Hello, here’s my Report - the audio if you’d like to listen to it has a little bit extra impromptu, while the written text is below (you can always read the transcript if you prefer). You will have received the PCC and Activities Reports last week already.

Blessings,

Andrew+

Thank You

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Moravian Church by the Kings Road Chelsea. In 1969 two Australian students, John Rendall 23 years old at the time, and Anthony "Ace" Bourke, bought a lion cub from Harrods department store in London. They called him ‘Christian’ - they said it was ironic thinking of Christians being eaten by lions in the Roman Games. They lived with him in their flat, and asked permission from the Minister at the Moravian Church to exercise him in the churchyard. I walked round that same churchyard where the four fig trees at that time still grow. Buried in the churchyard are Moravian Bishops and Leaders, and the brothers and sisters of the congregation. All have just a stone tablet buried level in the ground, each person being valued as equal in the eyes of God whether be Bishops or church brothers and sisters. After a while Ace and John realised Christian needed a natural home to run free and he was rehomed to Kenya with George Adamson. He was introduced to other lions and learned to hunt and survive in the wild.

Two years later Ace and John went to visit him. There’s a tense moment where he spots them, and charges towards them. Will he maul them? He jumps up on their shoulders and licks and hugs them. It’s an emotional reunion you can watch on youtube. In the end, a dangerous wild predator and the humans who loved him and went to look for him again, remember a unique love which transcends the boundaries between humans and animals.

Christian even introduced them to his ‘wife’ with whom he fathered cubs. He had his own Pride eventually. His story inspired conservation efforts and helped bring attention to the importance of wild animal rehabilitation.

William Tyndale translated the English New Testament from the Bible from Latin in 1525, over three hundred years after this church was built. Before he could finish the Old Testament he was persecuted and burned at the stake in 1535.

He wrote:

There is no work better than another to please God: to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all is one; to wash dishes and to preach is all one, as touching the deed, to please God.

So it’s in that spirit that I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the life of St Mary’s over the past year whether it’s been by faithfully coming to worship and pray week in, week out, or undertake an official role, or an informal one from cleaning toilets to serving on the PCC. Like the simple stone tablet memorials by which the Moravians honour and remember their dead, all of us are equally valued - and equally valuable in the eyes of God.

Christian the lion and his two friends discovered an incredible love that transcended species, time and distance. A love which was implanted into their very nature by God who made both lion and man.

This is the love revealed in Jesus, who invites us to follow Him, a love which through His giving His life for us on the cross, ransomed us from wrongdoing, evil and death, redeemed us, saved us, and gave us eternal life beginning now and lasting beyond death.

We have done well this year, so thank you. We are entrusted with the good news of God’s love and the nearness of the Kingdom of His Son Jesus, a kingdom so near, so very wonderful, that very gently, kindly we are commanded to invite others to taste and see.

I look forward to exploring with you in the coming year what it will mean for us to fulfil our vision:

To be a Tower of living stones; chosen, mended and built by Jesus our Cornerstone - to make followers for Him, be a sanctuary of prayer and a community of love

Our values are guided by our vision and can be remembered by these four words:

Jesus: live for Him

"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." (Acts 2:42)

Make: Followers (Disciples)

"Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:14)

Pray

"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations…" (Mark 11:17)

Love

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." (John 13:34)

Revd. Canon Andrew Goodman, Priest-in-Charge

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