Category: Uncategorized

Churches Together in King’s Lynn newsletter December 2024.

The Churches Together in King’s Lynn Peace and Justice Forum will be hosted at Gaywood Church Rooms between 10am and 3pm on Saturday 18^th January 2025.

The keynote speaker will be Bishop Rob Wickham who has been CEO of the Church Urban Fund since 2023. There will be stalls run by local charities. The aim of the day will be to look at the underlying causes of poverty in King’s Lynn. The moderators are planning to invite Bishop Jane, James Wild MP, the Mayor of Lynn, Cllr Paul Bland, and other local church, government and charity officers. 

Invitation to participate in Caritas Festival at Holy Family Church on 8 February 9:30 – 12:30

Over the past year the Catholic diocese of East Anglia has embarked on a series of Caritas Festivals to celebrate local social action in the community. Saturday 8 February will be when the Holy Family Church, 34 Field Lane, King’s Lynn will be hosting the Caritas Festival for all the churches in the Kings Lynn deanery. In Kings Lynn, as elsewhere in East Anglia, Catholic support for and involvement in local social action is mainly through partnerships with other Christians and individual volunteering in those local secular charities that address the needs of others. Each Caritas Festival celebrates and publicises what is being achieved locally and encourages others to participate. Accordingly, it is hoped that many members of Churches Together in King’s Lynn will be represented. Please contact Caritas@rcdea.org.uk for further details.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: The 8 days of the week in 2025 run from Saturday 18th to Saturday 25th January. The resources from Churches Together in Britain and Ireland mention the topic of prayer as: ‘We are invited to reflect on the story of Martha’s confession of faith in Jesus as narrated in John 11:17-27. Each is called to sit with Jesus’ provocative question to Martha: “Do you believe this?”

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2025

Revd June Love plans to produce a video to circulate to churches each day. Each video will contain a reading followed by a 2-3 minutes reflection by a lay person from our church communities. Each day’s video will end with a prayer for the churches in the town led by June or Kyla – It is hoped that the reflection for the final day will be led by Vicky Price. Individual churches will be able to use the video as they think fit. 

Imagine Norfolk Together: Congratulations to Vicky Price on her appointment to the role of Imagine Norfolk Together development worker. Imagine Norfolk Together is a partnership between the Norwich Anglican Diocese and the Church Urban Fund. Vicky is already involved with the international charity Viva who are undertaking surveys into the needs of families, children and schools in King’s Lynn and Norfolk. The results of these survey will be shared with church and community contacts at a meeting which will start at 4pm on Friday 24^th January 2025 at St John’s Church. The meeting will include networking and prayer in order to give rise to action to try to address the problems which the three surveys will highlight. 

The next Clergy Breakfast will be hosted by Ola at the Church of the King’s Glory on Tuesday 11^thFebruary 2025.

Gratitude from the Foodbank: Noel McGivern, as treasurer of the Foodbank, wants to extended a big ‘Thank you’ to all the many churchgoers in Lynn who give regular donations to the Foodbank. These donations make a huge contribution to the work of the Foodbank, supporting the less fortunate members of the society.

CAP King’s Lynn Debt Centre 

Requests for help with debt needs have been constant this year, and referrals are now back to pre-pandemic levels. Jobcentre staff are routinely booking in clients for debt advice and signposting. I currently have 16 households on my caseload, and many of the new referrals have come via word-of-mouth. We have been celebrating the news of a client becoming debt-free this month after a debt relief order cleared £11,000 of debt. The client said, “I’m very happy, and I really appreciate the help; no more worries.” 

Most of our clients accept prayer on a regular basis, and some appeared visibly soothed by this experience. One exceptionally lonely man was invited to church by a volunteer and now attends services regularly. He has been amazed by the warmth and attention received from this fellowship. During the summer we hosted Picnic in the Walks, a social event for clients and volunteers, and all of our CAP families were provided with school uniforms from the King’s Centre back to school appeal.

Along with celebrations, there have been challenges. Many of our clients have difficulty engaging with the debt process due to mental ill health. Most struggle to maintain focus even with small goal setting, getting stuck at the fact-find stage, or are unable to provide information to action the route out of debt. This requires a lot of input to support clients to move forward. Referrals from single men and couples have increased recently, which has heightened the need for male volunteers for appointments. We desperately need more men to volunteer for our service to share the workload.

Prayer meetings at the King’s Centre are held once a month on the 3rd Tuesday of the month. Thank you for your support and prayers! Laura Joslin laurajoslin@capuk.org

King’s Lynn Foodbank.

We have much to be thankful for at present:

•               Overall, this year so far, the numbers of people being fed has not increased on last year.  This is the first time since 2018!

•               We are getting tangibly close to being able to move our main distribution centre to a new location.  I look forward to hopefully being able to provide more details in my next report.

•               We are discussing with St Faiths about possibly opening a new satellite distribution centre there in 2025.

•               Financial and food donations continue to come our way, which enables us to serve others.

Kind regards, Helen Gilbert, Strategic Project Manager, King’s Lynn Foodbank Tel: 07930 512284 helen@kingslynn.foodbank.org.uk

Lucy McKitterick, director of the King’s Lynn Night Shelter. 

nightshelter.steering@gmail.com

The Night Shelter re-opened on 1st October, and is already busy with our guests. We’re very pleased to have been able to make a decision this year to commit to year-round opening, this is in direct response to feed-back from our guests about the risks of homelessness at any time of the year and means that we won’t be closing next summer as we have each year so far! We offer our guests a room of their own 24/7, hot meals, pastoral care, and support to plan for the future and find longer-term, sustainable accommodation.

This autumn we launched a fundraising appeal for the second phase of the ‘St John’s House Project’ to extend our capacity by a third – following the successful completion of Phase 1 this summer! It’s an exciting project but also a vital one which will enable us to help more people in great need – to give an idea of how much this work is needed, between November and June last year we were able to accommodate 32 guests, out of the 109 people referred or self-referred to stay with us. We also remember those of our local homeless community who have suffered because of their vulnerability and who have died young. Life expectancy nationally for homeless people is reduced to 47 years for men (74 years in the general population) and 43 years for women, (80 years in the general population).

The Night Shelter receives no national or local government funding. Around a fifth of our annual costs are covered by Housing Benefits which some of our guests are able to claim; the remainder has to be raised through grants, fundraising and the generosity of our local community. Our local churches have been wonderfully generous in their support for the last few years and we greatly value their help not least because it also gives us the opportunity to share some of our guests’ stories, and to ask our churches for your prayers. We’re always happy to come and talk about the Night Shelter with local churches and groups so please do ask.  

It is also very good to have retained a link with Churches Together through members of local churches who continue to offer their time as volunteers. Time is an immensely valuable gift and makes a big difference to the welcome we can give our guests. Many thanks again to our friends at Churches Together for your support.

Last week our Government opened a debate on Assisted Dying. The MP for North West Norfolk, James Wild, shared his thoughts on the subject in last week’s Lynn News, and understandably on any issue where the welfare of our loved ones is involved, people will have strong, and different, convictions on what is right and what is very wrong. We can be thankful we live in a country where all our elected representatives are given a free vote on such issues, so that at least even if we disagree we know that they have had a chance to decide what is right for themselves.

A national opinion survey meanwhile, carried out by the research team at Theos, has discovered that 10% of their respondents supported assisted dying for people suffering from extreme poverty, and 9% for people experiencing homelessness. I found myself wondering if the 10% who took this view were themselves the people waiting in a queue outside the Foodbank, or if the 9% were themselves sleeping on our streets.

The same week I spent a morning at the magistrates’ court in Lynn. Over the last few years the waiting area of the court has become fairly familiar, with visits from time to time on behalf of the Night Shelter to support guests either as victims or defendants. Sitting around waiting for everyone to be seen isn’t easy and I’m often struck by the tact and courtesy people who have very little will show to others when they are in trouble – empathy, sometimes, comes from knowing how it feels.

And yet – I look around that waiting area, and I see familiar faces. The court pages in this newspaper from week to week almost always contain names we know. And we might ask, why do homelessness, and poverty, go together with the kinds of crimes which bring people back to magistrates courts – sometimes, as can happen when people lead very chaotic and difficult lives, without being very sure why they are there.

Jesus met a man once begging by the roadside, he was blind, and his name was Bartimaeus. He shouted for Jesus, and the people around them told him to shut up. Jesus came over, and said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” and he said to Jesus, “I want to see”.

Perhaps the people who responded to that survey on assisted dying thought poverty, and homelessness, were so awful that people should be able to end their lives to opt out – if they did, I wonder what they would make of the fact that already 1,400 people died while homeless in the UK last year without an Assisted Dying Bill, or that the Night Shelter lost 12 former guests in the same period, people we have known and valued here. Or perhaps those 10% or 9% knew what poverty and homelessness felt like, and responded in empathy, knowing also the feeling of life being no longer worth living. What we can know, is that we cannot look at a Foodbank queue, or a night shelter, or a court waiting room, and tell the people we meet there to shut up. Because if we don’t go over, and say “What do you want me to do for you?” then they will never know that we value them enough to be able to answer us, “I want to see”.

Lucy McKitterick

In September, I went to the circus in King’s Lynn with my family. There were many amazing acts – the clown was hilarious; the dancers were fantastic and there were some impressive displays of acrobatics and juggling. But the act that really got me thinking was the man spinning plates, aided of course by his glamorous assistant! I have forgotten how many plates he had spinning at once. But it was a lot. He kept running backwards and forwards to keep the original plates spinning as more and more were added.

Often, we use the term ‘spinning plates’ to refer to our busy lives. And dare I say it, as a woman, I wonder if women feel this pressure even more keenly. There are just so many plates we need to keep spinning. We live in fear of them all coming crashing down. There is my work as a curate, studying, volunteering, socialising, housework, shopping, cooking, kids’ homework, kids’ activities, hobbies, TV, social media…. The list goes on.

I wonder if sometimes we give ourselves extra plates when we should be removing plates. Sometimes we let other people give us plates when they could do the thing themselves. Or perhaps, the thing just doesn’t need doing. There are only so many hours in the day and so many days in the week. We need to prioritise. We all have our limits. Giving ourselves a bit of time regularly to think, reflect, or pray can help us evaluate our lives. Perhaps also talking to someone thoughtful who knows us well. What would you like to be doing that you don’t have time for? Is there anything that you feel you should stop doing?

Jesus lived an unhurried, peaceful life. He had time and space for others. In the gospel of Matthew, we find these words of Jesus,“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:28-30) Jesus doesn’t call us to lives of stress, but flourishing lives coming from places of rest.  I wonder if you could take down some of your plates or give them away to others? And perhaps start finding that rest for your soul.

What do we do about history?  We march through time, leaving behind the bits of thepast we don’t like, holding on to the bits we do

A recent visit to Houghton Hall was a chance to reflect on that process.  Houghton was a house built for lavish entertainment and the assertion of political power by the prime minister, Robert Walpole.  This year, moving through rooms of ridiculous opulence with riches sucked in from all corners of the globe, the visitor could be beguiled by some much simpler shapes, ceramics in glossy black and tan that speak of Africa.  Magdalene Odundo’s ceramics, in that context, start to provoke questions about what the rest of the world was doing to enable the extravagance of the lifestyle the house demonstrates.  And then you come into the Marble Parlour to be confronted with an astonishing structure like a particularly tall and opulent wedding cake.  Titled “The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer”, it is made of jasperware, fudgy brown ceramic with black forms and figures superimposed in the way that the classical Wedgewood designs have delicate white nymphs and foliage.  But here the images are of manacles and instruments of control and torture, the bodies of slaves lined up below decks in ships, and scenes of labour and the carrying of heavy burdens.  Curved blades, that could be palm leaves but look menacing, hang from the tiers.

This work developed during a year when Magdalene Odundo explored the work of Josiah Wedgewood, the ardent abolitionist. 

Reparations for slavery are proving a difficult topic for Christian churches.   It is natural to kick against guilty feelings, to make a distance between ourselves and wrong-doing.  And in any case, how can we make good the damage that was done?  Who can we pay?  What compensation can possibly be adequate or appropriately directed?

These questions are complex; it is possible to work towards answers by listening to those whose communities and futures were harmed.  But making reparations to heal the past can never give us a clean new beginning, a past we can leave safely behind.

At the very top of Odundo’s centrepiece is the figure of a Kenyan woman railing against economic injustice in 2024.  And if that still allows us to feel “That’s far away, it’s not really my business”, the title Odundo has given the work pulls us back in again.  The title refers to Yeats’s poem The Second Coming; the “widening gyre” in the first line and the menacing tone of the poem warn that the spiral of injustice and ethical loosening whirls ever wider, and sweeps us with it.  The work we have to do can never be left behind.  Just as peace work has to be a process not of solving particular conflicts but of recognising all the parts of the processes by which individuals, groups and nations generate division and make enemies of each other, so reparations work needs to include a process of recognising the ways in which exploitation takes place, in the continuous flow of economic activity from which it is very difficult to separate ourselves.

Lucy Faulkner-Gawlinski

King’s Lynn Quakers

A few Sundays back I was driving home with my daughters in the car. All of a sudden there was a terrible screeching sound coming from my front tyre. The sound very much resembled fingernails being scrapped against a blackboard. It was terrible. Me, being the only adult in the car was trying to remain calm, thinking ‘I just need to get home safely’. Whereas my daughters had more of a reaction of fear, worry, and panic. Luckily the next day we found that it was just a little stone caught in my wheel and the solution was quite simple.

My daughters expressed a very natural reaction about how they were feeling in the situation. I didn’t show them the panic I was actually feeling inside. What if there is something seriously wrong with the car? How much money will this cost me? What if I can’t use my car for work? No matter what distress I was feeling, I was choosing to display a different response in this situation in order to create a calm that my daughters needed to regain a feeling of safety. If I had chosen to display my actual emotional reaction it would have completely changed the situation and made the atmosphere a lot worse.

Often in life things can happen that create different responses and reactions from us. People can say things to upset us or make us angry. We have a choice whether we react emotionally or respond thoughtfully. Sometimes our reactions are not thought through and our initial feelings about a situation rise up and actually have the potential to make things worse. Sometimes we need to just take a step back and think about how to respond in the situation.

That Sunday even though I wanted to react negatively to the car screeching, I chose to think calmly and positively. Each of us has the same choice to make when we are faced with a situation that can evoke either a negative reaction or a positive response. Whatever you face this week I implore you to try and take a step back, a deep breath and choose a positive approach. In Proverbs 13:16 it says “Wise people think before they act; fools don’t—and even brag about their foolishness.”No matter what we may face let’s choose to be wise in our responses by thinking before we act from here on out.

Emily Hart
Kings Lynn Christian Fellowship

Donald Trump, eh? Good grief! He’s now the President of the United States and spent his first day in office telling the world that there were record numbers at his Inauguration on Friday when we have photographs showing a low turnout. It’s going to be an interesting 4 years!
I marched on the Women’s March on London last Saturday. It was in solidarity with the march on Washington and one of 700 marches across 70 countries. We marched to stand up for and defend the rights and freedoms of all people. As Yvette Cooper said at the rally in Trafalgar Square: ‘we’re marching because the most powerful man in the world says it’s ok to sexually assault women because he is rich and powerful and we say no way!’ It was incredible to be with 100,000 people bringing London to a halt. There were quite a lot of children, older women, babies, men and even dogs! The signs were so creative, some rude, some very funny. My favourite signs were ‘we shall overcomb’ and ‘I am very upset.’
Feminism gets a bad press but it’s simply believing that women deserve the same dignity and respect as men. I’m a feminist because 1 in 4 women in this country will experience domestic violence in their lifetime and 2 women are killed a week by a current or former partner. I’m a feminist because around the world girls are married off whilst they are still children and often die giving birth. And I’m a feminist because women billions of pounds are made every year by fashion, make up and cosmetic surgery industries from constantly telling women that our bodies are not good enough.
I marched in my clerical collar because I wanted to represent the Church of England. The Church has been slow to allow women as leaders, only agreeing to consecrate women bishops in 2014, but there are many of us who are feminists because of our faith, not in spite of it. Jesus spent his ministry defending and encouraging women: he saved a woman from being stoned to death, he stood up for women who were being criticized, he taught and encouraged women in their faith and he came to live among us to release and liberate all oppressed and downtrodden people. I marched as a feminist on Saturday – and as a Christian.

Reverend Laura Baker
Curate of King’s Lynn Minster

THE WEDGE

To say my D.I.Y skills are limited would be an understatement! Helping demolish things though, is one thing I definitely can do! I was recently asked to help ‘take down’ a summerhouse, but this thing had clearly been built well. It was made up of several strong individual panels, each one tightly interlocked with the next. The plan of attack, was unanimously agreed… Take crowbars, and use them to drive a wedge between each panel, pushing them apart. Away we went and then… Crash!!! First the roof came in, along with the guy who’d been up on it! That hurt!! Then the walls came down! Driving a wedge, left things in pieces!

It’s interesting how when we hear of relationships breaking down; people often talk about something that (quote) ‘drove a wedge between them.’ Just like that summerhouse, it caused a division, pushed them apart, spoiled things, and now it’s in pieces.

When God first created man and woman, they’d walk with God, talk with Him, enjoy His company and He theirs. Their relationship was strong! It was good! But a day came when they stopped listening to God, and they followed after what they wanted. They sinned. The result? A wedge was driven between them and God, pushing them apart. Sin spoilt their relationship, caused a division, and things came crashing down!

That’s what sin does, and the Bible says we’ve ‘all sinned’. We’ve all driven this wedge between ourselves and God!

God never wanted that! He loves us, longs for a close relationship with us, wants to one day welcome us into heaven, to spend eternity together, but what we see is our sin keeps us apart.

There’s good news though! Jesus gave His life on the cross to remove the wedge of sin! He done it, because God loves you too much to leave things the way they are!

You can know God! Have a close relationship with Him! Feel His love! Know He is with you! Be certain that one day He will welcome you into heaven! How? Get the wedge that separates you from all of that, removed!

How? Put your trust in Jesus, ask Him to forgive your sins, and ask Him into your heart. 1 Pet 3:18 ‘Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.’

Darryl Mallet
Pastor – KLCF

Christians have just celebrated the greatest religious days of the year, culminating in Easter Day. The three days of intensive prayer and religious ceremonies – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday recall the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter Day marks Christ’s rising from the dead.
At Easter the followers of Jesus were amazed that their Master had risen and had appeared to various followers. All the while they gathered for prayer. It would be no surprise if they prayed the Our Father, the prayer Jesus taught them.
Through the ages Christians have said together this most comprehensive of prayers. With a reverence for God and a desire that his rule on earth may be complete, believers ask for their ‘daily bread’, asking too that they may have their offences forgiven, as they forgive others. This is a difficult task. We can say we pardon others, but even easier recall old grievances.
In these troubled times with fighting in Syria, tension and differences in Ukraine, armed bands and lawlessness in other parts of the world, people seek peace.
In the Catholic Mass, the priest says before the sign of peace: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever’.
John Cairns, King’s Lynn Catholic Church