St Bartholomew’s, Tong
Parish news, views and muse
June 2025
Dear Friends,
June, in many respects is a time for renewal hope and thanksgiving.
It starts with Pentecost the coming of the holy spirit to the disciples marking, the end of Easter, it represents a fresh start as the apostles go out to deliver the message of Christ throughout the world.
Just like the apostles, there are many times in life when we have a fresh start it may be the birth of a new child or when we get married to the person that we want to spend the rest of our lives with.
At Tong during June, we are very privileged to have four weddings in our beautiful church, and we remember Olivia and Ian, Laura and Chris, Becky and Lucas, and Sophie and Mike, and we look forward to sharing their day together.
Also, Revd Jess will be baptising Jasper Willis, and we give thanks for his new life, and we welcome him into the fellowship of Christ.
On 15th June we will give thanks for our fathers who are with us and our fathers who are no longer with us but always in our hearts. WE remember the way that they have shaped our lives and made us who we are today.
So, as we give thanks for weddings baptism and the gift of fatherhood let us look forward as we come to the end of the first 6 months of the year and pray that the holy spirit will renew ourselves as we begin the second half of this year together.
Blessings
Revd Mike
Stop Press
We will be hosting a classic car event again this year on Saturday 6th September. Further details to follow in the July/August editions of the Parish Magazine. Look out for the Posters.
May 2025 news, views and muse
Dear Friends,
Normally May marks the end of the Easter season and the beginning of what is affectionately known as ‘ordinary time’ in the Church calendar. The pivot happens at the feast of Pentecost, but this year that falls on June 8th this year. Every Sunday is always a celebration of the resurrection, so it’s hard to see what is ordinary about it.
The events of Christ’s death and resurrection are the turning point of history. It is a world-shattering event that means life can never be the same again.
The book of Acts tells us how the disciples’ lives were turned upside down by it. In their grief at the loss of Jesus a number were considering returning to their previous occupations. Once they encountered the risen Lord, they decided to change the world instead!
However, it was not just historical events which changed things. It was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Christian faith has always been a supernatural one.
In the struggles to fill rotas, find volunteers, maintain buildings and serve our communities we can easily forget this. If the Christian life was just a set of rules to obey, religious acts to observe and an institution to maintain, it would not have lasted very long.
So we, during May, think about our risen Lord, his many appearances to the disciples as he prepares for his ascension. It is a time of rekindling our trust that even though we cannot see him, he promised to be with us always. So, as we look forward to Ascension Day on 25th May and Pentecost let us continue to trust in the Holy Spirit to empower and lead us in our lives just as Jesus asked us to do.
Only the Holy Spirit can give us the courage we need for the evangelistic challenge. Only the Holy Spirit can turn the hearts of those currently indifferent to Christian things to help see their need for the Lord. So, ‘Come Holy Spirit and kindle the hearts of your people with the fire of your love’. Today, we need that more than ever.
Blessings
Revd Mike
Easter Celebrations – April 2025
April brings the first few weeks of spring and our lead up to Easter with Palm Sunday celebrating Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem with palms strewn before him.
It also brings Christ’s passion, his death on Good Friday and his glorious resurrection on Easter morning, so it is a month of great sadness but also of boundless joy.
Easter day is the most important day in the Christian calendar. On that first Easter morning, death was banished, and eternal life was secured by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is a message the world should hear.
We in church need to be constantly reminded of the significance of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
The weeks leading up to Easter Sunday provide us with an excellent opportunity to do that.
The Easter season is also a time of the year when generally we get more people coming to worship with us. They may be unbelievers or carrying on a family tradition, but whatever the reason I believe that it is not a coincidence, because God is working in their lives and he will bring them to the services to hear about him and his eternity changing gospel.
Please come and join us as we celebrate the wonderful month of April.
With all blessings
Revd Mike
Saturday Tours Return
The regular Saturday morning tours will start again in March on the first Saturday of each month at 11.00am.
£5 per head for an hour’s tour.
March 2025, We Grow More Like Jesus
Lent is a period of 40 days, in which Christians prepare themselves for Holy Week and Easter – for the betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It lasts from Ash Wednesday (5th March 2025) to Holy Saturday, which is the day Jesus spent in the tomb until the resurrection dawn.
The word Lent has roots in Old English words for spring. So, as we observe the natural world beginning to come to life again, full of the promise of summer growth and sunshine, we take the time to look at what is growing in our own lives, and ‘garden’ our own growth as children of God, sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ.
That is why Lent has traditionally been a time for fasting and prayer: we are ‘weeding out’ the kind of growth that is likely to stunt and smother the flowers and fruit we long to see in our lives as disciples of Christ. And part of the challenge, of course, is to work out which are the weeds and which are the flowers. To do this, we need to focus on Jesus.
Will you be making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday as we prepare for the start of Lent and our journey with Christ to the cross.
All blessings
Revd. Mike
January/February 2025, news views and muse
Dear Friends
Lent begins late this year, with Ash Wednesday on March 5th. This means that we have an extended season of Epiphany. We now have all of February to be surprised by God’s presence in unexpected people and places, and to find new ways in which God makes love known.
February may seem a strange time to think in this way, with cold temperatures, dark mornings and early sunsets. But perhaps divine light is more vivid against a grey and snowy sky.
I have seen this light so clearly within this community of Tong and I thank God for all of you. I’m grateful for the compassion and kind wishes when people are sick and dying.
The warmth of our congregation is palpable and precious. I give thanks for all that is offered by so many people who provide for our mission, maintain our buildings, prepare for our worship, and for the help and support that you have given to me and Jess during this time as we await a new Priest in charge.
This congregation responds to need readily and sacrificially, and often in hidden ways.
As we walk forward, I am grateful for this extended season of Epiphany. I am grateful for this reminder and opportunity to discover where God’s light shines. Blessings to all of you as we continue this journey together.
Rev’d Mike
Arab and Jew, Ishmael and Isaac
I have loved the stories of the Old Testament since a dedicated and faithful teacher at school enthused about them and their significance and as I watch the “highlights” of the terrible conflict between Israeli and Arab I ruminate on the separation of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
If you are unfamiliar with the story, as told in Genesis Chapter 12 and onwards, the ageing Abraham decides to leave his homeland and then travels to Canaan with his wife Sarah and his livestock. They have no children although Abraham believes God has promised him an heir – but they are old and no heir appears, so he and Sarah decide to take matters into their own hands as God isn’t delivering, so Sarah gives her husband Hagar, her Egyptian maid, to do the business. The resultant child is named Ishmael and although he is not the promised son, nonetheless he is still blessed by God and becomes the ancestor of the Arab peoples.
Further waiting ensues not to mention disbelieving laughter when Sarah hears that she is going to become a mother at last, but as Mary heard centuries later, “nothing is impossible with God” and in due course the long promised heir is born, Isaac. Isaac in turn was the father of the twins, Esau and Jacob and it was the latter who was renamed Israel – so you see where this thread is leading.
When Sarah’s status as a mother was established, she regretted that she had preempted God’s plan by promoting Hagar and there is tension in the kitchen, so there is a sad parting when Abraham sends Hagar and his son away, though Ishmael is cared for and although he drops out of the narrative, his future is assured and the prophet Mohammed is said to be his descendant. It doesn’t do to tell God how to run His affairs.
So the great Patriarchal story common to Judaism, Islam and Christianity has tensions within it from the beginning. Isaac was promised the land and Ishmael was to be the founder of a great nation. Israel fiercely defends its territorial rights, though in Christianity we see Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s promises where Jews and Gentiles ( including Arabs) can live together in peace. However the complex historical, social and political factors that have developed over the centuries despite the common heritage, make that day still seem a long way off.
Pippa
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