Living

Recently, someone asked my advice. They had been asked to present a one hour session on how evangelicals do theology.

It's not hard to think of things to say if someone asked about the content of evangelical theology. We'd talk about our distinctive doctrine of Scripture, of sin, of the atonement, of judgement and so on. There are particular hallmarks that have arisen over the centuries that mark out what evangelicals do when it comes to theology.

Most Christians have weeks when it's hard work to discipline themselves to get up and worship with their church family on a Sunday.

I love these words from Robert Murray McCheyne, written in 1836, that quaintly and yet compellingly encourage us to make the effort.

If this struggle is you, let me encourage you: Come, and callibrate your watch!

As I've prepared to move on from leading the churches of Kemsing and Woodlands, I've needed to think what I want to say as I leave. What words of farewell, of fare well, would I leave our church family with.

Each quarter for the past 12 years, I've written a one-page article at the front of The Well, the magazine our church produces for the whole village community and distributes free of charge to every household.

Here is the "vicar's letter" from the most recent Summer 2021 edition.

Dear Friends

“And now the end is near, so I face the final curtain.” So begins one of Elvis’s most well-known songs, “My Way”.

A few days ago, I posted the transcript and a link to the video of my presentation, explaining my reasons for leaving the Church of England, and for moving to join Trinity Church Scarborough as their Associate Minister.

That presentation was given on a Wednesday evening to our church family, having told them the Sunday before that I would be leaving. In that briefer leaving announcement, I said (pithily) that Jesus was my boss, and loyalty to him meant I had to move.

This coming Sunday, 11th July 2021, will be my last serving the people of Kemsing and Woodlands as their "vicar". When I announced in January that I would be leaving, I gave a presentation to explain my reasons for leaving the Church of England, and where I was going instead. This is that presentation.

In 1960, C S Lewis published a book entitled The Four Loves. It has become a classic. He explains that there are four different Greek words for our English word "love", and they have different meanings. There is the bond of love within a family, the love of friendship, erotic love, and charity. This latter, translating the Greek word agape (ἀγαπη), is the love of God, and the pinnacle of Christian virtue, the love that sums up God's requirements.

Our church produces a quarterly magazine that goes, free, to every household in our parish. It's called The Well.

As vicar, I get to write a letter near the front of each issue, in which I seek briefly to bring a Christian perspective to bear on some contemporary issue or other.

I wish to commend to you a new website, Anglican Reality Check. In the past 22 years, a lot has changed in the Anglican landscape at home and around the world. The changes have happened gradually, so that it can be hard to keep track of the key developments that make up the still-unfolding story.

2 Corinthians 2:15-17 says this:

For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.