Welcome to Lillington Free Church, your United Reformed Church in Leamington Spa

The word “Lent” originally meant “springtime”. Because the church season always fell at that time of year, the name came to apply to it as well. Even after the word “Lent” was no longer used for spring, it was still used by the church to describe the season before Easter.

Why Does Lent Last for 40 Days?

The early church celebrated Lent only for a few days before Easter. Over the centuries, the length of the season grew until it was several weeks long. In the seventh century, the church set the period of Lent at forty days (excluding Sundays) in order to remind people of the duration of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.

How Did the Tradition of “Giving Up Something for Lent” Get Started?

Lent began as a time of purification and preparation. In the early church, baptism was only performed on Easter Sunday. An entire year’s worth of converts to the faith would be baptized and brought into the church on that day. Lent was the time before Easter in which these converts would fast and pray, preparing themselves to be members of Christ’s church.

Over the centuries, the church began to baptize and confirm people on days other than Easter Sunday. Lent was no longer a time of preparation for these events, but it remained as a special time of prayer and fasting. After the Reformation, the discipline of fasting became unpopular. Thus, as a way of preserving Lent as a time of self-sacrifice, the church leaders encouraged people to give up something during Lent that they enjoyed.

What is Maundy Thursday?

Christians commemorate Jesus’ Last Supper, when he broke bread and gave the cup to his disciples, initiating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The word Maundy comes from the Latin word for commandment. At the Last Supper, Jesus said “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

What Does Lent Mean for Us Today?

Lent is the church season in which we prepare for Easter Sunday. It’s a special time of prayer and reflection, of confession and self-sacrifice. It’s a time to remember the humble thankfulness and sheer joy of Easter morning.

With love in Christ Jesus from your Elders

“Jesus is the same yesterday, today, forever” Hebrews 13:8

The World is Mine, and all its Fullness – Pslam 50:12

Read: James 4: 1-10

Dear Friends,

Before they were a week old, the eaglets were fighting over food. Neither was strong enough to hold up his head for more than a few seconds, so the pair looked like fuzz balls with bobble-heads attached. But whenever the parents brought food to the nest, the bigger eaglet was quick to peck down his brother to keep him from getting a single bite. His aggression would have been understandable if food was scarce, or if the parents couldn’t be trusted to supply what he needed. But nothing could be further from the truth. The eaglets were being fed fish many times their size; there was more than enough for both of them.

The greedy eaglet reminds us of our own foolishness when we try to get for ourselves something that belongs to someone else (James 4: 1-5). Conflicts erupt because we want something that God has given to a friend, colleague, relative or neighbour. Instead of asking God for what we need, we try to get what He’s given to someone else (v.2). But God has something good for each of us. We don’t need what belongs to anyone else and we certainly never need to harm anyone to get what we need.

Our loving heavenly Father has more than enough for everyone.

With love in Christ Jesus from your Elders

The secret of contentment is

To let the Lord supply;

Just do your part and put God first

And on His Word rely.

Our needs will never exhaust God’s supply

“Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” – Luke 5 v16

Dear Friends,

Have you read the Mr Men and Little Miss Books to your children or grandchildren? Little Miss Busy would get up at three o’clock in the morning to read her favourite book called ‘Work is Good for You.’ Then she refused to stop for a second until her bedtime at midnight. She was one of those people who didn’t know what to do with herself if she stopped working.

Are we like this? Do we get so caught up in our full diaries that we have little time to come to a place of inner quietness in which to spend time with God?

Jesus had regular times when He withdrew from the immediate and insistent claims on Him in order to be totally available to God. He welcomed a place of solitude so that He could spend time with God.

Both in our personal prayers and when we come together as a community we regularly say “Thy will be done.” But do we really mean this? In our own tradition, the Church meeting is the place where we come together to take time out to discern collectively the will of the Spirit. How often do we arrive at a Church meeting prepare to do this, and how often do we come with our desires and plans already sorted out and without real willingness to listen to the voice of God which might possibly be calling us in another direction?

Do you think it is possible for churches as well as individuals to have burn out? Maybe we can become so drained of energy and so starved of personal nourishment that we are tempted to abandon the journey altogether.

It is when we are feeling like this that we need to find a renewed source of energy from God. It is then that we need to turn to God in silence and stillness and prayer.

As we are now at the beginning of Lent, this is a good time to ask ourselves if we actually spend enough time in prayer. As it was so important to Jesus to pray to His Father, shouldn’t it also be as important to us?

With love in Christ from your Elders

As I write this, snow lies thick on the ground and wherever you go, talk is of the weather. Let’s hope that by the time you read this we will be able to say goodbye to it for another year. Whilst at its worst, people were having accidents – accidents walking, accidents driving: we have had them ourselves or nearly had them or we know someone who has.

During those weeks, some of us sat at home or at best went out very gingerly and then not far, or if we had work or caring duties we tried to carry on as normal, a bit like the person we know who set off home from work one teatime and finally arrived some miles away at 2am in the morning!

Perseverance and determination were the key with a bit of courage mixed in. Those qualities are important in our Christian understanding of life as well. At the end of the wonderful passage on the Christian armour (Ephesians 6) Paul reminds his readers that we have to ‘keep alert and never give up’. In the equally celebrated chapter on the resurrection from the dead (I Corinthians 15), the same writer exhorts the church at Corinth to ‘stand firm and steady,’ (verse 58, both quotes from the Good News Bible).

There is also an appropriate message for our church at this time. To ‘stand firm and keep steady’ is going ti be needed by all of us in the days and months ahead. We need to encourgae each other, support and work with our elders in all they do and as much as anything pray for our work.  Thank God, the God whose thoughts and ways are much higher than ours (as our reading of Isaiah 55 reminded us at a recent service) that He sees the bigger picture and knows the plans He has for us, even if we haven’t a clue or at best a dim idea of them. God bless us as we persevere with faith – He can do ‘exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or think.’

Dear Friends,

I would like first of all to thank you for the tremendous support you have given to me during the past seven years when I have had the privilege of being the Minister of Lillington Free Church. To be called in that way was something beyond my furthest dreams, an impossibility, except that with God nothing is impossible.

I was recently asked to speak at Thursday Fellowship and for quite a while I had no idea what I would say. One day, searching for something I had mislaid I came across a piece that I had written about 18 years ago after I had taken up the call to be the Lay Pastor in Long Itchington. I decided to share it with the members of Thursday Fellowship and now as my farewell to you have copied it for the Link. It is however too long for one Link so at Mike’s suggestion I have divided it into 3 episodes. There’s one good thing about doing that because if you are bored with Episode 1 you can do what most of us do with the television, switch off and not look at the rest.

I see the story as the way I became a Minister and was therefore able, eventually, to serve the Lord in that capacity at Lillington Free Church which has been my true spiritual home for over 40 years and the place where I gave my life completely to the Lord.

With love to you all in Christ Jesus,

Marion

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or nakedness or danger or sword?” Romans 8 v35

For one week in June, family, friends and colleagues were leaving messages on my house phone and getting no replies. For one week in June, family, friends and colleagues were sending emails to my computer and getting no replies!

I am sure they couldn’t understand why. All the signs of communication being open were there, so why no replies?

The voicemail said, “The person you are calling is not available, please leave your message after the tone, so they did. From my side of the phone and computer there was nothing! No dial tone; no internet connection; no ring tone; there was nothing!

Sometimes it seems that however hard we pray and however often we cry out to God we have no answer from Him.

IS THERE A FAULT ON THE LINE?

In Isaiah 59 it says, “your sins have separated you from God, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.”

It is an awful feeling when we seem to be separated from God, when we ask and ask and leave a message and there is no reply. A Psalm of Asaph begins, “O, God, do not keep silent, be not quiet, O, God, be not still…” and another,”Why have you rejected us forever, O God…”

ARE THERE FAULTS ON THE LINE, and do they really separate us from the love of God?

If they did, My Friends, we would be people without hope. Paul knew that there was an answer to the separation because he’d experienced it.

All that is needed is to be those who love God and have been called according to His purpose and then, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. JESUS HAS DEALT WITH THE FAULTS.

So persevere in prayer – don’t give up – leave your messages.

God isn’t like your computer server, He does hear your cry for help and He is there with his answer.

Every blessing in Jesus,

Marion

Title: Morning Worship
Location: Lillington Free Church
Description: Morning Worship led by Revd Vivian Lewis
Date: 2009-08-23