Welcome to Wokingham Methodist Church

We are now part of the Blackwater Valley Methodist Circuit, formed by the merger of our previous circuit, the Berkshire Surrey Borders Circuit, with the circuit to the south of us, the Hants-Surrey Border Circuit, effective from 1 September 2025.

Our previous minister, Revd Catherine Bowstead, has retired.  We welcome her replacement Rev Wes Hampton, from 1 September 2025.

Starting on Sunday 21^st September, evening service (with Holy Communion) will resume on the third Sunday of each month at the new time of 6.15 pm (new time chosen so you can park in the Rose Street car park without having to pay both an afternoon fee and an evening fee).

We now aim to open Little Fishes every Thursday throughout the year when Café Mosaic is open - including school holidays, but not Christmas/New Year.

Future worship and recorded services are on this page.

10.30am Morning Worship - Mrs Charmaine Dinham

This was our Easter Cross decorated on Easter Day 5 April 2026

from Rev Wes Hampton

Dear Friends,

Has the moon got nearer to us?  Physically, we can say that it has, because this morning the moon is at its perigee, the closest point in this lunar month to Earth (a mere 224,707 miles away).  More significantly, the Artemis II mission has reignited interest in space exploration.  The apparent success of Artemis II has emboldened NASA in its ambition to send humans to walk on the moon again as their Artemis IV mission within the next two years, and then again from Artemis V later in 2028.

By speaking and planning in this way, we draw the moon closer in our collective consciousness.  We recognize, however, that this is a change only in our perception, caused by the media coverage of one giant scientific experiment.  For those who are or have been part of the Artemis project, planning for the recent lunar flyby has been going on for years, and the nine days of its flight are a small tip on an enormous iceberg.  The reality of what has happened is far greater than most of us will ever understand.  Again, our perception and the empirical reality are very different.

The journey into space, which has captivated so many, has fallen around Easter, which for Christians is the greatest event, changing both the reality of life before God, and our perception of it.  We proclaim that Christ is risen, knowing that the empty tomb is the iceberg’s tip.  The resurrection, with its promise of new life, and assurance that death does not have the last word, may be unseen below the water for many people.  For us, however, it is a reality that changes our perceptions and encourages us to live with different, ambitious expectations.  Once again Easter gives us the courage “to boldly go” on our mission with God.

Wes

from Kim Tame

Dear friends

No artificial additives?

As if technology hasn't gone far enough, we now face the prospect of Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking a bigger part in our lives.

I should start with a warning; this article has been assisted by Copilot and Perplexity.

We can't ignore the challenges now posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) - it's already here and making an impact.  I already use AI for research; though I check everything, since it can produce odd and inaccurate results.

But surely in that most traditional of environments, the church, AI could not have more than a marginal role?

So I asked Copilot - the AI that comes with the Edge browser - what it can do for the church. It told me about the help it can give with social media, automated messaging and personalised content recommendations.  How it can help with Biblical research, history and theological discussions.  How we could improve our scheduling and manage our donations and communication.

Then it told me about the challenges; that we could lose the personal touch and spiritual discernment in human relationships, and not least, that AI, in the way it collects and organises information, could be passing on false information.

It even came up with a case study; a small church in Switzerland, which temporarily swapped the usual confession with a priest for a multi-lingual bot and a hologram of Jesus.

The program was trained with scripts so that it could give appropriate responses - in 100 different languages. Two-thirds of the people who came to the AI confessional reported a positive experience, while others found the experience to be two-dimensional and repetitive.  At the end of the trial period, the project was not continued.

Could AI write a sermon?  I had to try.  For this experiment, I tried two widely available AI browsers; Perplexity and ChatGPT.  I told them which week of the lectionary I wanted, and asked it for some sermon themes and illustrations.

So far I'm not impressed - Perplexity produced a string of platitudes, with the odd sentence that I quite liked.  ChatGPT did slightly better, with a good sermon outline but fairly bland content.

I think I'll stick with thinking and writing for the moment.

Kim Tame

Some previous Pastoral Letters are available here.