August Parish Magazine Article

Simon Harvey writes,

In the summer and autumn of 1982, when Survivor's Eye of the Tiger topped the UK charts and the first CD player was sold to the public, the building of the new church of St Paul in Hamble Road was completed. We're about to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of St Paul's as a place of Christian worship and service to the people of Oadby.

We're going to celebrate the occasion with a community event on Hamble Green on 15 September, and a special service on 16 September. Please look out for the publicity which will begin to appear shortly.

As a relative newcomer, I am enormously grateful for the vision and hard work of those people who enabled those original plans for a church to become a reality. Many current members of the congregations at St Peter's and at St Paul's will remember those early days. And many more have joined us over the years and made their contribution to the flourishing of the Christian community.

Twenty-five years is long enough to notice some really big changes in society, and in the locality, as well as in the way we 'do church'. It's a period which roughly corresponds to the length of a human generation, which has real personal significance of most of us. In that time children become parents, parents become grandparents, those in school develop their careers and those in mid-career reach retirement.

The increasing pace of life means that sometimes it's hard for one generation to understand another, and we certainly experience the challenge of keeping church inter-generational. It would be easy to develop programmes that cater for the generations apart, but my vision for a healthy, flourishing Christian community is one in which the generations cherish and value each other, realising that church for one generation only is less than authentic.

Scripture recognises that generations need each other, and sometimes need to be interpreted to each other. God's house, whether it be the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, or St Paul's or St Peter's, must be a place where the Lord ministers to all generations alike – a place of gladness, joy, thanksgiving and praise, where his steadfast love is discerned and celebrated.

Psalm 100 expresses this succinctly:

O be joyful in the Lord, all the earth;

serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song.

Know that the Lord is God; it is he that has made us and we are his;

we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise

give thanks to him and bless his name.

For the Lord is gracious; his steadfast love is everlasting,

and his faithfulness endures from generation to generation.

I hope and trust that whether we're from the pre-war generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X or the Internet Generation, we'll continue to find and celebrate the love of God within our churches and communities, so that the next generation will take our place in worship, service and ministry.