Sunday 29th April - Easter 4
10.30 United Benefice Holy Communion, St Andrew’s, Buckland

Monday 30th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway

Tuesday 1st May
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway

Wednesday 2nd May
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
7.45 p.m. Reed VCC, Queenbury, Reed

Thursday 3 May
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Mary’s, Reed
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Friday 4th May
 
Saturday 5th May
9.00 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 6th May - Easter 5
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion (said), St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Comunion + Junior Church, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Tuesday 8th May
7.00 p.m. Barley PCC preceded with Holy Communion, The Manor, Barley

Wednesday 9th May
7.30 p.m. Barley VC First School Governors Meeting

Saturday 12th May
All day  Barkway Street Market
All day  Exploring Prayer Day, Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban

Sunday 13th May - Easter 6
10.30 United Benefice Sung Eucharist with baptism, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Monday 14th May
7.00 p.m. Church Times study group, Mount House, Barley

Wednesday 16th May
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, High Bank, Reed

Thursday 17th May - Ascension Day
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Saturday 19th May
10.00 a.m. Coffee Morning for St Mary’s, Reed, Queenbury, Reed

Sunday 20th May - Easter 7
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
3.00 p.m. Stewardship Celebration service and cream tea, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Monday 21st May
10.00 a.m. Multi-parish Benefice Consultation, Ware
8.00 p.m. Barkway VA School Governors’ Meeting

Tuesday 22nd May
12 noon Deanery Chapter, The Rectory

Wednesday 23rd May
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, Westfields, Barley

Sunday 27th May - Pentecost
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion + Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Acts 9.36-43; Revelation 7. 9-17; John 10.22-30

I’m going to give you a minute or so to think about how you would describe yourself, if I asked you to tell me what sort of person you were.

THINKING TIME

I wonder what kind of things you’ve come up with.

Are you a person who sees yourself in terms of your good qualities? Perhaps you think you’re friendly or kind. Maybe you’re a person who thinks one of your better qualities is the ability to be organised or innovative. Are you a good listener or a creative person?

Or perhaps you’re a person who doesn’t have much confidence in your good qualities - and don’t forget we all have good qualities - and who ends up defining yourself by things you’re not so good at - perhaps you see yourself as someone who’s negative or grumpy, someone who has a bad temper, or who is always late for everything. Maybe you feel you don’t have any talents or are not worth much at all.

Or perhaps you’re a person who defines yourself in terms of the role that you have - a nurse or banker, a retired teacher or lawyer. Maybe you see yourself not in terms of paid work but in terms of relationships - a mother, brother, daughter, uncle, friend.

If we stop and think, there are many ways in which we can define who we are.

Who we are often depends on where we are. In a family, we might be, as I am, a daughter, sister and niece.
If we’re at work, we might be head of department or employee. If we think about how we relate to others, we might think about our interior qualities - kindness and so on.

I expect most of us don’t spend much time thinking about who we are, and where our identity comes from. And that relates to our Christian life too.

If I were to change my opening question slightly and ask you to think of who you were in terms of the church, I wonder what you would say. Would you put yourself at the heart of it - perhaps you’re a churchwarden or church council member. Maybe you’re on the flower rota, perhaps you read a lesson.

Or maybe you’re someone who doesn’t have an active role within the church but who comes faithfully to worship Sunday by Sunday.

Or perhaps you’re someone who comes occasionally, and feels a bit on the edge of things, not quite wanting to make a bigger commitment, or struggling to make time for it.

Each one of us here, though we may or may not be aware of it, has an identity within the Church, as well as within the world outside or our family.

Some of us will know very well where our place within the Church is. We will have a sense of our ministry, or our vocation within church life. But many of us will not know where exactly we fit.

The danger with that response is that we stay on the edge and we don’t ever follow our true calling. When we were baptised, we became part of the family of the Church. In a family everyone has their own special place and their own contribution to make. The church is no different. We are a family and we all have a part to play in the life of that family.

We could compare it to a football team. In a football team, everyone is part of the team, everyone’s job is to play football to the best of their ability. However, within the team, each player has a particular role to play - be it a striker, defender or goalie.

I went to a concert in London on Friday night. It’s a bit like an orchestra. Everyone is part of the orchestra but each player has his or her own part. If the cymbals come in at the wrong point, the music is diminished.

What stops us following our calling and living out our baptism as part of Christian life?

Sometimes it’s our lack of willingness to be committed that is the problem. If that’s the case for you, all I can do is encourage you to think about why you are avoiding that commitment. It maybe for a very good reason - perhaps you are struggling with health problems or looking after someone else. But often it’s down to our laziness or our unwillingness to give God the priority position in our life.

Let me ask you whose voice you are following? Jesus’s words remind us that his disciples follow his voice, not the voice of peer pressure or overwork, not the voice of politics or our secular culture, not the voice of advertising or those who want to influence us. A disciple is someone who follows the voice of Jesus.

In the time of Jesus, shepherds often shared pens to keep their sheep safe at night. The following morning, a shepherd could use his own special call and his sheep would be able to distinguish him from the other shepherds through his particular call.

That makes sense of what Jesus says: my sheep hear my voice. I know them, they follow me.

I’m sure we’ve all known those times were the phone goes, there’s someone at the door, the children are shouting for attention, the dog’s just been sick and we’re exhausted - those times where there seem to so many voices demanding our attention. Our world can be a bit like that too. The voices of the world can drown out the voice of Jesus, so it’s important that we stay attuned to it.

Our faith itself is a response to God’s calling of us as his children. And God continually calls us to develop a deeper relationship with him. That requires the discipline of prayer and reflection, of time given over to that relationship.

But God also calls us to specific tasks and ministries. God longs for us to seek out our calling within the church. It might be a calling as an ordained minister, or a Reader or leading our prayers. It might be a calling as a listener, a pray-er, a prophet.

Today is Vocations Sunday. It’s a day when the church asks each and every Christian to consider their role and calling within its life. It’s a day when we are asked to take time to reflect on what God might be calling us to do within the church.

There is a calling for everyone, if we are prepared to take time to find out what it is. And, don’t let feelings of unworthiness pull you away from God’s calling. God doesn’t wait for us to be perfect or super-spiritual before he calls us. If that were the case, there would be very few clergy in the C of E, or Readers or churchwardens.

God calls us as we are. Each of us is unique, a wonderful creation of God. If God has called you to something, then God will also provide for you all you need to enable that calling to be lived out. Feelings of inadequacy are very common, but nothing would ever happen in the Church, if we waited until we were worthy enough.

Everyone who answers God’s calling is unworthy, for we have all sinned and we all fall short of God’s glory. But, the grace of God is such that our unworthiness does not preclude us from serving God.

Jesus calls those who are willing not those who are ready. Through our responding to the call, we are changed and grow and develop. We will gain confidence in God and in the task we have been called to. But that will never happen if we don’t take that first step.

Think of the responses of some of those called in the Bible. Moses who said he didn’t know how to speak - so God gave him Aaron to do the speaking for him. Isaiah, who claimed he was a man of unclean lips - so God cleansed him. Jeremiah, who claimed he was too young and didn’t know how to talk because of his youth - so God touched his mouth and gave him the words to speak.

The Bible is full of people who heard the calling of God and responded. The New Testament is full of those who heard the Shepherd calling their name and who responded.

So I’d like to issue a challenge this morning to all of you, at whatever stage of faith you are. I issue the challenge to each one of you, to take time to stop and pray, to listen to the voice of the Shepherd calling you, one of his sheep, calling you to put aside the things that prevent you responding to that call - whether it’s laziness or busyness or fearfulness or a sense of unworthiness - listen to the vice of the Shepherd calling you to serve him in the Church.

The Church of England needs more clergy, it needs more Readers, but it also needs more intercessors and pray-ers, more prophets and healers, more people willing to take that first step of response to God.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.

Will you listen to the call and respond?

God’s Church needs you.