Dear All,

About once a year, I force myself into a sports shop, you know the sort of thing… JJB Sports or something similar.  I know this fact will probably raise an eyebrow amongst those who know me…..as you can tell from my physic,  a sports shop is not my natural habitat. The truth be told, I feel distinctly uncomfortable in one…. strange things happen there, its full of unknown objects and people dressed in funny clothes, all of whom seem to know rules that I have no idea about…. Added to which I’m convinced I am being watched by the staff, in fact not just watched by sniggered at,  they know I shouldn’t be there …… And I am sure that at any moment I will be found out and a security guard will escort me to the door because I am lowering the tone of the place…..and put off ‘proper customers’ from doing what they should be doing…..

Paranoia I am told, is only the thought that everyone is out to get you, rather than the certain knowledge they really are! So why do I put myself through such fear and trepidation? Well you can rest assured its not so that I can get the latest designer trainers, or to kit myself out as David Beckham…. no its actually to remind me of what it is like to enter a church for the first time ….. It too is full of all sorts of strange doings, we are convinced we are being watched, with people waiting for us to make a slip…… one too many or too few ‘our fathers’ and the trap is sprung…..

But what’s more is that sometimes we can be even more embarrassed because its not that its new, but that its something we’ve allowed to slip…… we used to be regulars, and indeed  we like to still think of ourselves as regulars, ….. its still ‘our church’, but through one thing or another…. life just got in the way….. you know the sort of thing, we had a family, and the times where awkward, or difficult, or we moved house, and somehow, although we always intended to, the effort of starting again just seemed so daunting…. Or dare I say it, there was that ‘ghastly vicar’ …..

Well 28^th September this year has been set aside as ‘Back to Church Sunday’. A day to say OK lets do it, things have changed, and I had always been intending to, so let’s do it …… and to help  all the churches in the Lambfold Benefice are going to have special services, Maidford will have Harvest Festival at 6pm (what better way to start up again, then by thanking God for the beauty of all that is around us), and the other churches will have a short simple service of some favourite hymns and readings  at 10:30am, all to make it as easy as possible to slip back into the habit.

Please do join, (it might be OK!) …… and who knows, even the ghastly vicar might have repented!

With my love and prayers

Fr. John