SEPTEMBER RADIUS – From the Vicar

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core …”

So wrote John Keats in the first stanza of his poem “To Autumn”, which some of you may have memorised at school. We all have our favourite seasons and Autumn, unashamedly, is mine; there’s something about the quality of light and the capacity of Keats’ “maturing sun” to lavish the landscape with an especially rich gold, burnishing the already-rich palette of Autumn colours in trees and hedgerows.

For St Mary’s and St John’s, in company with most churches, Autumn also means releasing the pause button on various aspects of parish life which may have stopped for the summer, and sometimes the opportunity to launch new things. For us in Walton the Autumn of 2010 will be no different. Among the things starting up again this month are:

• Confirmation courses. These will be helping adults and young people prepare for the Confirmation Service which will take place in St Mary’s on Sunday 5th December 10th at 6.30 p.m.. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that Bishop Colin Bennetts will be leading the service; Bishop Colin knows this parish well through Jonny (his son!), Sarah and their family, and so this year’s Confirmation already promises to have a sense of family celebration about it. If anyone would like to find out more about what Confirmation might involve, please talk to any of the clergy.
• The ALPHA Course: As before, we intend to run Alpha Courses on Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings. Alpha is an opportunity to explore the meaning of life and consider the Christian faith in an informal setting over ten weekly sessions. There will be a special Alpha Launch Evening event on Thursday 9th September at 7.30 p.m. at St John’s Church. There will be drinks and a finger buffet, and our guest speaker for the evening will be Jago Wynne, one of the ministry team at Holy Trinity Brompton.
• Home Groups: if you’re not yet part of a home group but would like to be, please contact John Muggleton on (01932) 224244

An important new beginning for us this September is the launch of Prayer Triplets here in the parish. Some of you will remember that I mentioned Prayer Triplets a few months ago, but it’s taken a little time to get things to the point that we can actually make a start.

So by the time the September Radius is published, there will be a leaflet available in both churches describing what a Prayer Triplet is, how to set one up or become part of one, and how to draw on resources to help inform and inspire your prayer together.

In launching Prayer Triplets I believe I may guarantee three things: a) that very few people worshipping in our churches will have been part of a Prayer Triplet before; b) that before very long, those who become part of a Prayer Triplet will be glad that they have done so; and c) that as more and more of us get involved in Prayer Triplets and pray regularly, so we shall see increasing signs of God at work in our midst.

I commend our Prayer Triplet programme to you. This is something in which all of us can participate and through we can all make a real difference to the life, the fellowship, the mission and the ministry of our parish.

Yours in Christ,

Charles Stewart