08/09/2026
MESSAGE OF THE WEEK — Mission
Kate Compston's hymn doesn't describe the church as it is. It dreams of one that keeps company with God — not standing at a polite distance, but joining in.
A church that laughs when God laughs, delighting in a world still growing and still risky.
A church that weeps where God weeps, sitting down beside the cold and the hopeless rather than stepping around them.
A church that dances where God moves — willing to look a little undignified for the sake of joy.
A church that loves where God loves, reaching for the lost and the unlovely, and then shouldering the cost of it.
That is what mission means. Not a project we run, but God's own life, already underway, and an invitation to come along. The question was never whether God is at work in Bideford this week. It's whether we'll join in.
Compston ends with an image worth carrying through the week: a church called to be "lioness of your justice, and lamb of your peace."
A PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Living God,
you laugh, you weep, you dance, you love —
and still you call us to come with you.
Loosen what has gone stiff in us.
Warm what has gone cold.
Give us courage for the doors we would rather not knock on,
and gentleness for the people we find hardest to love.
Make us a church that joins in:
fierce for your justice, tender for your peace,
glad to be found at your side.
Amen.
Our Sunday service, The All Age, begins at 10.30am, with coffee beforehand. Whoever you are, you're welcome here.
