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During
my first five weeks in office, I have been meeting hundreds of local people,
in Church, out with the dog, generally around the parish, in the vicarage
study, during meetings and at morning, afternoon and evening 'get-to-know'
gatherings, kindly hosted by members of St Mary's congregation. Please
forgive me if I haven't remembered as many of your names as you might like -
faces and associations tend to register first. As expected, there are many
people to get to know and a breadth of interest and activities throughout
the parish and involving people of all ages. Perfectly healthily, groups
will of course want to gather according to their respective activities which
may prescribe an age group while other activities, like the Parish Players
and the Summer Fair embrace a wide range of ages and provide a focus for the
whole community. I am looking forward to the Fair on Saturday June 14th and
to seeing the Church host on the glebe a day which gathers the local
community in good numbers and hearty spirit. Please do offer your support to
Alan Hay who is co-ordinating the event to whom we owe a debt of gratitude.
While the Fair is properly a day for us all here in Merton to gather and
enjoy, during the last month many have been busy collecting for others as
with the Save the Children Fund 10th Anniversary Party, Christian Aid Street
Collection and the Benefit Concert for Burma (yet to happen as I write). I
commend that balance of approach and am equally pleased that my discussions
with people of mature years in the Mothers' Union and young people in the
Uniformed Organisations and Sunday Club and Crèche are all in their ways
seeking to rejuvenate their activities and links to the Church. The Mothers'
Union ( also actively involved with Scallywags) welcomes newcomers of all
ages and is planning an enrolment of new members on Thursday 3rd July at
10.30am; I will be progressing discussions with the uniformed organisations
to discern how St Mary's can better engage with them; a meeting with the
Sunday Club and Crèche Teachers has begun to articulate how we can better
embrace children at St Mary's in a way which meets their spiritual needs and
I am all too aware that provision for teenagers must also be addressed.
The Choir, whose singing we regularly appreciate, is preparing to sing in
Hamburg this weekend and I am looking forward to hearing the occasional
singers as they reconvene to keep music at the heart of our Sunday morning
and evening worship when the Choir is away.
We are fortunate in Merton Park to enjoy, in so many respects, much talent,
devotion, commitment, numbers, organisation and service. While the
constituent parts of that are impressive, I am sure that the 'whole is far
greater than the sum of those constituent parts' so we must ever be vigilant
to find cohesion of these constituent parts in generous and creative ways so
that just as with any choir singing in harmony, no one voice booms out but
all combine to agreeable effect. As one hymn writer has it:
'Yea, we
know that thou rejoicest
o'er each work of thine;
thou didst ears and hands and voices
for thy praise design;
craftsman's art and music's measure,
for thy pleasure
all combine.'
John
Hayward
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