St Giles' Church, Great Wishford

The Church of St Giles in the Wiltshire village of Great Wishford is another of those typically English parish churches for which our land is famous. Apart from some unusual tombs previously considered, all within is what one might expect. There are other tombs here, too, as well as a rather fine Norman font from the late 1100s, with its zig-zagging design, then so popular.

For well-nigh a thousand years, the folk of Great Wishford were welcomed into the world here above that font, and buried here, when their leases came to an end. And let us not forget all the stuff inbetween: the Christmas celebrations, the churching, the parish meetings, the regular Sunday services. Truly, the local church governed their everyday lives.

We Protestant dissenters who see the local church as a gathered community of believers cannot subscribe to the 'state church approach' of which St Giles’ has always been part. Furthermore, we also know that congregations can include disagreeable folk with whom we might not always wish to share our time and space. Yet a gathering of co-believers, fellow pilgrims and brethren in the Lord, is a general source of encouragement and joy. We might not wish to have our lives dominated by church from cradle to grave, but neither must we become lone rangers, only occasionally darkening its doors and warming its seats. Church life is not easy, but it is important; I pray I shall play my part in it from the time I joined it at my conversion to the day I leave this world, when the Lord of the Church calls me home to that greater ecclesia or Church: the cosmic community of the redeemed. 

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17