This months Chaplain’s Letter is written by the Rev Grant Crowe, Amersfoort & Zwolle Chaplain Anglican Bishop (recently deceased) Michael Perham said: “It sometimes seems that in the Church of England we find it easier to sustain the austere discipline of Lenten liturgy than we do to sustain for fifty days a period of joy and celebration that ought to thrill and excite. … Eastertide is one long sustained season of praise. Easter Day begins a period of unparalleled joy and celebration in the Christian year which extends through fifty days until the day of Pentecost.” (Michael Perham writing in 2000). The Easter season is “one long sustained season of praise.” When reflecting on those words, my mind went to the great scenes in Revelation chapters four and five. John is given a vision and sees the heavenly throne room and those around it and the sounds and words he hears within it. He receives his vision on the Lord’s Day – the main day of worship in the early church. These are wonderful and inspiring chapters, and worth reading aloud before attending our Sunday act of worship! John sees the creatures around the throne – who never cease from their doxology of praise. In the first song, three aspects of God are focused upon. His holiness is praised in words like in Isaiah 6. The basic idea of holiness is that of difference, of being other, of being separate. God is different and that moves us to prayer, to adoration, to praise. As William Barclay wrote “The very mystery of God, the very difference of God, moves us to awed admiration in his presence, and to amazed love that that greatness should stoop so low for us men and women and for our salvation.” The Cross where God stooped so low – as we contemplate, as we take the bread and wine – as we hear the sanctus, throws fuel on our fire of praise…. The creatures praise his omnipotence – the Lord, the Almighty.
As you know, since All Saints formally began on 20th December 2015, Heilige Geest Kerk – a Roman Catholic church building no longer used for Sunday Mass – has been our home. We have found the building a wonderful place to use with its facilities, spaces for socialising, and for children’s work. We have also shared the Sunday use of the building with a small Ethiopian Orthodox Community. The Roman Catholic authorities have agreed a sale of the building to a property developer. We understood the sale was to be completed by May 1st. So we have been, as many know, been looking for a suitable new building – Patrick Elenbaas, Lodewijk Westerbeek van Eerten, Peter Gillies and Stefan van der Knapp are particularly working upon our need. But it has been a search which has not been successful to this point. However, very recently we have heard from the Roman Catholic Council for Amersfoort (OLVA) that the sale has been delayed with agreement of the Council, the property developer and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, until November 1st this year. We thank God for his provision. We are thankful for the many people who have been praying: within the deanery of the Netherlands, supporters of ICS and many individuals in different countries. We thank also people in this chaplaincy who have been praying with us and for us. We would continue to ask your prayers as we continue to seek the building God has prepared for us - it may be a church or another religious place, or it may be a secular setting, such a community centre or a school. But we believe and trust he, our Lord, will provide. Revd Grant Crowe
Kindervraag Het kind in de bus op schoot bij haar vader met ogen vol vragen ontleedde de tijd uit een wirwar van woorden ontsnapte haar vraag: was ik óók klein toen jij klein was – hij knikte liet heel haar tijdloze droom en ik – het kind met míjn vraag in haar ogen raakte even het eeuwige aan en antwoordde mij A question The child in the bus on her father’s lap with her eyes full of questions dissecting time from a tangle of words a question escaped when you were little was I also little? He nodded her timeless dream remained and me the child with my question in her eyes that for a moment touched infinity and gave me the answer
A survey course introducing our Church, offered in the Chaplaincy in Utrecht and Amersfoort, AD 2016-2017 September 20 – History / Current Structures October 18 – Approach to the Old Testament November 15 – Approach to the New Testament January 17 – Worshipping the Lord February 21 – Hymnody March 21 – Approach to Ethics May 16 – Parish Mission June 20 – Anglicanism and Islam
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”?* My heart swelled. My eyes filled with tears at the thought of God’s graciousness. That He should care for something so trivial and insignificant as my soup spoon prayer astounded me! I don’t suggest with this example that God is a “sugar daddy” in the sky or a Cosmic Santa catering to our every whim. I believe God intended this experience as an exercise in Faith building. If He can provide a soup spoon for me—even when I’ve cogitated, debated and still made a decision which I later regretted—how much more will He hear my requests for the larger issues in life? If He can affect such a small decision, how much more the greater decisions of life, with far weightier consequences? Matthew 7:7 goes even further*. We are instructed to ask, seek, and knock. Ask and it will be given. Seek and we will find. Knock and doors shall open. We are shown that everyone who asks, receives. These are emphatic statements. It is we who determine that the prayer is too small; the item or thing too insignificant before God. It is we who set limits and believe God could not, would not, give us that which we seek. But what happens when we ask for healing, for deliverance from life’s evils and hear nothing, receive nothing? Or so it appears. This is a theologically difficult issue which needs further exploration. We know, however, that we are never separated from God’s love for us, His concern for our lives, no matter what. This is the promise of Romans 8:37. * I return often to the Souper Soup Spoon incident—to this example of God’s love towards me—precisely because it is so ‘insignificant’. If God hears AND answers prayer for a soup spoon, why should I doubt his concern for the larger issues in my life? Will He not hear and answer prayer for far greater things, the weight of which is often difficult to bear? In times of doubt, wondering about life and decisions, we can trust in God’s infinite love and grace. He wants to give ‘good gifts’ to His children: Just remember the soup spoon! *Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1984, by International Bible Society. Used by permission of International Bible Society.