So what exactly do people do in church? Young Isabel asked me the other day. I wonder what your answer would have been? To say our prayers, sing hymns and songs, hear the Bible read, think about God? It set me thinking too, so what exactly do we do in church, when we come on our own during the week or with others at a service of worship on a Sunday or weekday.
Of course ‘what do we do in church?’ doesn’t just mean what we do inside the church building, its more about how we connect what we do in our services with the way we live out our lives. For at various times in our day we may say our prayers, sing songs and read the Bible and think on God, on the bus or train to work, in the comfort of our home, on our own or with friends. But to paraphrase what one of the saints said ‘faith without action really doesn’t exist’ for if you have faith it will cause you to act whenever you see injustices in the world, or hungry people needing food, or as we have seen so much lately, victims of recent floods and storms needing support and help.
One of the ways of keeping up to date with what we do in church is to attend our Annual meetings. Like any other organisation local churches have their annual meetings once a year, naturally, and March and April are usually the months they are held.
This year at St Ippolyts we will be trying something new, now there’s a novelty!!
On Sunday 16th March we will be holding our Annual Parochial Church Meeting within the 9.30am service. You are welcome to come along, as always. As you come into church you will be given a report of all that we did in 2013 and a copy of the church’s accounts showing how much money came into and was paid out of our bank accounts. Before the service actually begins we will hold the first of our annual meetings where our Churchwardens are elected, anyone who lives in the parish can come along and vote. We will then have the first part of the service, say our prayers, sing hymns and hear the Bible read. In place of the sermon I will give ‘The Vicar’s report’ we shall also have a report from our electoral roll officer and from our treasurer, and there will be time for a few questions directly arising from these reports. After singing what is called the Offertory hymn we will think about what we can offer to the churchin our time and talents, and so we shall elect people to be members of the Parochial Church Council and the Deanery Synod, and as we are aware all that we do in church must be honest and true we appoint our Safeguarding officer and our independent auditor. All these people will need our prayers so next in the service we shall pray for them, as well as for our church, our community and the world.
The rest of the service will follow the normal pattern as we turn to the altar for Communion, beginning by sharing the peace with each other and after receiving communion and a blessing we will finish the service with one more hymn/song. I hope you will stay afterwards for refreshments and a time to chat and get to know one another more.
I am really pleased Isabel asked me the question, and if there are ever any questions you would like to ask me then please do not hesitate to ask, who knows it may give me inspiration for another blog!!
Enjoy your pancakes and have a good Lent. With love Revd Ann
