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Your local Methodist/United Reformed Church meeting in South Ashford

Welcome to the online home of the United Church Cade Road, we are a Methodist and United Reformed Church operating in the South Ashford area of Ashford, Kent.

All of us have been to church for the first time, but we understand that for some people going to church can be difficult, please do feel free to join us for a service to  see what worship is about and maybe stay for refreshments afterwards. We look forward to meeting you.

Carrying the Glory Down the Mountain

A thought from Revd Adrian Roux, you can come and listen to Adrian as he leads our worship on Sunday from 10:30am.

Peter’s instinct on the mountaintop was utterly, endearingly human. Standing in the blazing presence of a transfigured Jesus, flanked by Moses and Elijah, with the very voice of God reverberating through the cloud, Peter did what any of us would do: he tried to capture it. Build shelters. Bottle the moment. Pin-drop the location (What3Words Transfiguration//Moses//Elijah) and never leave.
We understand that impulse because we’ve felt it ourselves. A moment of prayer that cracked something open. A communion service where the bread and wine carried weight we couldn’t explain. The fierce joy of working alongside others for something that mattered. We tasted glory, and we wanted to stay.
But the Transfiguration’s real power lies in what happens next. Jesus doesn’t let them stay. He touches them, physical, present, tender, he drives out their fear and emboldens them, and then, leads them straight back down the mountain. There a father, desperate and broken, whose child is suffering and whose community has failed him. Need. Pain. The real world.
This is the rhythm of Christian discipleship: go up, encounter glory, come down, serve. The mountain moments matter profoundly, without the encounter, we are neither new, nor different, and we carry nothing. But the glory was never meant to be preserved behind glass on a summit. It was meant for hospital corridors and high streets, for food banks and front doors, for the quiet ministry of a phone call to someone who’s been missed.
Wesley understood this instinctively. He didn’t retreat into holy places. He preached in fields, built schools, pharmacies, hospitals. His last letter urged Wilberforce to keep fighting slavery. For Wesley, the encounter with God was always the beginning of engagement with the world, never the end.
And underneath it all, before any command to serve, comes grace. God’s first word over Jesus, and over every one of us, is “beloved.” Not assessed. Not performance-reviewed. Beloved. That is the glory we carry down the mountain: the unshakeable knowledge that we are loved, and the call to love the world with that same reckless, self-giving grace.
The mountain is calling. So is the valley.
Know God. Know yourself loved.
Follow Jesus.

Whispered Blessings, Revolutionary Love

Our services this week are at 10:30 am at both United Church Cade Road and at Kennington United Church.
A thought for this week from Revd Adrian Roux.
What does God want from us? In Micah’s ancient courtroom drama, the people keep escalating their religious offerings: burnt sacrifices, year-old calves, thousands of rams, rivers of oil, even their own children. They think there is a deal to be made, but God’s answer cuts through their noise with revolutionary simplicity: “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.”
This isn’t just beautiful poetry. It’s a manifesto that Jesus embodied in the Beatitudes and Paul defended when he proclaimed the scandalous wisdom of the cross.
The meek will inherit the earth. Jesus isn’t talking about mild-mannered politeness. The “meek” are the anawim, the landless poor with no means of supporting themselves, crushed under economic systems that ensure their poverty. Jesus promises land to the landless. In agricultural Palestine, that was revolutionary. In our age of grotesque wealth concentration, where tech billionaires buy space ships and elections while food banks run empty, it remains revolutionary. God’s kingdom announces the end of systems that hoard resources while people starve. “The earth is the Lord’s,” the Psalmist reminds us. Jesus says God is gifting it to the poor.
Those who mourn will be comforted. This isn’t just about private grief. In the context of Roman occupation and imperial violence, who was mourning? Those who’d seen family members crucified, communities destroyed, systemic injustice crushing hope. This is corporate lament over structural evil: Ukrainians and Iranians, and faithful Jews, those grieving senseless violence, and those who long for a better world. “They will be comforted.”
The merciful will receive mercy. Mercy in biblical Greek is hesed, that steadfast, covenantal love that defines God’s own character. It’s not sentiment; it’s concrete action: debt cancellation, prison reform, welcoming refugees, providing sanctuary. Blessed are those working for restorative justice. They will receive mercy, not always from neighbours or the state, but from God.
We live in an age rollicking toward authoritarianism, dominance, ‘winning’ and us-versus-them tribalism. It often wraps itself in Christian language, but make no mistake: this is the anti-gospel. The cross doesn’t promise greatness, strong borders, or cultural supremacy. It reveals a God who sides with those on the receiving end of state-sponsored violence, who blesses precisely those empire crushes underfoot.
Christianity will always look foolish to worldly wisdom. When Rome worshipped power, the early church worshipped a crucified Jew. When empire seems prudent and practical, the Beatitudes keep blessing the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers.
We’ll be called idealistic, impractical, weak, foolish.
But we’ll reveal the heart of God to the world.
“The Meek, The Merciful, and the Manifesto That Changes Everything”

Devotions for Sunday 2nd February 2026

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ivz9i-1a32031

This week, Dwight reflects on Matthew chapter 11, verses 25 to 30, read by Richard.  Dwight reflects on what we worry about, how it can impact our faith and how we can struggle with our faith.  Can “picking up the yoke” be a possible help, being guided by God?  The songs this week are “At the Name of Jesus”, “I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say”, “Jesus calls us here to meet him” and “Lord For The Years You Love Has Kept and Guided”.

Following Jesus: What If “Fishers of People” Wasn’t About Evangelism?

We’ve domesticated Jesus’ call to discipleship. When Jesus told James and John, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people,” we’ve turned it into gentle evangelism—inviting folks to church, growing congregations, saving souls. Comfortable. Safe. Manageable.
But those Galilean fishermen heard something far more dangerous.
They knew their scriptures. When Jesus spoke of fishing for people, they immediately thought of Jeremiah’s promise that God would send fishermen to bring the nation back to God’s ways. They remembered Ezekiel’s prophecy against Pharaoh: God would put hooks in the jaws of empire, drag the mighty from their thrones, and scatter their enablers and sycophants. They recalled Amos condemning the “cows of Bashan”, the wealthy elite who oppress the poor while demanding luxury and service, promising they’d be dragged away with fishhooks.
This wasn’t evangelism. This was prophetic judgment.
These working-class men with callused hands understood immediately: Jesus was recruiting for a movement that would challenge exploitative power, confront those who devour widows’ houses, and overturn systems where the powerful accumulate while others starve. They caught a vision of the world made new where they wouldn’t be subject to the whims of whichever psychopath was most violent and most destructive, where the mighty would be scattered and the hungry filled.
No wonder they dropped their nets immediately.
The cross confirms this revolutionary vision. God’s power doesn’t operate through domination but through self-giving love. The crucified Christ unmasks every regime that promises security through oppression, every system that concentrates wealth while crushing the poor. Rome executed Jesus because his way fundamentally opposed their world, and ours.
The resurrection vindicates this mission and empowers ours.
We’re still called to be fishers of people. Still called to confront injustice and gather community. Still called to expose oppression and liberate the oppressed. Wesley understood this too. His emphasis on social holiness wasn’t optional piety but essential discipleship.
What if Jesus is calling us back to this radical mission? What if he’s saying: leave your settled expectations, your comfortable Christianity, and follow me into a movement that transforms the world from below through sacrificial love?
Perhaps there’s nothing more urgent.
Perhaps it’s time to drop our nets.

Devotions for Sunday 18th January 2026

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-48fph-1a1f55d

At the beginning of the week of Christian Unity Dave is joined by Tom Lewis as they discuss how God knows us and love us and how we can follow his call.  Our readings are from Psalm 139 v1-18 and John 1 v 43-50.  We listen to the following hymns from Singing the Faith; There’s a Quiet Understanding (36), O God, You Search Me and You Know Me (728), Will You Come and Follow Me (673) and Come With Me, Come Follow (462).