Serving God in
the heart of our community since 1881
St
Andrew's Church, Taunton
We welcome you to our website
"
St.
Andrew's is a community of celebration and of hope"
This is how o
ne
of our church members recently described St Andrew's, and
our aim is for this website to capture that spirit online -
our faith, our worship, our people, and our community. We
hope that you will enjoy looking around, and will come back
often, as the site is updated every week.
Our church is first of all a spiritual
centre, a place where people can find God, be nourished in
their spiritual journey, and grow in their life of faith. If
you could come along to one of our services your presence
would be a joy to us and to God.
If you have any questions or
suggestions please do contact us using the 'Get in Touch'
button. You will find all of our contact details
there, including access to a location map. We also love to
know a little more about our web guests, and would really
appreciate it if you could take a moment to sign our
Visitors' Book.
Again, welcome and thank you for visiting our
site.
The first Lambeth Conference, in
1867, took place at a time of controversy in the Anglican
Communion. John Colenso, Bishop of Natal and a distinguished
mathematician, had been deposed by Robert Gray, Bishop of Cape
Town, on account of his liberal views on such matters as
polygamy (if a man had several wives before he became a
Christian, should he be told that he can only keep one when he
converted to Christianity or should he be allowed to keep them
all?). He also objected the doctrine of the eternal punishment
of the non-believer and held other views that were considered
heretical. Colenso appealed against his dismissal to the Privy
Council and they upheld his appeal for technical reasons. Bishop
Gray publicly excommunicated him and appointed another bishop
with authority over practically the same diocese.
Against this background, Samuel
John Stone, wrote the hymn ‘The Church’s one foundation’. The
third verse was particularly apt then – and now:
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are
keeping,
Their cry goes up, ‘How
long?’
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.
As a footnote, it is curious to
see that some modern hymn books include the hymn but omit this
verse. Presumably their compilers reckon that we don’t have any
schisms these days.
Then Jesus entered the temple and
drove out all who were selling and
buying in the temple, and he
overturned the tables of the
money-changers and the seats of
those who sold doves. He said to
them, ‘It is written,
“My house shall be called a house
of prayer”;
but you are making it a den
of robbers.’
The blind and the lame came to him
in the temple, and he cured them.
But when the chief priests and the
scribes saw the amazing things that
he did, and heard the children
crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna
to the Son of David’, they became
angry and said to him, ‘Do you hear
what these are saying?’ Jesus said
to them, ‘Yes; have you never read,
“Out of the mouths of infants and
nursing babies
you have prepared praise for
yourself”?’
Quote of the Week
“Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the
dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.”
From “Reaching Out” by Henri Nouwen, which is available in
the Parish Library.
See previous weeks'
editions of our
Homepage
See previous weeks'
editions of our
Colour Supplement
FWIW Archive -
Musings of our
webmaster
Visit the homepage
of Henry's Goat
Features for
the week of
6 July 2008
NEW!
Colour Supplement
Ordinary Time
A letter from Jim Cox
Vicar of St. Andrew's Church
NEW! FWIW -
Come dine with me:
more musings from
webmaster Adrian Smith
Colour Supplement
To travel, or not?
by Jeremy Harvey
Reader at St. Andrew's
Colour Supplement
The body in the library
by Ben Care of LICC
Bible readings
for Sundays in July
are now online
Come to
Church Mice:
the group for toddlers
and grown-ups!
Page updated
12/07/2008
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