The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Writing this article on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, I am reminded how fixated Paul was with the idea of the Church as a body of gifted people. Each person, he believed, had been given some special gift, talent or calling by God which they were to contribute to the life of the Church. And without every one of these gifts the church as a body would be, in some sense, impoverished. It takes the contribution of each person�s gifts to give us a full picture of God�s vision for the world, even a full picture of God�s very nature.

Sometimes the church fails to capture this full vision because we are unimaginative about how people might contribute their gifts for the uplifting of the whole community and it has struck me for some time how many and varied are the gifts of our congregation in Hampstead, in so many different fields. But often we fail even to find out what these gifts are, let alone provide opportunities for people to use them to glorify God.

This Lent we are going to benefit from the gifts of several members of our congregation in the field of visual art. Last year we introduced to our Lenten devotion some visual images of the Stations of the Cross. These are a series of 14 images depicting the final journey of Christ from his condemnation by Pilate to his burial in the tomb. We bought a similar set for our partner church in the slum community of Cidade de Deus in Rio de Janeiro and at our weekly service, focusing on these Stations, at midday on Fridays we prayed particularly for this church as well as bringing to God our own prayers.

But this year we have asked 14 members of our own congregation each to paint one of the stations to produce our own set of Stations of the Cross. The artists range from professional painters to those who paint as a hobby, from children to older members of the church and their styles will range widely from abstract expressionist responses to more realist depictions of the historic scenes. As St Paul would have said they will reflect a variety of talents and they will each offer us an important new perspective on God�s loving act in the Passion of Christ.

The pictures will be displayed in church for the whole of Lent but there will be two specific occasions for the congregation to appreciate them. The first is at a private view on Shrove Tuesday replacing our usual pancake party. Come and enjoy your last glass of wine before the beginning of Lent! Second, we will again have our weekly service of the Stations of the Cross on Fridays at midday. This quiet reflective service lasts approximately half an hour and is a special opportunity to share reflective intercessory prayer for ourselves and for the world as we walk with Christ on his final journey.