Community
The Shepperton News is published by St Nicholas Church every month.
It is delivered free to over 3,000 homes in Shepperton.
Items for publication should be e-mailed to the Editor or left at the Parish Office by the deadline, which is usually 15th of the previous month.
Regular features of Shepperton News are
- the Rector's letter
- the gardening column
- news from various organisations such as the Scouts and the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
- There are also details of forth-coming events whether in the church or the village.
- The small advertisements are very popular bringing together clients and providers of an astonishing variety of services.
This is part of your village life - would you like to help?
APRIL
Shelter from the Storm
Many church buildings are built in the shape of the cross. It’s a symbolic thing, the people of God are held together in this space by the great sign of God’s love and commitment to humanity. Because we are still a church that is open during the day this place of sanctuary and Love’s holding is also public space, and people use it a lot. Coming and going you meet people sitting quietly, find candles lit on the stand and read prayers pinned to the board beside it.
It’s a place where prayer has gone on, “been valid”, for maybe more than a thousand years. It’s a place where you don’t need to bring words or understandings, just the desires and concerns of the heart; and in the very shape of the building you are held by the presence of the crucified God who knows what life can be like. It’s a place that does not belong just to the rector or the religious ones; it is “the parish church” for all who live here and who feel the desire to visit it.
Last October we discovered that one of the arms of the cross that makes up the building of St. Nicholas is falling down. It’s the one on the side of the church nearest to the river, the one which the guide books call the “south transept”. Quite simply the three walls are parting company with the roof. It isn’t dangerous yet but given a few years it will be, so we need to do something about it. This will involve stripping the tiles off this part of the roof to get at the place where we can create a tie between the walls and the roof, which is quite a big job.
It’s in the way of historic churches that they do this to you from time to time, but it’s always a pain when they do. At present we have no firm estimate for the costs of the work, but overall with other necessary works we are certainly looking at something in excess of £100,000, possibly nearer £200,000. Because we are the Church of England, the “established” national church, people often assume – and you hear this frequently – that the church is rich and has the backing of the state to support it financially. It can be hard to undo this impression, frustratingly so because the truth is that the Church of England is rapidly running out of money.
Although we are the national church, established by law with the Queen as supreme governor, we receive far less support from the nation than in countries that have a much stronger separation between church and state. In Germany and in some of the Scandinavian countries the church is supported out of the system of taxation. In republican France if a church building is earlier than the beginning of the twentieth century then the government pays towards the upkeep of its external maintenance. In England there is no such help. There are trusts to which churches can apply – such as English heritage and the like – but with no guaranteed promise of success.
When it comes to day to day running of the church the expense is carried entirely by the people who make up the regular congregation. When it’s a matter of keeping up the building the same thing applies in the first case. Yet this is not a building that is just for the congregation alone; if you live in the parish of Shepperton you have the right to be married in the church, to ask for baptism for your children and to call on the help of the church at the time of a death. One of the strange but enormous privileges of working in St. Nicholas is how often people come here at the time of the death of a loved one. I’ve never known a church to have so many “church”, as opposed to crematorium, funeral services.
Later this year we’ll be launching “Shelter from the Storm”, a request for help from the wider community to enable us keep St. Nicholas in good working order. We want to maintain this as a place shaped in the sign of God’s love for the world, and to which people can come when love and hope seem under threat, or when new life and love want celebrating; a place where it may be possible to begin to find a way to a deeper love than sometimes seems possible. This is your parish church, a place for searching out wisdom in the mystery of things. It’s a precious place
and it needs your love and support.
Yours ever,
Chris Swift