Announcements

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From the Rector: Tuesday 12th May 2026

Have no anxiety Dear friends, Back in the late 1970’s, when a serious international oil crisis had sent inflation spiralling, and the resultant wage demands from many different sectors threw Britain into a carnage of industrial actions, pitting successive governments against one trade union after another, when the Soviet moles inside our security services had not all been exposed, and when the…

From the Rector: Tuesday 5th May 2026

Paranoid Android Dear friends AI makes mistakes. Then again, so do doctors, lawyers, politicians, clergy, teachers, soldiers and policemen. So do journalists, commentators, news editors, influencers and advertisers. Who can you trust these days? Wherein lies the truth? Where do you turn? The world is changing faster than we can comprehend it. The AI revolution is set to be a “bigger thing”…

From the Rector: Tuesday 28th April 2026

The Bishop’s Bicentenary Dear friends Bishop Shute Barrington died in London two hundred years ago last month, at the grand old age of ninety two. He had been the Lord Bishop of Durham for thirty five years, the Bishop of Salisbury before that, the Bishop of Llandaff (that’s Cardiff) before that, and a Canon of both St Paul’s and St George’s, Windsor.…

From the Rector: Tuesday 21st April 2026

Dirty Church Dear friends, However you care to describe it (Scruffy Church, Grubby Church, Messy Church?) Checkendon Church needs some tender loving care right now in the sprucing-up department. Please join me this coming Saturday from 10am-12noon for a spot of hoovering, mopping, polishing, dusting, tidying, pruning, sweeping, weeding and edging. All ages and stages are very welcome! Please bring your choice…

From the Rector: Tuesday 14th April 2026

The old sea mine Dear friends, As a child, my sister and I would sometimes be taken by our parents for a “Saturday outing”, which was invariably Gravesend. This was a twenty minute drive from our village, up the one in four Vigo Hill to the join the Wrotham Road at the top of the North Downs, and then follow this old…

From the Rector: Tuesday 24th March 2026

The Lost Garden Dear friends, I wonder if you know where the Garden of Eden is? Whilst it might be hard to put a cross on the map, as far as the Bible goes, the garden of Eden could be anywhere between the pointy bits of the “Fertile Crescent” – comprising the currently most contested parts of the Middle East, with the…

From the Rector: Tuesday 17th March 2026

Simple Gifts Dear friends “Simplicity is the only thing that can sufficiently reorient our lives so that possessions can genuinely be enjoyed without destroying us.” So wrote Richard Foster in the 1970’s. Outside my window the blue tits come close and flutter noisily, sometimes bashing the pane with their wings. They want me to notice that the fat balls have all gone,…

From the Rector: Tuesday 10th March 2026

Looking sideways Dear friends, I remember the cycling proficiency lady that came to our Primary School who impressed upon us all the life saving need to look in every single direction including behind you, when negotiating traffic on a bicycle, and especially at road junctions. “Right, left, right again, ahead and behind, then do it again!” I feel the world could do…

From the Rector: Tuesday 3rd March 2026

A greeting Dear friends “Peace be with you” we say to one another. It is a formal liturgical greeting in our services, when we will often add “(The) peace (of the Lord) be (always) with you.” This greeting not only goes back to the earliest church, but it reflects one of the deepest human desires – in the end, we tire of…

From the Rector: Tuesday 24th February 2026

Welsh Fire Dear friends Gifted speakers change lives. They can both motivate, and inspire. A few well chosen and carefully thought words can make all the difference, for both good, or ill. This last week America mourned the death of the Revd Jesse Jackson, whose life and mission was spent carrying the torch passed to him by Martin Luther King. It is…