Parish Jottings

Tearfund in Focus

Chris Turner, of “Tearfund”, joined our congregation on Sunday 3^rd September, and gave a talk on the work of the charity in which he has been involved for many years. “Tearfund” is a Christian charity which is passionate about ending poverty throughout the world. It works through a worldwide network of some 100,000 churches, using a ten-year development model, with the aim of lifting people from real and spiritual poverty. To reflect the motivation of “Tearfund”, Chris quoted Psalm 82, verses 3-4:

“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

During his talk, Chris showed a short film on the work of the charity in action in Malawi, a landlocked country in southeast Africa, formerly called Nyasaland. Here, around half the population lives below the poverty line, and last year, the country suffered heavy flooding followed by a long period of drought.

Ride & Stride

The annual “Ride & Stride” took place on Saturday 9th September. Three members of Holy Trinity church took part, Mike Hails, Peter Jones and Ian Forster. Participants have to visit as many churches as they wish, during the event, by walking, or bicycling. The sponsored donations received are divided equally between the participant’s church, and the “Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust”. (See page 5 of the Trinity Times for a report on the event.)

Robots in the Church?

The Bishop of Oxford, who sits on the Lord’s Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (AI), says that Christians must think seriously about the implications of AI. Bishop Steven thinks that it is important for the church’s voice to be heard on modern developments in technology which are going to change the whole nature of society, AI being one of them. The Select Committee has been appointed to consider the economic, ethical, and social implications of the advances in AI.

In the case of robots, perhaps they could be enabled to get all our church’s jobs done, as we are short of volunteers to do them all. Already, we use a digital music player. Maybe we could have a robotic vacuum cleaner and a robotic lawn mower, install an automatic tea and coffee machine, and have LCD monitor screens to replace flower displays. Robots may make good sidemen and vergers too. What about a robot vicar? Now that would be going too far, otherwise we might as well have a robotic congregation as well.

The church wheelbarrow stands idly against the wall ready for use