St Philip's

Dear Family

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A very warm and special welcome to all visitors, including our St Philip's Church family to our very first newsletter. We pray that you will be enriched and blessed by God's presence as you spend time and read through this collation of work that will share stories of reflection and updates.

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For many it may have felt like a holiday at first, but we soon saw people succumb to the virus and infection rates increase; our family and friends being retrenched and working less. The negatives of the lockdown soon outweighed the positives.

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Both the spiritual and business part of church life has continued, albeit in new and different ways. Meetings take place on various platforms; some as early as 7am as we try to ensure that things still happen. I hope that you have been enjoying the Morning Prayers and worship songs that our team select and present each week; it's a great way to start your day and I encourage you to share the links with friends and family.

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Through my sermons I have intimated that we need to do church differently and we will continue to
explore ways of doing this through the lockdown and beyond. Some critical questions we need to ask
are: Will we need to meet at different times; how many services will we need to have in order to
accommodate everyone? How will we do Children’s Church?

We are experimenting with different forms of services and really want to emphasis the
invitation for any of you to join us, please reach out to pastorate members and me; let’s make
the circle bigger!

August is termed the Month of Compassion in church circles and also Woman’s Month in South
Africa because of the commemoration of 9th August 1956 when twenty thousand women marched to
the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest the government’s control of the movement of black women in
urban areas in South Africa.

Some 60 years later women are having to march yet again in order to shine the spotlight on gender
based violence, sexism, lack of transparency and outright unjust practices against women in all
spheres of society.

The Church is not to be spared on this issue and recently I participated in a conversation with other
women clergy and theologians with Archbishop Thabo about the church’s inability to apologise for the
way it has and continues to misuse scripture to keep women in their place, among other things.

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As you enjoy the reflections and offerings from members of our church community,
I invite you to ponder the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: ‘If you are
neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.'

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Stay Blesses, and Stay Safe

Revd Natalie

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