Welcome
We are the Church of England parish of St Mary’s Shaw cum Donnington – just to the north and east of Newbury.
Our purpose and focus is Knowing Jesus, Sharing God’s Love, Caring for People.
You can read more about it here.
We meet every Sunday at 10am, as well as at other times during the week.
Everyone is welcome to join us.
Word for the Week
- What does love mean?In our culture, the word “love” is used in many ways, from the trivial I love sausages, to the romantic. Most often, love is reduced to emotion and feeling. Films reinforce this idea: a couple meet, fall in love, face a few obstacles and eventually reach their wedding day. The central questions are, “Will he propose?” and “Will she accept?” Once they are answered, the credits roll and we leave the cinema with a warm glow. Films about marriage are in my experience rare.New Testament Greek has four words for the English one, which helps to understand some of our inadequacy in usage of the word love. The biblical understanding of God’s love does not reduce the word to a matter of feeling, with all the romantic connotations, but of the will. God is love, his very nature is love supremely demonstrated in Jesus on the cross.The Bible is concerned with what happens after the film ends: the covenant love revealed on the cross and expressed in marriage vows of sacrificial, everlasting and unconditional love. When our feelings lead us to doubt our faith, we are able to look to the cross for assurance of God’s love.Geoff