Hazelwell Weekly Contact June 22nd 2025
21 Jun 2025 • Weekly Notices
1st Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Hazelwell Communion Service
Led by Rev’d Matt Churchouse
Please remember in your prayers:-
Residents of Hazelwell Fordrough and Edwin Road.
All who work to facilitate local and national government including local councillors, government officers, MPs, Ministers and civil servants.
A Prayer from Matt
Lord God, for eternity you have existed as the triune God. We thank you for that knowledge and the joy it is to know that: love and persons have existed eternally and are at the very core of reality. May that reality be reflected in the way that we treat you, and other people - indeed, in the way we relate to all creation. Fill us Spirit of love, that we may know you more intimately and may follow the Lord Jesus more fully. In His name we ask, Amen.
Parish Update
ERROR last week the total raised at our summer fair was reported to be £854 – it was in fact £653 which has now risen to £704.
The midweek discipleship course will recommence from this week running on Tuesday mornings from 10.00-12.00 in the quiet room.
All Welcome.
Dads & Toddlers group meets the third Saturday in the month 21st June, 19th July in church,10am – 12pm
Brandwood Fun Day - in Dawberry Fields Saturday 21st June 12-4pm.
Sunday 29th June there will be no service at Hazelwell there will be a Joint service with St. Bede’s Church starting at 11.00am.
Reflection on Luke 8:35–39 (Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Man)
"Then people went out to see what had happened... and they found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind." (v.35)
The man was living among the tombs, naked and isolated - cut off from community and stripped of dignity. Jesus not only casts out the demons but restores the man to wholeness. He is later found “clothed and in his right mind,” hence the restoration of identity, sanity, and humanity. The power of the word of God not only changes behaviour but can also restore identity.
"Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear." (v.37)
Strangely, instead of rejoicing over the man’s healing, the townspeople are afraid. They ask Jesus to leave - a sober reminder that divine intervention can be unsettling. The miraculous often disrupts what is familiar. When faced with real transformation, not everyone rejoices—especially if it challenges comfort, economy (the loss of pigs), or control.
"Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." (v.39)
Though the healed man wants to stay with Jesus, Jesus sends him home to testify. This is profound: the first missionary to the Gentiles in Luke's Gospel is not a scholar or disciple but someone society had abandoned. God uses the restored to reach the broken.
In summary this passage reminds us that Jesus goes to the margins—to the unclean, the uncontrollable, the feared—and brings healing. He doesn’t just calm storms on the sea (as in the previous verses), but also storms within the human soul. And then He calls the healed to bear witness—not perfectly, but honestly.
Questions
- Are there areas in my life that feel controlled by forces I cannot manage—whether sin, shame, addiction, or fear? How might Jesus be seeking to restore me?
- Am I sometimes more comfortable with brokenness I can control than with healing that demands change?
- How can I, like the healed man, tell others what God has done for me—even if my past is messy?