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).

Future worship and recorded services are on this page.

10.30am Holy Communion - Rev Wes Hampton

from Malcolm Ray-Smith

Dear Friends,

Elijah  “What are you doing here?”

The first book of Kings tells how this man of God won a marvellous victory over the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel but then fled in terror after being threatened by Queen Jezebel.

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. After leaving his servant at Beersheba he travelled alone into the desert until he laid under a broom tree to sleep.  He told God “I have had enough”. An angel brought him food and water and he slept again. Then the angel came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”

Strengthened by that food he travelled on for forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb where he spent a night in a cave. Then the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” When he replied God said to him “Go out and stand on the mountain for the presence of the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then Elijah witnessed the powerful wind and an earthquake and then a fire but Elijah did not see God in any of them. After the fire came a gentle whisper and Elijah heard God ask him again “What are you doing here?”  After he replied God gave him fresh instructions. “Go back the way you came and go to the desert of Damascus. When you get there anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel, and Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel-meholah to succeed you as prophet.” Then God tells Elijah of the seven thousand whose knees have not bowed to Baal.

Maybe we sometimes also feel “I have had enough!” At such times the ministry of angels provide essentials to meet our needs.

What God asked Elijah he might also enquire of us. “What are we doing here?”

from Rev Wes Hampton

Dear Friends,

“Light rain and a moderate breeze” says the weather forecast.  Doesn’t that sound wonderful?  We have had weeks of heatwaves, we have hosepipe bans in place, and a large part of the country is officially in drought.  Yet we do not need the official designations to tell us that the weather has been hot and dry: we have felt it all too keenly for ourselves.  We have approached the point where mad dogs and Englishmen might be said to go out in the ‘late morning to mid-afternoon sun’, or something like that.

For some, “light rain and a moderate breeze” is nothing like enough.  For those who manage our water supplies, this will not replenish the reservoirs.  For our farmers, this sounds like too little, and far, far too late.  For most of us, however, we do not want so much rain that we need to build arks, nor wind strong enough to make a dry channel appear in the sea.  We prefer to be comfortable, and generally that means moderation.  We even quote the saying “moderation in all things” as if it were a self-evident truth, though whether it is appropriate to have moderation in moderation is another question (I shall leave that for you.)

The demands of our faith, however, are often given in very immoderate ways: Jesus called his followers to take up their cross, he told a rich young ruler to give away all his wealth and follow Jesus, and commended the actions of a widow who donated every penny she had to the Temple treasury.  In Revelation, we even read of a church that the Son of Man will spit out because it is lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.  Immoderate language for moderate behaviour!

Neither extremism nor moderation is a sufficient way to view our discipleship.  We cannot all give up everything, nor should we all be content with a life that knows no challenge and challenges no-one.  Somehow, we need to work out what ‘balance’ in these things means.  We cannot, however, do all that now: “light rain and moderate breeze” sounds good.

Wes

Some previous Pastoral Letters are available here.