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 Doreen Murgatroyd

from Rev Wes Hampton

Dear Friends,

We know the stories we associate with Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and most other occasions in the Church’s calendar.  If I asked you to suggest a passage from the bible to go with any one of them, you would have no difficulty.  If we turn to Aldersgate Sunday or the feast of a saint or Harvest Festival, we should probably have an idea of where to begin.  Today, however, is Trinity Sunday, and any attempt to pick a reading that explains this way of understanding the nature of God will not be successful.  Yes, there are verses that speak of God in a three-fold manner, but on their own none of them tells us why we refer to God in this way, or how we have come to do so.

Trinity Sunday invites us, therefore, not to turn to one individual passage, but to see how people experienced God throughout its pages.  Jesus’ disciples learnt from childhood that there is only one God who created the world, but their experience of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit led them to new understandings.  Over the years, the implications of these experiences have been considered, and have sparked debate and creed.

All sorts of ways of speaking about God were designated as heresy in the Early Church because their attempt to explain God avoided one problem by creating another.  Many analogies commonly used today to express the Trinity fall into one or more of the problems identified hundreds of years ago.  So, should we play safe, and just not speak about God at all?

Of course not!  The God who has communicated with his creation throughout history, who shared human life at a point in time, and who empowers his people in the present, is here for all people, and has given us the task of making him known.  Perhaps we need to have the courage to share what God is like for us.  So, how do you see God?

Wes

from Chris Rooke-Matthews

While I was working in a school for children with a variety of special needs, one of the frequent conversations was to encourage the pupils to continue to try their best, and not give up when the first response to a difficult task was ‘I can’t do that!’  The alternative was to encourage by helping them not to give up, but to change this to ‘I can’t do that yet!’

In a previous reflection, over a year ago, I wrote about the Covenant prayer, saying: I wonder what I will be asked to do or forgo in the coming year?

Little did I know then that I would face health issues that prevented me from driving, affected both health and stamina, and limited my ability to take part in activities that I had previously enjoyed and looked forward to.

However, looking back, although my options are at times limited, I have enjoyed the blessings of spending time with family and friends, and continuing to share special moments with others.

Perhaps the message I have been given is: Think positively, looking for opportunities opening up in spite of setbacks, and continue to change your thoughts from I can’t do that, to I can’t do that yet!

Some previous Pastoral Letters are available here.