‘What if the Gospel wasn’t a book but a person? The one sitting next to you. What if the gospel truth was found in the honest faith and doubt of a life like yours?’ If you’re a regular at St Luke’s services, you’ll occasionally hear a very different kind of Gospel reading: the gospel story of a member of our community. It might be the story of the sister who lost her brother to cancer… the artist whose journey through mental illness became a kind of blessing… or the atheist who realised one day that he’d become a believer. It was Martin Wroe who came up with the idea of using our own stories of everyday faith in our services. ‘Someone said that the church is the fifth Gospel,’ says Martin. ‘Every week, we hear a reading from the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but I wondered what a Gospel reading from the fifth Gospel would be like? The Gospel according to the church, according to you and me. The Gospel according to everyone?’ Martin, who makes a living as a writer, set about recording the stories of people at St Luke’s – stories of hardship, hope and faith. Two years ago, he published them in a book, The Gospel According To Everyone, and we’ve got to enjoy many of these stories in our Sunday services. Through them, we’ve been moved and inspired, and learned more about the people sitting alongside us every week. Martin has now published a second volume of The Gospel According To Everyone. Once again, it’s illustrated with portraits by acclaimed artist Meg Wroe, and it’s been endorsed by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who describes the stories as having, ‘an eloquence that exceeds most of the sermons I have preached and heard.’ You can sample a story from the first volume of The Gospel According To Everyone here: http://www.saintlukeschurch.org.uk/2012/10/15/the-gospel-according-to-sam-murphy/ and one from the new volume here: http://www.saintlukeschurch.org.uk/2013/03/03/the-gospel-of-gary/
You can buy copies of both volumes of The Gospel According To Everyone (£5 each) at the next few Sunday morning services, or online at http://martinwroe.com/books/. An iBook and Kindle version are coming soon. Thank you for everything you do for St Luke’s, Martin – and please keep inspiring us with your wonderful stories.