Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make our Summer Gala such a success, and thank you to all who came to support us,\u00a0despite the rather miserable weather.<\/p>\n
The gala is always timed to be as near as possible to the feast day of St Peter, our patron saint, which is celebrated every year on 29th June. St Peter\u2019s school began the celebrations with a special service in school followed by a sleepover, which was a great success. It is always helpful to remember some of the stories about St Peter, and be encouraged in our own journey of faith.<\/p>\n
I find that I am most encouraged by the times when Peter messed up.\u00a0When we are honest we can all admit to doing things that we regret or are ashamed of, just like St Peter.\u00a0 At the school service we retold the story of Jesus walking on the lake in the midst of a storm.\u00a0 Peter, full of courage, follows Jesus’s call to step out of the boat and walk on the water too.\u00a0 At first it goes well as he walks towards Jesus.\u00a0Then he notices the wind and waves and becomes afraid and begins to sink.\u00a0Fortunately Jesus is there to help him back into the boat as the wind dies down and all becomes calm.<\/p>\n
Most people will remember that Peter\u00a0famously denied knowing Jesus three times,\u00a0despite saying he would always be there for him. Again Jesus lifts him up when he forgives him on the beach after His resurrection.<\/p>\n
Therefore, we can identify with Peter\u2019s\u00a0 humanity and know that, as Jesus helped him, he can help us too.\u00a0 I am reading a book about a church that has the motto, \u201cNo perfect people\u00a0 allowed\u201d.\u00a0 It is really about being authentic.\u00a0 This means if we have doubts it is good to admit them but also be willing to talk about them.\u00a0 It means acknowledging that none of us are perfect, so we can accept each other as we are; but also that we can encourage each other in seeking the help of Jesus to become more like Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make our Summer Gala such a success, and thank you to all who came to support us,\u00a0despite the rather miserable weather. The gala is always timed to be as near as possible to the feast day of St Peter, our patron saint, which is celebrated every […]<\/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-456","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\/456","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=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/457"}],"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=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nwbchurches.org.uk\/stanley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}