Many of you will have heard that the time has come for Joy and me to move on. I have been asked to take charge of St Thomas' Church in Southborough, and I have accepted this new challenge.

My last service in St Augustine's will be on Sunday the fourth of May at 10.30am, and there will be a bit of a do in the Church Hall afterwards.
It would be good to see as many of you as can come at both the service and the party.

The last eight years have been a real mixture of highs and lows for me, Slade Green has never been an "easy" parish and I came with a great deal to learn about parish ministry and about myself. But together we have achieved many things,
and there will always be a very special place in my heart for you all.

But this is not the time or the place for speeches, and there is still plenty to be getting on with in the next couple of months. Easter is just around the corner and we shall celebrate it with our usual high spirits and before that there is the season of Lent and the opportunity it gives to look again at our faith and see if there are ways in which we can draw a little closer to our Lord.

And that opportunity is there for all of you.

I get a little peeved when I see banners proclaiming new "Community" Churches when in fact what they are trying to say is that they are not starchy and boring like the "old style" Churches.
Very often those "old fashioned" Churches have been faithfully serving their communities for generations; always ready to celebrate people's joys and shed a tear with their sadness, but they have tended to be a bit reluctant to tell all and sundry about it.

Perhaps it IS a bit old fashioned to want to let people's private lives remain private, but I still believe that if there is any singing and shouting to be done it is the people who should do it and not "The Church", however much we have done to make it possible.

Which brings me back to you.

I think that St Augustine's is one of the best kept secrets in the Borough - and I don't just mean the building! I don't think it's idle boasting to say that we have all grown hugely in recent years; in our faith, in our service to the community and in the welcome we offer to people of "all kinds and conditions".

I am confident that while we wait for God to present us with a new vicar the Church will go on doing what it has always done - serve the whole community of Slade Green. But maybe it should be a bit less secretive about it.

Maybe now IS the time for all good people to come to the aid of the party. Maybe now is the time for you to come and see what St Augustine's has to offer (if you don't know already) and to become part of it, and to go and tell others about it.

Easter is the greatest festival in the Church's year and that's because it reminds us of all that is at the heart of our Christian faith - as we say in one of my favourite prayers, "When we still far off God met us in His Son and brought us home."

It is a time to celebrate our history, and to draw strength from it to go boldly into our future. Not such a bad time for a change of vicars after all!

God bless you all. Alan
1st March 2003