From the Minister

As I write this month’s message for Contact, I am sat by the window in my study enjoying the sun and the birdsong. It is a reminder that the seasons are changing, and we are getting closer to summer. Of course, this year is a summer with a difference as we are still under the Covid-19 restrictions and are unable to meet, physically, together. However, the delights of technology are making ‘Zoom’ experts of many of us and increasing our…

“the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Robert Burns; ‘To a Mouse’ This year, many plans are going awry, because of the current crisis with Covid 19. The plans that were made for Messy Church to celebrate Easter, plans afoot for Pentecost at the end of May, holiday plans, those who would have been sitting exams, church gatherings, meetings, groups of friends meeting to celebrate birthdays, weddings, to mark funerals. Everything is changed; we see, in the…

Dear Friends “There’s is time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven” Ecc.3:1. Our return to Greenwich Mean Time at the end of the month thrusts us into another annual cycle. Again, it reminds us of the transient nature of our days. The spring passes into summer, the summer into autumn and the autumn into winter. October brings with it the Abingdon Fair, a time of fun and celebration, followed by a time of Remembrance which is a…

A part of the building. 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God…

Thy Kingdom Come Each year for the last few years we have been using the materials from Thy Kingdom Come in church. This initiative is one that has been set up to encourage people from all church traditions to pray for each other and to pray especially for five people that we know who don’t have a faith in Jesus. During the 11 days of Thy Kingdom Come from Ascension Day to Pentecost (30 May to 9 June), it is…

After our weekend of Prayer at the end of September, and several weeks of teaching on prayer, I have been thinking about this subject for some time. I have some questions that I think maybe many of us have from time to time, the answers – Well I try and rely on God for those! So what do I pray for? What should I pray for? What are the right things to pray for? Some thirty centuries ago a young…

September is a time of new starts, but in ABC we have had several changes already this summer, as I write we have welcomed two new arrivals in the church with the births of Samuel Chown and Hannah Collins congratulations to Luke and Athena and Paul and Lesia. We have celebrated the retirement of Ian and Jill Millgate from the Baptist Union HQ and From Baptist Missionary Society HQ respectively. We have waved farewell to Paul as co pastor as…

July is a time of endings, for those with children at school, it is the end of the school year. Changes happen as children move classes, schools or even, after taking exams leave school all together and step out on the next stage in their lives. In church life, July signifies the coming of the summer time and a change in services as we move to Family Church Celebrations for the duration of the summer holidays. These times of ‘doing…