PARISH MISSION – OCTOBER 4TH – 11TH

Join us for worship at our 9:30am Parish Mass.

People of all ages and backgrounds come to our services at Holy Trinity in Ramsgate and are involved in its life. Some people may be a lot like you; others are not! We do not all agree about everything, especially about church and Christianity, but we attempt each day to accept each other lovingly as fellow travellers.

WHY DO PEOPLE COME TO HTR?

We have all sorts of reasons for going to church – music, friendship, enlightenment, comfort – but basically life and the Christian faith are too difficult to do alone. Since New Testament times, Christians have gathered to share worship, prayer, fellowship, and communion just as Jesus did with his friends and followers.

At HTR we all do our best to grow in our relationship with God through Jesus. At the same time, we share with each other a great desire and need to:

WORSHIP GOD TOGETHER

Worship God together, in times of doubt and confidence

EXPLORE OUR FAITH

Explore our faith seriously together, through study and prayer

SUPPORT AND HELP

Support and help each other in our faith and lives

LIVE OUT OUR FAITH IN OUR LIVES

Live out our faith in our lives by serving each other, our community, and the world

At HTR we try extremely hard to welcome everyone. We know that we all have doubts, we are all vulnerable or imperfect, or are just simply searching. God loves each of us and wants us to know Him and become more like Jesus. But we know we need help and love from God and each other to do this, so we strive to be a welcoming Christian community.

HOW CAN CHURCH HELP ME?

Church is about so much more than a service on Sunday morning. Together we can explore how Christian faith affects our whole life and find the strength for the whole of life through our relationship with God and with one another. HTR is a place to stop and reflect, to pray, to share and to find inspiration.

Church does not magic away the problems and pain of our lives (or make us perfect!) It does provide support and comfort through friendship, prayer, shared worship, and private reflection as well as practical help and guidance.

It assures you that you are not on your own in life, whether that be at moments of celebration, or times of confusion and darkness – God is always with you.

As your parish priest, I believe that God wants us to evaluate ourselves by how deep and strong our faith is. He does not evaluate our spiritual condition by looking at how we appear on the surface. The depth of our faith determines how much of a difference we can make in the lives of those around us.

For us to deepen our faith, we must first be willing to deepen our understanding.

God is so vast. We can never fully understand everything about him. If we did, then perhaps he would not be God.

Instead we gaze into the mystery and try to uncover the clues. Christians often start by looking to Jesus, described in the Bible as ‘the image of the unseen God’. Perhaps you have questions around proof or suffering or doubt. We should not be afraid to question. The writer of the Bible book Proverbs says, ‘An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.’ Or maybe you are at a place where you have chosen to follow Jesus and want to know how to start your own exciting journey.

The purpose of this simple and short Parish Mission at HTR is to raise the question of why we bother to come to Church week by week. For some us it is a lifelong habit, but that does not automatically mean we have grown deeper in our relationship with God. Some of us might be lonely, and so Church fills a gap in our social life. Some maybe here to get our kids into a Church School, so we must be here!

None of these things are right or wrong, they just are! So, the question that comes next is what we do about it. Does anything that you have seen or witnessed in Church make a difference? If so, what can we do about that. If we had not been facing the Covid-19 crisis, my aim was to increase the opportunities for learning and going deeper into our faith. Our Lent course at the beginning of the year was very well attended, using the film,”Chocolat” as the basis for discussion and study. Some people have asked for Bible study, and others have attended a lively Confirmation course as either new members or as a refresher course. Debate was lively and full on in many sessions.

As your priest, I want everyone who attends HTR to have a good experience of Church, to grow and develop in their faith, but above all to know God in Jesus Christ in a relationship that can be life changing. In the 34 years I have been in ministry, here in the UK and the USA, I have seen for myself the amazing change that faith and spirituality make in a person’s life.

Finally, we need a starting point, no matter how long we have been part of the Church or how new we are. As Anglican Christians we believe in a loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe in following the teachings of Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection saved the world.

We are part of the universal Church with some 2.3 billion members and of the worldwide Anglican Communion with some 85 million members.

We strive to love our neighbours as ourselves and respect the dignity of every person. We have a legacy of inclusion, aspiring to tell and exemplify God’s love for every human being. Laypeople and clergy cooperate as leaders at all levels of our church because leadership is a gift from God.

We believe that God loves us – no exceptions. Do you want to go deeper in your faith?

Fr Paul