SUNDAY SERVICES

Hartlip:

8.00 a.m.Holy Communion: 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays.
10.30 a.m.Parish Communion (except 2nd Sunday: Matins).
6.30 p.m.Evensong.

Sunday School every Sunday at 10.30 a.m. in the Church School.
(Children are welcome at the Parish Communion and on the last Sunday in the month, the address will be specially for the children in the congregation).

Stockbury:

9.15 a.m.Parish Communion.
3.30 p.m.Evensong: 3rd Sunday only.
(Evensong is at 6.30 p.m. in the summer).

Arrangements concerning Baptisms, Weddings or Confessions should be made with the Vicar. The Sick can be visited at any time and the Vicar is ready to make the Sacraments available to them in their homes.

THE VICAR WRITES ...

EASTER has been called The Queen of Seasons, and so it is. It is the festival of the Resurrection of Christ, upon which the Christian Church is built. The first Apostles' message was that the Crucified Jesus had been raised by the power of God: " ... this Jesus has God raised up ... " If you would trace the history of Christianity, start at the Empty Tomb. Of course, the New Testament tells us about what Jesus said and did, and there is much there which many see as admirable and worthy of emulation; for example, the teaching contained in the Sermon on the Mount. But neither that teaching nor any other teaching of Jesus makes the Gospel without the Resurrection. For the Resurrection sheds new light upon Jesus' ministry and death. The first disciples found much to admire and emulate in Jesus' teaching, but they were utterly shattered when he was crucified: " ... they all forsook him and fled ... " It was only after the Resurrection that they began, ever so slowly, to see what had taken place in a fresh light. They didn't believe in his Resurrection because of what Jesus had taught; they accepted and passed on (and ultimately wrote down in the New Testament) what he had taught because they believed that he had been raised from the dead. The acknowledgement of Jesus as Living Lord came first! From that followed Christian preaching, Christian worship and Christian belief.

For many years we had a Reader in our parish, Bernard Ambrose, whose sudden and early death in September 1975 came as a great shock to us all. Now I am happy to tell you that we have another prospective Reader among us, namely, Mr. Knowler Jennings, who is in the choir at Hartlip and is known to most of our congregation at Stockbury. He has been accepted for training by the Bishop and has already begun the first part of it. There is a good deal of study involved in a Reader's training, and each candidate has a tutor to whom he can go for help. But the training also consists of practical work in the parish: assisting at services ....(cont.)