Chads News - 27th March 2025

Dear Church family,

This week in our Sunday preaching and lent blogs we are looking at 1 Corinthians 12.  You may have got ahead and kept abreast of things by having a nosey through Tim’s blog this morning. You don’t kneed to, and you might not be able to stomach all his puns or learn them by heart, but you might want to knuckle down and cast an eye over it to keep your finger on the pulse.

During Wednesday communion this week, 1 Corinthians 12.26 stuck out to me: ‘If one part (of the body) suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it’.  I often think of that verse (and the very similar Romans 12.25) when I come to write these front pages of Chads News.  Every week, some of you reading this will be going through tough times or a difficult week, others will be enjoying celebrations. (Our church warden Andrew has a landmark birthday today, so I hope he is celebrating!). Part of our unity comes from the empathy we experience in being sensitive to those who are hurting and rejoicing with those celebrating. 

This empathy is particularly important this weekend on Mothering Sunday.  For some amongst our family a day about motherhood is painful for all sorts of reasons of loss or broken relationship.  For others, the opportunity to give flowers to Mums and have a Sunday lunch somewhere is a joyful celebration of those who have poured so much into our lives.  As a church family we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice and if we can do that with love and empathy, all are blessed and jealousy and comparison fade away.

Mothering Sunday is also about ‘the Mother Church’, historically a day when those who worked far from home, could return to their home church, where they were baptised, to reconnect with their roots.  Maybe for you St Chads is your Mother Church and this Sunday is a celebration, there may be folk who visit this weekend who are returning to visit, please make them feel welcome.  Thinking of baptism, for a number of folk St Chads will soon become ‘the church where they were baptised’ as we prepare for full immersion baptisms and reaffirmation of vows on Easter Sunday.  It’s not too late to join them if you believe now is the time for you to make that public commitment of your faith.

It is interesting to think of St Chads as our ‘MotherChurch’, this community as a place of nurture, love, the sense of a warm hug and being accepted and in Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12, honoured.  One way we have found to be connected as a family is through WhatsApp, you may have noticed this week that we are changing from congregational groups to a WhatsApp Community.  Thank you to all those who have already responded and if you haven’t yet, then this is a little reminder! 

As well as honouring all the women of St Chads this weekend as part of Mothering Sunday, we will be honouring and thanking lots of people on Sunday 11^th May which is our ‘Vision Sunday’ and includes our APCM.  We’ll share more about that Sunday in due course, it is a key part of our year and part of being a church family together.  That date also includes voting for our PCC, revision of our electoral roll, and sharing our annual report.  If you want to stand for PCC, please get in touch.  If you haven’t done your electoral roll forms yet click here (everyone needs to this year) and we would love you to read the Annual Report as it shares a lot of encouragement about the life of St Chads in 2024.

 With love

Richard.

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