A Special Mothering Sunday Service

Mother's Day, Mission in Britain” has a very large compass and I could tell you of the work of Chaplains in prisons, hospitals, schools and Universities or in the Armed Forces, amongst other things but, for the ‘Mission in Britain’ service on Mothering Sunday and in this church’s Centenary Year, I want to speak about ‘Home’”, declared the visiting preacher, the Revd Dr Mark Wakelin, at Caversham Heights Methodist Church on Sunday, March 22. Mark is the Methodist Connexional Team Secretary for Internal Relationships(formerly known as ‘Home Missions’).


This is the Revd Dr Mark Wakelin, Methodist Connexional Team Secretary for Internal
Relationships, at Caversham Heights Methodist Church to celebrate the church's centenary year. On the Communion Table behind him is the special candle presented the previous Sunday by the President of the Methodist Church of Great Britain to unite all the churches he will have visited in his year as President. In the foreground is the basket of Mothering Sunday posies that were later presented by children to all the ladies in the congregation.

Dr Wakelin continued, “On Mothering Sunday, we return to the church where we were nurtured in the faith and celebrate all that that church means to us. It is our spiritual home and we give thanks for it. Today has also come to be known (thanks to the greetings card companies) as Mother’s Day and so it is important to emphasise the importance of home and the Mother in the family and in bringing children to faith.

“If you dig down deep enough inside each one of us here, you will find something very beautiful, because each one of us – every person everywhere – is made in the image of God and capable of showing His likeness to the world about us. As we follow Jesus and grow closer to Him, we will be able to show and spread His love wherever we go. The central message of Christ’s Gospel is Love – God’s love for us -and I sense a feeling of excitement in the whole Methodist Church that is about to explode in a new way in our country.”

Dr Wakelin with church stewards, Jim and Daphne Phillips

Early Centenary Highlights

We are only midway into the third month of the centenary year of
Caversham Heights Methodist Church but already we have had a number of exciting events, with many more still to come. Many of us are eagerly looking forward to the visit to our evening service this coming Sunday of this year's President of Conference, the Revd Stephen J. Poxon,



who will be accompnaied by the Chair of the District, the Revd Dr Andrew Wood, since this is part of the President's visit to the Southampton District. We are catering for about 200 people because it will be a Circuit Service and, since we are the host church, I am hoping that a good number of our folk will turn out to hear the President even though a number of them feel very strongly that evening services should be abolished as out of date!

Then on Thursday (the 19th) we have our third visit of the Riding Lights Theatre Company. It is 5 years since they last came to Caversham and so we are expectanrly awaiting their new production 'REDEMPTION SONG'. I will write more about this in my next post.

Three days later, on Sunday (the 22nd) we have another visiting preacher for our annual Mission in Britain Service. This time we will welcome the Revd Dr Mark Wakelin whom many will remember in the days when he was head of MAYC (Methodist Association of Youth Clubs). Mark is now one of the Connexional Team Secretaries and his brief is Internal Relationships, so we look to him to point the way forward as we serve Christ in this community in the 21st Century.