Divine choice

Last night's service of celebration for our church’s 150th anniversary was fantastic. The church was packed with members past and present, along with previous members of clergy and our current Bishop, as well as the Deputy Mayor. It was an uplifting, encouraging, emotional and thoroughly enjoyable service. 

Both the Bishop and the Deputy Mayor spoke briefly, and both commented on the remarkable love and commitment of the congregation which they had both experienced for themselves. The Deputy Mayor, who was sitting in the front row for the service, also mentioned how unexpected was the sound of the congregation’s voices swelling up behind him during the times of singing. I don’t think he’d ever experienced such heartfelt worship before, and it clearly moved him. He was also clearly impressed when our Vicar showed him round the exhibition after the service.

As there was only time for the ‘VIPs’ to attend the exhibition last night, it was the turn of the rest of the members of the congregation to have a look round this morning. Smithers and I walked up with our house guests for their second (and our first) look. There was so much to see, and this is is just one board, showing a very fresh-faced Paul Harcourt being welcomed as the youngest ever Vicar of All Saints’, Woodford Wells. Although only 34 years old, he had already been curate at our daughter church, St. Andrew’s, for five years, so we all knew him well and were thrilled when he was Inducted as Vicar of All Saints’. Normally the position of Vicar, given the size of the church congregation* would be awarded to a more senior member of the clergy, who had served as Vicar in two or more previous parishes. For Paul to be promoted straight from Curate to Vicar was a huge gamble on the part of the Diocese but it was an inspired appointment and he and his wife Becky have served us brilliantly ever since.

The exhibition was broken down into themes, such as past clergy, various building projects, our youth and uniformed organisations, church planting overseas, charitable work, major events (such as visits from Billy Graham, and one of the rescued Chilean miners) and finally a lovely tribute to various members of the congregation who had made a significant contribution to the life of the church within recent history but who were no longer with us. It was so thoughtfully and lovingly done, and I felt so grateful that Smithers and I have been privileged to belong to this amazing church family for over 52 years.

*To give you an idea of the size of our congregation, there was a notice outlining the work of the current operations and admin team, explaining that since the tragic events of 9/11, when our Vicar and his wife were stranded in the United States with no flights home available, the idea of collecting email addresses for pastoral letters and urgent calls to prayer was hatched. That was the start of our daily "Prayernet". And, of course, it has never stopped since! These are the figures they quoted:

We have 859 adults on our database

We have 274 under 18s on our database

And 540 email addresses receive our daily "Prayernet".

We have been truly blessed.