St Mark's Saltney

Curate’s Blog

 

Hello St Mark’s Church,

Can you believe it is June already? I know for us, this year has been very full and we have been amazingly blessed by your amazing welcome and love! This term especially has been exciting as we have been digging into the life of Simon Peter – looking at how we can go deeper in our discipleship and going further with God.

Simon Peter had an amazing desire to go deeper with Jesus, to follow him more faithfully. But, it could be argued that he was a man of the ‘big gesture’, which meant that at times he was erratic and then that in turn lead to some awful mistakes. We are being challenged this term to look at our own lives. Do we have the deep desire to make the ‘big gesture’ for Jesus? Can we learn from Simon Peter and make our big gestures part of a rich tapestry of living for Jesus everyday rather than one off events? Do not misunderstand me, Simon Peter was an amazing person who followed Jesus to his death and is a true inspiration to us all. However, one of the reasons he was such an inspiration was his deep desire to make ‘big gestures’ for Jesus, failing horrendously, and then returning wiser, humbler and never losing his passion for long.

This Sunday we were challenged with the liturgical prayer:

President:       ‘If you want to walk on water ...’

All:                   ‘You’ve got to get out of the boat!’

At St.Mark’s Church we are trusting Jesus as he calls us to cross over the waters. He is calling us to follow him, through storms and through good weather. He at times also calls us to do what would seemingly be impossible in human’s strength but with God’s power is possible. As we embark on this stage of St.Mark’s life we will be called to ‘get out of the boat.’

This last month has been exciting for St.Mark’s Church for many reasons. Heading out of Easter was a real joy having celebrated together as a family. For the Pioneer work that we have been embarking on, we have seen great growth in the circus workshops and our adult theatre workshop on Tuesdays has been showing significant fruit. Indeed, we are really looking forward to our first production together this very week! We were able to hear from Kevin Pearson about the difficult and yet amazing things that are going on with our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt.  This is just a small taste of the things that we are co-working with God in. We have good reason to be grateful for His provision.

As we walk with Jesus we are constantly moving forward with Him ready for the call to get out of the boat. Was the boat bad? Were the disciples doing anything wrong that Simon Peter had to leave the boat? No, quite the opposite. It was precisely because they were obeying Jesus and doing the right thing that Jesus was able to call to Simon that day to show His great and wonderful power.

At St.Mark’s Church, as we walk, talk and listen with and to Jesus we become increasingly ready to hear and obey when He calls us to do something seemingly impossible. As we grow as a congregation may we keep Jesus at the head and fulfil our vision for Lache and Saltney, of ‘Loving God and making His love known.’