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Manor Farm Barn Folly Lane Hough On the Hill Grantham Lincolnshire Ng32 2BA 01400 250037 01400 261061 |
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Church Services |
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Hough Parish |
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Hough on the Hill, Gelston and Brandon Villages |
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To contact us: |
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Email: anne@houghparish.co.uk |
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St Mary’s Catholic Church Grantham 1, North Parade (Tel. 01476 563935) Masses Saturday 6.00 pm Sunday 8.00 am, 10.00 am Most weekdays 9.00 am GRANTHAM CENTRAL METHODIST CHURCH. Sunday Services are normally at 10.30am and 6.00pm |
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Dear Friends
I read in the Church Times of 7th May that during the week before Easter (Holy Week), a vicar in the Diocese of Worcester displayed a flag outside his church, depicting Christ on the cross, and the words “This is Holy Week”. He was warned by his District Council that he needed to apply for advertising consent from the planning department as the church was advertising Christianity. The vicar “described his initial reaction as one of ‘shock and horror’. It seemed to him that it was further evidence of attempts by a ‘vocal minority’ to erode Britain’s Christian heritage.” As he said, “If you can’t fly a flag with a crucifix during Holy Week, what can you do?” (Quote from The Church Times, 7 May 2010. p5.)
What will happen next? A ban on church bells at weddings; not being able to wear a cross unless you sign a paper declaring that it’s nothing more than a piece of jewellery and has no religious significance; a priest not being able to comfort the dying; all crosses having to be removed from the exterior of churches; a ban on the distribution of parish magazines; a ban on infant baptism? Ridiculous? Well a couple of months ago, in a London Borough, a church was forbidden to put up a poster in it’s local library advertising it’s coffee morning.
Your local church may not be very important to you day-to-day. You may only go at Christmas or for family events. But there is a phrase that is very apt: “Use it or loose it”. It would be awful if we woke up one day and found our village churches closed through lack of interest, because not enough people had decided to stand up for the church and it’s Christian presence. If you want your village church to still be here in fifteen years time, as a place where your children can be baptised, where couples can be married and our departed loved ones commended to God, then I beg you to head the call… “YOUR CHURCH NEEDS YOU”
Every blessing, Reverend Lesley
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