People’s stories - St Peter’s Church, Maidenhead

I can definitely say that a year ago it was not in my short term plans to get baptised. I always imagined it’d happen sometime in the far future when I was some sort of super holy and wise grown up. I always carried an image of a perfect Christian and I thought I’d have to become this person before I was entitled to be baptised.
I was definitely wrong. A baptism isn’t a display of holiness or a celebration of reaching ‘perfect Christian status’; it's a public promise to God that I will put my trust in him no matter what and that I will continue to grow to be more like Jesus throughout my life.
Being a teenager is not something I’ve found easy and growing up has brought lots of struggles. This last year has been one of difficulty and confusion yet throughout it all I have realised that God is always there with his comfort and steadfast promises. And I think that it is because of this realisation that I felt it had come to be the right time for me to get baptised. It is my way of recognising and accepting the love that God has consistently offered me throughout all the ups and downs of life. I had initially been confused by God’s nudge for me to be baptised as I felt so far from the place I thought I needed to be in before I could be baptised. Yet the timing couldn’t be riper as despite all struggles I am facing, I only find that I actually need to respond to God’s peace and comfort more than ever. I think it is so amazing how God willingly offers us his love no matter what state we are in and that because he is gracious, we are able to come to him with our troubles as well as our response of love.
It was difficult to decide to get baptised at such an unsettled time in my life yet I know that when we surrender our lives to God he can change situations and bring peace in those times of unsettlement. I like the saying “if you want to walk on water then you’ve got to get out of the boat”. I feel as if my baptism is an outward sign of my heart ‘stepping out of the boat’ and my life being placed entirely into God’s hands.
Last month, someone who didn’t know anything about me or my life prayed for me and then shared the following verse with me because she believed it was somehow relevant. And I think it really sums up what my baptism means to me:

Song of Songs 2:10-13

My lover spoke and said to me, "Get up, my darling; let's go away, my
beautiful one.Look, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone.Blossoms
appear through all the land. The time has come to sing; the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.There are young figs on the fig trees, and the blossoms
on the vines smell sweet. Get up, my darling; let's go away, my beautiful one."

I believe that my baptism is the beginning of a new season for me. I like the idea of blossoming; other words with the same meaning are ‘growing, maturing, progressing, prospering, succeeding and thriving’. And I really believe that this is the promise God gives us; that when we let God lead the way, he’ll work in us, maturing us and helping us to succeed as well as drawing us closer and closer to him.

Jane Pringle

Although Jane Pringle lives in Cookham she regularly worships at St. Marks Hospital Church in the grounds of St. Mark’s Hospital. As well as being part of the congregation she is a sidesman and also reads lessons at services. Life hasn’t always been easy for her. While she was still a teenager, her father died of bowel cancer. This meant that she had to leave school earlier than planned and find a job. For two years she worked as an au pair to a family in Belgium but when she returned to England she began working for an organisation called Concordia. Sponsored by the Department of Education, Concordia arranged for young people from this country to have the opportunity to work on the continent. Her work also involved her in travelling but it was while on holiday in East Africa that she met someone and fell in love. Jane believed in following a Christian way of life and after a two year courtship the couple married at Bisham church. A few years later Jane became pregnant but sadly the marriage didn’t last and she was left on her own to bring up her daughter. This was the beginning of an extremely stressful time for her. She needed to make a home as well as hold down a job. In addition to this she also began to struggle with her faith.

Then, in 1997 she too was diagnosed with bowel cancer and Jane was even younger than when her father had died from it. She really felt that everything was against her. Then some Christian friends sent her a card and the words in it made her realise that, no matter how bad things seemed, there were people who cared. It also made her realise that there was something missing from her life and Jane began to regain her faith. Encouraged by these same friends she started to attend services at St. Marks. In order to fight the cancer she had to undergo chemotherapy during which, and despite the tiredness she felt from it, she carried on working. She also began to pray and after six months of treatment the cancer was in remission and has remained so for over ten years.

Jane feels that her faith and her time at St. Marks means so much more to her. She said: “The church is always so quiet and peaceful that you feel that God is there with you. My life has changed in so many ways over the last few years and I so wish that people could feel how contented my life feels now. Someone once said to me that I was the unluckiest person that they knew but now people can see the joy that I have in my life”.

Charles Hollingsworth

Catherine and I have been involved with the hospital services that St. Mark's Church takes for a number of years. St. Mark’s Hospital Church was originally built to serve the Union Workhouse; in 1997, with the closure of two wards, Pat and Brian Rose decided that Church should go to the hospital. So one Sunday a month, an open service including many of St. Mark’s regular congregation is held in the day room, with the doors left open so that the singing reverberates throughout the wards. Pat, Brian and the Ministry team sought guidance from God, and suggested that it would be a good idea to include willing members of St. Mark’s congregation, so we became involved. Pat had warned us that some of the residents might not take too kindly to being offered a prayer at the end of our visit, and many of us had no experience of this kind of activity, but with Pat’s words ‘God is right behind you’ ringing our ears, we set off.

I have found that though some of the residents might give the impression of not being Christian, no one has yet requested that I don’t share a prayer with them, and all have been very grateful at the end. In fact, it is those that have experienced a visit from one of the team that are most keen to be included in the schedule. Since the regular Tuesday afterrnoon visits have become ingrained in the routine of the Nursing Home, attendances at the monthly Prayer and Praise meetings held in the large rest room there have grown to such an extent that those of us from the Church often have had to stand! With the growing sense of Christian purpose and the links with St. Mark’s getting stronger as time goes by, there has become a need for even more of the congregation to attend the monthly Wednesday morning communion services. Why? Well, to assist with wheeling the residents form the Nursing Home to the Church, joining with them in worship and then wheeling them all back again aftewards! Twelve residents is our record so far.

Throughout this period of reaching outside of our comfort zone, the congregation at St. Mark’s has increased and the sense of Christian Mission and community has grown stronger as a result. An example of “Real Life, God’s Way.”

Andy Barratt

Ever since childhood I have been brought up a Christian, all my life I have attended church on a Sunday morning but about 2 years ago Christianity seemed boring, irrelevant and, for me, untrue. I still went to church but only habitually; Sunday would come around and that’s the time I would go to church.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would feel and think so differently 3 years on… In retrospect I see clearly the transformation and suddenly the words of Revelation 3:20 take on a new, personal light. The journey began at the beginning of year 11 at school, Ben had just taken up his position as the youth worker at St Peter’s and he started ID. My Mum somehow found out about it and encouraged me just to give it a go, to give God a chance. In this slight softening of my heart I began to open the door to Jesus, and as I did I began to see that all along Jesus had been there knocking and all I had to do was to open the door.

For me committing to ID helped me open the door an inch at a time and before I knew anything of it I started to feel a passion for Jesus, I started to fully understand that the “Good News” was actually great news. And so over the next couple of years Christianity became exciting, truly relevant and awesome! I opened the door and softened my heart but after a year going to ID I couldn’t say for sure (as Rev 3:20 says) I had eaten with Him, and Him with me. I would not have said that I had entered into a personal relationship with Him; I didn’t understand fully that Christianity isn’t about what you know it’s about who you know.

Now, at the beginning of the third year of ID, through prayer, worship and fellowship I feel I know God intimately, my relationship with Him is cherished and constantly is in need of devotion and work but my life has been touched by grace and I live placing my hopes in God’s hands. I know his deep love for me, his unending, unfathomable mercy as something I have experienced not something I have learnt like at school, and so I strive to respond as Romans 12:1 says and offer my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God and to let this be my spiritual act of worship.

   Paul & Margaret Maxwell-Cook

   Our first grandchild has just been born. Maisie Cora is an
answer to our prayers as we have been longing to become
grandparents, before we become too old and grumpy for
them to appreciate us!
Holding our beautiful granddaughter in our arms reminded
us so much of holding our own children when they first
arrived in this world. It's a very special and emotional
experience holding that new precious life also reminded us
not only of the wonderful miracle of birth, but also of the
way the Lord wants to hold us and guide us through life, whatever our age. Unfortunately all too often we break away from his hold through our own selfish pursuits, but as He is the ever faithful Father his arms are always open to receive us back.
Our prayer now is of praise for the safe arrival of Maisie and that in time she will come to know her Father in heaven.

Quinton Stowell

I first started to do some youthwork back in 1993,
when a friend invited me to join the leadership team
of the 15-18 year old Church based youth group. I
recall a verse being very relevant and challenging me:
Luke 17:1 – this was a serious task, and one not to
be taken lightly. This was a real milestone in my
Christian faith where I felt called to serve God in
‘thought, word and deed’, and the awesomeness of what God had done for me became more real.
About 18 months ago Jody and I felt it right to join St Peter’s, although I was still running some outreach youth events at our previous church. We also felt that it was right for me to ‘do less work’ in order to free up some time for some sort of service; although we were not too sure of what…
Within 6 months I had negotiated reduced (75%) hours at work, passed over the running of the youth outreach work at my old church, and was involved with the setting up of s-cape with Ben. My regular day off is now a Tuesday which ties in well with Jody’s day at Spurgeon’s College, so I get to do the school run and spend some time with the kids. This somehow offsets the Friday nights where I am out ‘working’.
Twelve months on and I can say that I haven’t missed the drop in salary, and have enjoyed the challenges and successes of the various activities that St Peter’s are doing.
For me I have found that God’s guidance is like a torch in the dark that shows you where to take the next few steps, but not too far ahead. God has given us so many blessings, and it is a pleasure to pass some of these on. With Jody considering ordination, who knows where our next steps will be. God does!