The first Sunday in May will see our Confirmation Service. This is when people make a public commitment to follow Christ, and\u00a0receive a special prayer from our Bishop. I am thrilled that this year there will be 10 people standing up to do this.\u00a0 It is encouraging and fascinating to hear about each person\u2019s journey of faith.\u00a0 For some this year, a key factor has been through being a parent and thinking about what is best for their children.\u00a0 As they have thought about asking for God\u2019s blessing and having their child baptised, it has encouraged them to think about their own faith.\u00a0 As they have come to explore what they believe and experience worship, they have discovered the living God, who can enrich our every day lives.<\/p>\n
It has been interesting to follow some of the debate about\u00a0whether we are a Christian country or not.\u00a0 What has emerged is a clear picture that our society is based on Christian values and laws.\u00a0 While it is true that only a small proportion of our society go to church regularly, a very high proportion identify themselves as Christian.\u00a0 This is\u00a0 particularly true of the village of Stanley. It is of course important to emphasise the value of tolerance of other points of view without losing confidence in our own faith.<\/p>\n
I believe that there are many people who are being nudged into thinking about what they believe about God and wondering about\u00a0 coming to church. Let me encourage you to stop putting it off and come along. We are not perfect but are friendly and would love to meet you.<\/p>\n
This year is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the first World War.\u00a0 While we do not celebrate war, we do remember those who have given their lives fighting for our nation.\u00a0 The day I am writing this letter, is the day we have been planting poppy seeds in three places in the village; near the Church Centre, at St Peter\u2019s school and at Stanley Grove School.\u00a0 This has been happening throughout the\u00a0diocese. We said prayers that the poppies would help us remember people who had lost their lives.\u00a0 We will watch as the plants grow and witness the amazing transformation of a tiny seed into a beautiful\u00a0flower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first Sunday in May will see our Confirmation Service. This is when people make a public commitment to follow Christ, and\u00a0receive a special prayer from our Bishop. I am thrilled that this year there will be 10 people standing up to do this.\u00a0 It is encouraging and fascinating to hear about each person\u2019s journey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Phone_number(s)":"","email_address":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","category-more-pages"],"mb":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}