St Peter's Yaxley

…reaching out in love and faith

A noble spirit ’embiggens’ the smallest man

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Many of you will know that I am a big fan of The Simpsons. Well, the other day I read that a word made up by the writers in 1996 has entered the American dictionary. The word is ‘embiggen’ and means ‘to make bigger’!

It’s used in the motto of Springfield, the town where the Simpsons live. The motto is “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man”.

We’ve just commemorated Jesus’ death and celebrated his resurrection at the first Easter. Just before he died, Jesus told his friends that it was in their best interests that he returned to heaven. That was because when Jesus returned to heaven, God sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples and all who believe in Jesus. Why? In order to ‘embiggen’ them and us. One of the many great privileges of believing and trusting in Jesus is that we are embiggened by God’s Holy Spirit. To re-state the Springfield motto: “The Holy Spirit embiggens the smallest person”. However small we might feel, we are able to act powerfully when we are filled with God’s Holy Spirit.

If you would like to find out more about the God who both loves us and embiggens us, you would be very welcome to attend the Alpha course which starts at St. Peter’s this month. Alpha is an opportunity for you to ask your questions and to explore the basics of the Christian faith. The weekly course is free and starts at 7.30pm on Thursday April 12th. If you would like more details, please contact me using the details below.

You might have read (page 5 of March’s Gazette) that Rev John Harper is running this month’s London Marathon in order to raise funds for Christian Aid. Details of how to sponsor John are in that Gazette article. We pray that God would embiggen John and everyone else running the marathon to raise funds for charities.

With my prayers,

Jon Randall (Vicar) 07939 449255; vicar@saintpeters.co.uk

Read this article in the Yaxley Gazette.

How to run the race of life

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I wonder how you would react if you heard that one of the entrants in the recent London Marathon finished six days after he started?

If we’re honest we might wonder what on earth took him so long and be distinctly unimpressed. As you will have guessed there’s more to the story. A police officer has just “run” the race dressed as a gorilla AND moved on his hands and knees rather than his feet. By doing so he has raised £26,000 for a conservation charity. The winner of the marathon got most of the public acclaim, but the police officer has arguably achieved more. The last competitor to finish perhaps achieved the most.

One of the stories Jesus told that caused the religious authorities to get upset with him concerned a landowner who sent some labourers to work for him at the beginning of the day, some in the middle, and some near the end. He paid the ones who came near the end a full day’s pay, so the ones who worked all day expected more. When they too got only a day’s pay they grumbled, but the landowner did not change his mind. He told them that he had given them what they had been promised.

One of the messages from this story is that God’s Kingdom is open to us all and that those who come later will enjoy the same blessings as those who come earlier. The first to cross the finishing line is not necessarily the best. It’s much more about how we run the race. Wherever you think you are in the “race of life” you are welcome at St. Peter’s or any of the local churches. Details of services at St. Peter’s can be found here.

May I also invite you to our Strawberry Tea on June 25th at 106-108 Broadway from 3.00-6.00pm. There will be strawberries, cake, stalls and much more. We will close with a short service at 6.00pm. You are all very welcome.

With my continuing prayers,

Jon Randall (Vicar) 01733 240339; vicar@saintpeters.co.uk

Read this article in the Yaxley Gazette.

Inviting you to enjoy a stylish Christmas

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This month we have a guest post from Alex Agboke, a member of our St. Peter’s family, with an invitation to you to ‘A Stylish Christmas’.

We live in a world where a woman’s worth is largely judged upon her physical appearance and where fashion moguls dictate who and what we should be wearing on a weekly basis. We don’t tend to think much of this as we bumble through our teens and early twenties but it becomes a hard reality as we settle down, perhaps decide to start families, or simply live lives which don’t feature on the front pages of magazines or reality TV.

When it happened to me, in my early thirties, after my first child, I found myself having an identity crisis. Who am I? What’s happened to my body? How will I achieve my career goals now? Overnight I had become someone’s long term 24-hour caregiver with a wardrobe I could only ever dream of getting back into. Just washing my hair had become a longed-for luxury.

Looking back, perhaps the question I was really asking was – where do I find my beauty and value now?

As modern millennium women, where should we find our true value? How do we recognise and adorn the beauty that God designed us for? Not the aesthetic and impossible standard of the advertising world or fashion industry but a beauty that glows brighter with age and wisdom, reflection and restraint. A worth that is innate and not determined by our salaries or postcode.

A few of my friends feel as passionate about this as I do so we have organised a fabulous evening out for the women of Peterborough on December 9th. St. Peter’s Church in Yaxley, with its stunning architecture serves as the perfect backdrop to a charity style and fashion event which hopes to encourage and affirm women in their own unique beauty and value.

Invite your friends, sisters and mothers to what promises to be a stylish evening. Enjoy a glass of bubbly, guest speakers and peruse our Christmas stalls, all in aid of a wonderful charity which helps women in the Cambodian sex industry gain their freedom and self-worth.

Tickets are £10 online (early-bird price of £8). Click here to get yours!

Read this article in the Yaxley Gazette.