A big thank you

I would like to say a big  thankyou to a church near to me who showed the true spirit of Christian love and generosity last week.  I had been asked by a family to conduct a funeral for their mother.  Not a problem, or so I thought.  I managed to speak to them properly 4 days before the funeral, and found out that they would like part of the service held at this Church. Now there are a couple of problems with this.  Firstly I am not the Parish Priest of St Marks, and secondly i am not even a CofE vicar.  So, with some degree of fear I approached the Vicar to ask if I could use her Church.

Now to those of you not in the Church this may not sound so bad, but as any clergy person can tell you, some of us are very protective of our territories, and letting an unknown person “take over” is unthinkable.  Who knows what they will do,  and whether their will be any consequences (financial, legal or publicity) from it.

Well the Rev. Leach is, thankfully, not like that.  She agreed to using the church as long as her organist and verger were free, and so the family had their wish, that their mum could have her funeral at the church she grew up in.

Thankyou Rev. Leach for your understanding, faith in another person, and for helping to make a family’s wishes come to fruition.  I wish more of my colleagues were like you.

Tags: faith, generosity, St Marks