A special welcome to visitors; if you’re on holiday we pray you may have a great time; please pass our greetings to your home church.
If you’re new and considering making all saints Lindfield your regular place of worship then please complete one of the welcome cards found in the pews in church and hand it in to one of the sidespersons on leaving.

Summer Sermon Series:
9:30am - Mission rescue!
11:15am - Why I am an evangelical
6:30pm: Psalms for the Summer

we have no time to stand and stare . . .

Although the poem ‘Leisure’ (from which the quotation comes) was written in 1910 by the Welsh poet W. H. Davies, it is as pertinent a question now as it ever was, not least as we look forward to the summer break.

I am sure that in all our busyness we often ask ‘What is life all about?’ ‘Why are we here?’ ‘Is this it?’ It’s sometimes difficult to keep life in perspective. So much of it is about ‘achieving’ instead of enjoying. How often do we ‘pause and smell the roses’. Much energy is spent on saving time. To do what? To allow time to smell the roses? Or to save time in order to cram in more activity.

August is a time to pause, and, yes, perhaps to smell the roses.
One day, on my commute to London, opposite me was a mother and her child. The child was very subdued (probably because she was up so early!) and the mother was being very attentive to her. At one point she put the child on her knee and turned to the window, and said, ‘Oh look, the sun has come up and we weren’t watching . . .’ Suddenly that one phrase summed it all up for me . . . the sun had come up and we were not watching. That quite ordinary scene beyond the railway track ceased to be yet another sunrise. Maybe you have had such experiences when suddenly you become aware that there is more to life than your present activity.

August is a time to pause and to wonder. The August break is there to give us time to be refreshed, to smell the roses, yes, and to stand and stare. We all need a physical break. But we also need time to be refreshed spiritually too.

The Psalms often take the witness of creation to speak of God’s love. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us more awake and aware of our life in Jesus and to lead us in fresh discovery and in a fresh response.
It’s the Spirit’s work to make the connections, through Jesus, between God and ourselves, drawing our attention to this, to that, opening our eyes. Isaiah 11:2 called this ‘the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and knowledge’.

Jesus said, ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance.’

Maybe the Sun/Son has risen for you, but are we in danger of missing the dawn?
This August let us hear the still small voice and see that slender shaft of light . . . and wonder.
There are God given moments in every life when something strangely beautiful claims our attention and demands that we stand and stare.

Let us pray for one another this August, have a great summer.

Alan Tuddenham

I have reliably been informed by the Editor that this is my last ASN front page article.  Ah, how all good things come to an end! 

As we near our time of leaving All Saints, I’ve found my thoughts turning to Paul’s words to the church in Philippi.  While in no way do I compare myself with Paul, nevertheless, his words resonate with the way I feel about you all, my church family, as I look back over four special years.

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partner-ship in the gospel from the first day until now... Philippians 1:3-4 (NIV)

It has really been a privilege to have served alongside you all and been in partnership with you in the work of the Lord. 

I’ve learnt many things while at All Saints, but one of the key lessons has been the importance of working together, of being partners together in the work of the gospel.  And it’s through serving alongside fellow Christians, in the power of God’s Spirit, with one common purpose of building Christ’s kingdom, that relationships grow and develop and affections form. 

You have all become very dear to us as a family and we would like to take this opportunity of saying thank you for sharing your lives with us and letting us share our lives with you in the service of Christ. Thank you for all the warmth, encouragement and support that you have given to us as a family.  

We will all look back at our years here with great fondness and with gratitude to the Lord. 

And it’s of great joy to us to know that we will not be too far away from you in Horam, and that we will still continue to be partners together with you in the work of the gospel in Mid Sussex through our shared involvement in the Sussex Gospel Partnership.

With much love,

PJ

We wanted to take this opportunity to offer heartfelt thanks to you all. We have been wonderfully welcomed to All Saints, not just in the last week, but over the past 12 months . . .

-The requests for prayer

-The Facebook messages

-The hard work on the house

-The cupboards and fridge filled with goodies

-The meals for the family while I was on Retreat

-Some friendly faces at the ordination service

-The invites to meals, offers of babysitting, notifications of what’s happening and when

-The warmth of your welcome at our first few services

-Your graciousness in letting us keep getting names wrong

I could go on, and there are more names than we could possibly thank individually, but THANK YOU!

Your kindness has sparked two quick thoughts in our minds...

Firstly, the All Saints family have delightfully taken Jesus seriously, when he says, ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another . . . by this all people will know that you are my disciples’ (John 13.34-35). As we mention to not-yet-believing friends, at how we’ve been cared for amid a busy relocation, ‘wow’ is a standard response! 

Secondly, as we became increasingly aware of how unsettling moving can be, a friend reminded us that our Lord Jesus was no stranger to moving himself! From the ultimate comfort of heaven, to a manger in a stable; from there his family fled to Egypt before returning to Israel once it was safe; his public ministry provided him little opportunity to settle anywhere and get cosy; his final move to Jerusalem was to take up the cross where he moved into ‘our shoes’ and bore the sin we deserved, before ultimately being raised from death to life. ‘So’ said my friend, ‘we have a saviour who knows all about moving!’

Our move has been made so much easier, thanks to your love and support, but also the reminder that Jesus is in the business of moving, and that ultimately his death on the cross, moves those who believe from death to life! We look forward to getting to know you all better, as we grow in our love for such a Saviour.      

Adam Pymble