine to anyone who normally picks one up from church. It will have to be part of our allowable daily exercise!

Included in the magazine this month is this letter from Barbara Silvester, Reader Emeritus…

Bought with the precious blood of Christ

I don’t know about you, but I often think about our faith in songs and hymns; the music and words go round and round in my head. Sometimes I even sing out aloud – when there’s nobody around of course!!

As we approach Easter there are many vying for a place on my hit list. ‘We have a King who rides on a donkey’ – too many years in Junior Church/Sunday School!  ‘Ride on Ride on Majesty’ – my formative years in school and Sunday School. Both recollecting Palm Sunday.

However the one that won’t go away at the moment is ‘In Christ alone’ especially the middle two verses. They encapsulate the whole of the Gospel – the good news of Jesus. Stuart Townend and Keith Getty got it right when they wrote the song “In Christ alone”.

These verses take us from the baby of the Christmas cards ‘meek and mild’ to the ignored, mocked and crucified man, with the darkness of all of our wrongdoings on his back. (None of us are perfect whatever we may think or portray).                                                                            

All the naughty things

When I was a child, I used to imagine God as a rather fearful old man with a great big book with all the naughty things I had done written in it and that I’d have to answer to him about them when I died.

The real significance of Good Friday didn’t exist. It was just a very sad day when Jesus was crucified by horrid people. I grew up, added more stuff to the list, then in my late twenties I changed from a church goer to a committed Christian. As you might say – the pieces of the Jigsaw fell into place. The whole truth of Jesus taking our wrongdoings, being our scapegoat, and what it physically cost him was realised. There was a way to God and he had thrown the book away! It was through Jesus that we had our ‘get out of jail’ card. But he lost his life to do it!

Oh no he didn’t!

Bursting forth

He came back to life on the third day as the song so expressively puts it ‘bursting forth in glorious day up from the grave he rose again!’ no passive meandering in the garden, he was back with a purpose! And that purpose was to let everyone know that they have a second chance for a good life, living the Kingdom! The Kingdom that we are all invited to, the one where love rules supreme, heaven on earth!

In April, and this song, we have the two extremes of deep despair and great joy – Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning. Some people call me a ‘Happy Clappy’ Christian but I know how much it cost Jesus to get rid of my entries in the big book and I am eternally grateful to him.

It begs me to ask you all ‘what song is it that Jesus has put into your life?’

Love and blessings at Easter, Barbara        

Our March 2020 magazine can be found here. For ideas on prayer and worship at home, please follow this link. Many thanks for the photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.