pastoral – Page 6 – Faith Goes Walkabout

Lambs and Springtime, New Life and New Beginnings

lambs
At a very special new service style we held a Lambing Service at Abbey Farm East Walton in the Lambing Shed on Sunday 20th Feb. at 2.30pm

On this cold winters day we walked through the barns and round the farmyard into the lambing sheds. Wellies were definitely needed and warm coats, scarves and gloves wrapped even the smallest children and toddlers.

And what a wonderful group of people arrived for the service, families, children, grandparents, older couples, young teenagers, and of course the sheep. The ewes with their new born lambs, some with twins, some with triplets and the orphan lambs or kadhi lambs that needed feeding from the bottle.

Farmer Bill had arranged straw bales in front of the expectant ewes so the backdrop for the service and where I was to stand from was surrounded by the sheep – a flock indeed!

In the horsebox at the open shed doors was Rachel with mugs of tea, coffee and hot chocolate, a very welcome touch of warmth.

At the start of the service people were seated on the straw bales and with mugs of steaming hot chocolate in hand. We sang All things bright and beautiful. The sheep were stunned into silence!

I talked about the lambs and new life, signs of spring. Farmer Bill found a very special bucket that the sheep recognised at once. No looking back from this point!
I started to get a little more serious in my talk but was completely drowned out by the sheep behind me who were definitely in the limelight with their loud Baa’s .

Undeterred I continued with the prayers and found that the sheep, now thoroughly getting into the spirit of things were responding with a choral ‘Baa’ at the pauses.

We finished with Morning has Broken and then went on to feed the lambs and have more hot chocolate.

group

A wonderful way to join together, who needed all the words that I had ready.

The lambs and the sheep said it all, new life and new beginnings in action.

Revd Sue Martin

Some of the really big issues are just the things that young people really feel passionate about. They want to feel empowered to be heard. They have some great ideas and they are much more in touch with modern thinking.

The competition is about enabling young people to have a chance to express their views. Do they feel that faith is a vital part of modern day living? Does faith give young people chance to make connections between issues and ideals associated with faith?

Some of the titles are;

Do you need to be religious to be good?
How can one person improve the lived of the world’s poorest?
Is believing more important than belonging?

To enter the competition you need to be between 13 and 21 years. And the topics make a really good talking point for groups of young people.
The full details are available on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website and also on the Norwich Diocese website.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said,

“If we want to nurture a really articulate public argument about the great issues of our times, we have to make sure that younger citizens have the confidence to make themselves heard. One of the most depressing things that can happen to young people is a climate, whether in school or out of it, that gives them the message that they’re not worth listening to…And if you believe that religious faith is one of the things that quite rightly gets people talking, for and against, it is important to help younger people make the connections between the issues of the day and the ideas and ideals associated with faith. They may want to argue furiously against it or they may discover that it has more to say to them than they expected. But it is wonderful when there is an environment in which those connections can be made.”
Archbishop Rowan Williams, 15th January 2011

So, time to get writing

Sue Martin

Thoughts and reflections

Category: pastoral

Lambing Service

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faith in the World Prize