Welcome to St Swithins Church

By The Rev Matt earwicker

"Villages - February 2025"

Dear Friends

A couple of months ago one of our cold taps stopped working. I knew what it was: the valve was gone. It had been playing up for a few months before that – needing multiple attempts to open and close before eventually water started coming out. But in the end the trickle dried up to nothing, and no matter what we did, no water came out.

I did try to fix it myself, but couldn’t manage to get the tap apart to replace the valve. I got so frustrated by it that I even contemplated replacing the tap complete-ly, and would have done so except Christmas was a bit too busy for me to sort it out.

In the end, as the house belongs to the diocese of Salisbury, they sent someone to look at a few other jobs that needed doing, and he was happy to fix the tap at the same time. But instead of replacing the valve as I was expecting, he stripped it down, cleaned it, replaced a washer, did a little bit of filing, and put it back in. I was impressed: I love it when you can repair something and don’t have to throw it away. However, it doesn’t work as well as it did, and unfortunately I am aware that it will need another repair at some point.

But the three options – a repair job, a replacement valve, or a completely new tap – seem to me a good analogy for the message of Christianity.

The Bible teaches that while God loves every single human he has made, we are all imperfect. We all do things wrong from time to time - perhaps hurting someone else in selfishness, perhaps harming ourselves through fear or anger.

So we work on ourselves, don’t we? Most of us at least try to be better, to do better. That is where most religions and non-religious creeds and lifestyles come from - a desire to improve ourselves and our communities. This is a bit like the plumber who repaired my tap. We knock off a bit here, adjust a bit there, until we work a bit better. It’s not perfect, but it will do for now.

What Jesus offered his listeners, and still offers us today, is something slightly dif-ferent. He offered to replace our valve. Building on the words of one of the Jewish prophets, Ezekiel, writing a few hundred years earlier, he offered to replace our cold, dead hearts with living, breathing ones. Not literally, of course, but emotion-ally, relationally, spiritually. He offers to give us a better ability to love God and each other. That was the good news that drew his first followers to him and has attracted hundreds of millions ever since.

I am not claiming that Christians are better than others – that is clearly not the case. What I am suggesting is that God offers each of us the possibility of being bet-ter than we are, of living up to that character that we would love to have, of being that bit more patient or controlling our impulses a little better. And I for one know that I need that help every single day.

But there is one more promise that is absolutely central to Christianity: the resur-rection to a completely new me. Jesus offers all those who trust him not only to help them in the here and now, but also that one day he will replace these flawed versions of ourselves with the perfect version that were always intended; still rec-ognisably us, but working properly. Like a new tap, but one which will never need replacing or repairing.

May your 2025 be full of love, joy and hope.

"Your Church, your voice"

Good Morning all,

Every six years, each church has to draw up a new electoral roll - a register of people who are able to elect other people in the parish and have a say in decisions about the local church. Being on the electoral roll allows people a voice in decisions about the Church in your community. It isn’t only for people who worship there, but gives everyone who cares about their local church the opportunity to have a say in its future.

For example, you might be a member of a Friends group that supports and cares for the Church building, or part of a group looking after the churchyard, or maybe one of your family attends the church school. Signing up to the church’s electoral roll is simply a sign you care about the Church’s future in your community.

You can join the roll if you are resident in the parish, aged over 16, baptised, and consider yourself broadly part of the Church of England, or another church in communion with it.

Most electoral rolls are being drawn up in March and April before the annual church meeting.

Find out more, including resources about the roll and why being on it matters, on the Diocese of Salisbury website www.salisbury.anglican.org"

Any further questions let me know.

God Bless

Allana

Communications Team