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Golders Green Parish Church – Newsletter

30 October 2020

Greetings from Sally :

How good to see those who came on Sunday and to be able to greet each other face to face (well nearly whole face anyway!). I know many are still shielding and are reticent about coming into a church building at the moment, which we all fully understand, but don’t think you are forgotten and not missed; we are thinking about each other and finding other ways of staying in contact so we can talk and exchange news. While all the required safeguards have been put in place and the church looks rather lovely in its spaciousness we all look forward to the time when we can worship freely together as a church community.

This week we have an article from the, Revd Charlotte. B, who has been asked by Bishop Rob to cover for our Sunday services from the 22nd November until Easter. We are very grateful to Bishop Rob and look forward to welcoming Charlotte from the end of November onwards.
So you know something about her ,Charlotte has written a piece for the newsletter about herself and her Ministry by way of an introduction.

Last week the “Church Times” contained a reflection from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York writing about the importance of faith and self-care in helping us to cope. It is entitled, “This is Turning a Sprint to a Marathon”. We reprint it with the permission of the paper and hope you find it helpful.

Finally, at the end there is a prayer from the Franciscan Community that seems so right for our time with its turbulence, anxiety, injustice and constant wondering what we can do to make things improve for others as well as ourselves.

 

About myself by Reb Charlotte

I was delighted when Bishop Rob asked me to provided Sunday cover at Golders Green Parish Church whilst you are in vacancy. To my shame I had never been in the church before, though driven past it many times, so it was really good to come inside the building when I came to meet Sally & Tony last week and see the magnificent reordering.

I grew up in Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire. The first person who came to visit me in hospital after I was born was our vicar, so I was quite literally a cradle Anglican! Although I expressed an intention to be ordained whilst I was in primary school, that ambition was juxtaposed with aspirations to be a ballet dancer and an MP, so I don’t think anyone – least of all me – took it seriously. It was only when studying theology at university that I really began to consider whether God was calling me to be a priest. I was ordained in 2010 and served my curacy at St John the Baptist, Barnet, so came to Golders Green many times to conduct funerals in the crematorium – in fact I conducted a funeral for the first time there. I seem to recall that the button on the officiant’s stall for the coffin to slide through the doors jammed, and the coffin kept disappearing and reappearing again. Luckily the family didn’t mind and said the deceased would have found it hilarious.

For the past 7 years I have been Chaplain to UCL, which has been a fascinating place to work. Some of you may know of its nickname, ‘that Godless Institution in Gower Street’, which was coined soon after its founding, by a writer who was horrified that a university had been set up with a secular foundation and no chapel on the campus. It was founded in 1826 when the only people who could receive a university education were male Anglicans, so the founders of UCL wanted to provide a place where people of all faiths – and none – could receive an education. Because of this over the past seven years I’ve often argued that UCL is the most religious of all the universities, given that it was founded to be a place where religious belief could be practiced and expressed openly.

Four years ago, alongside the Chaplain to LSE, I co-founded The Anchorage, which is a New Worshipping Community for students in London. We wanted to create an environment where students who weren’t used to church and church buildings would feel at home, so it meets in a university building every Sunday evening. A good portion of each meeting is devoted to discussion of a passage of Scripture, and we always finished each meeting with free pizza. London can be a very lonely place to be a student and it felt important to us to foster community and friendship amongst the students who worshipped at the Anchorage.

I have just started a new role as a Support Worker at Streetlight UK, a Christian charity whose purpose is to help women in Enfield and Edmonton exit prostitution, and to deter men from reoffending by running perpetrator courses. When I was training for ordination I did a placement at a similar organisation in Kings Cross, and have always wanted to return to that sphere of work.

I am married to Paul and we have two children, Zachary (3 in January) and Felicity, who will be 1 in November. Paul is a Roman Catholic and the children were both baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, so that is where they tend to worship on Sundays, though I’m sure they will come to Golders Green from time to time and I hope they can meet many of you. Before I had children my spare time was spent running and learning Italian, but now I’m lucky if I manage a run once or twice a week, and my Italian is extremely rusty! I do love cooking and baking though, which is something I try to do with the children. I’m currently trying to master bagels, though since I’m going to be coming to Golders Green once a week I may just buy them as I know I’m not going to beat what’s on offer there!


The past year has brought much hardship and uncertainty, but as Christians we know that Christ will always be with us. I look forward to journeying alongside you all in the coming months.

Thank you Charlotte

'This is turning from a sprint to a marathon'

Below is a shortened version of an article by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York which appeared recently in the Church Times on the importance of faith and self-care in helping us cope with these difficult times.

We could not be more inspired by some of the stories of selflessness and kindness which we have heard about clergy and lay people in our churches in these past months.

And yet we are hearing, over and over again, how exhausted they are. Working such long hours, and sharing in the pain of those they serve, takes a deep toll on mental and physical well-being. You can’t pour from an empty cup, but many of us are left trying.

There are also bigger factors at play. As a society and a Church, we cannot continue to function in crisis mode, living on adrenaline. Now, we are in maintenance mode: accepting that this “new normal” will be around for a while. And it’s tiring: more Zooms, less physical contact, more grief — not just for the people we have lost, but for our old way of living.

We cannot sprint indefinitely, or be like the Duracell bunny, bouncing along with an empty smile on its face while others topple over. That’s not resilience. Resilience is the capacity to go on trusting God in the middle of lament, protest, celebration, joy, and any variety of the above.

RESILIENCE is part of the bedrock of the Bible. In Isaiah 7.9, Isaiah says to a panicked King Ahaz: “If you do not stand by faith you will not stand at all.” Ahaz has justifiable worries: an army is threatening to besiege his city. Isaiah says that God is bigger.

How can faith be sustained the face of all the pain and confusion?

First, God offers his people a relationship rooted in transparency and acceptance, one where they can always be honest. This does not mean grumbling without ceasing, but God gives space for lament, grief, anger, and tears. As one who intimately understands pain and grief from the cross, he will stand with people in their suffering.

This foundational relationship with God gives us the opportunity to be radically honest with each other as well. We can say when we are worn down. We can ask for prayer and support. The gospel calls us to be people of truth, even — and perhaps especially — when that truth makes us feel vulnerable.

When we feel overwhelmed and exhausted, it is vital that we remember to take Sabbath time. God knows the importance of rest: he loves us because of who we are, not because of what we do.

Are you doing things that give you strength and joy — just because they are fun to do? Are you doing things that build you up as well as the things you are doing to meet people’s needs?

Finally, don’t be afraid of your own fragility and failings. Everybody gets things wrong, sometimes. But our God is in the redemption business. Jesus gathers up all the fragments. With God, nothing is ever lost, and in his grace we can learn and grow. That is the true wonder of God: his ability to draw hope out of despair, joy out of pain.

EVEN in the darkest moments, to be a Christian is to declare the possession of hope — because God’s steadfast love endures for ever; because, just when things looked most hopeless, Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead.

Sometimes, even if it cannot be felt, the goodness of God is working, waiting to come into the light. In the bleakest moments, in Christ’s death, on Holy Saturday, God was doing his most miraculous work.

Neither of us pretends to be especially resilient, especially strong, certainly not especially clever or wise. Yet we know that, despite everything, we are deeply loved by God, and, when we seek to love God back, we find some resilience, a little wisdom, perhaps the odd insight.

It doesn’t take much of a fresh vision to become the people of hope. God does the heavy lifting. This country needs a Church that is hope-filled, generous-spirited, humble, accepting, and open.

The Church will have declines and advances. But what we are doing to bless and serve our communities — through schools and 35,000 social projects, with partners and friends, other churches and faith groups — contains the seeds of new resilience, hope, and energy.

This is a profound crisis for the nation, and thus for its Church, and there is a long way to go. But we will come through it, mourn those we’ve lost, and celebrate the faithfulness of God. For all our failures, we pray we may do that with faith in God and hope for the future

Prayer from the Franciscan Community

Daily Hope - The Church of England Phone line church service - is available 24 hours a day on 0800 804 8044 – has been set up particularly with those unable to join online church services during the period of restrictions in mind.


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