Have you been baptized? That’s a question Bishop Michael doesn’t want us to ask. Strange? Strange, especially, that a bishop of all people should assert such a thing? Perhaps, but not when you realize that he wants us to ask not, ‘Have you been baptized?’ but, ‘Are you baptized?’ He wants us to think about our baptism as something that we continue to live in the present. When we ask the question as if it relates only to a past event, it immediately conveys the sense that it’s something that can be forgotten about, put away in a mental drawer somewhere, and not thought about very much ever again. If, however, we think of it in terms of an ongoing event and experience, it makes all the difference in the world. Not only does it bring it to life for us; it challenges us to see our whole life as Christians in terms of baptism.

It’s good to able to report some really good things. First, the Lent lunches raised nearly £600 for the Bishop’s Lent Appeal. I should like to thank all those who supported these during Lent. Second, the new-look informal Eucharist, which was piloted on Mothering Sunday, was deemed by all to be a resounding success. We had a large number of young families with children present and the whole service lasted just fifty minutes. It was a very buoyant and celebratory occasion. The next such service will be on Sunday 3rd June, celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Third, although the audience was not very large, Neville Boundy’s play, Father and son, Son and Father, performed in the Parish Church on Sunday 25th March, was extremely moving and much appreciated by those who attended.