Parish Magazine Letter, April / May 2022

by | Apr 3, 2022 | Magazine Letter

Dear Friends

As I write, we have just launched our Stewardship Initiative. Stewardship, as I explained in a recent sermon, is about taking care of what we have been given by God, and that includes our money, time and talents. We last held a stewardship initiative at St.Mary’s in 2018, and therefore it is appropriate that we now reconsider how we put these things at God’s disposal. There are three main things I would like us all to consider. Firstly, are we being called by God to increase what we give financially to the church? Secondly, if we have not yet joined the Parish Giving Scheme, please will we consider joining this? It really does help with our cashflow to know what income we have coming in on a regular basis, and it also saves time administering our finances. Thirdly, is God calling us to use our time and talents to serve Him in a new way? Please do think and pray about these matters. When you have done so, please return the giving and time and talents forms inside the stewardship envelope you have received from church (do let me know if you have not received one and would like one of these). Forms need to be returned in the envelope provided to our treasurer, Julie Shaw, on our Thanksgiving Sunday, which this year is Palm Sunday 10 April. Thank you for considering this, and if you would like any further information, please do speak to myself or to one of the other members of the Stewardship Team (John Taylor, Julie Shaw, Terry Finnegan, and Sue Gibbons).

I mentioned in my last letter that we have been waiting on permission from the diocese to install the new chairs we have received funding for from the Co-op. I am pleased to say that this has now been received and we hope to have the new chairs in place by the end of April. Come and try them out when you can! By the time you read this letter, we will also have applied to the diocese for permission to go ahead with our church extension. Hopefully we can obtain permission from both the diocese and the local authority by the end of the year, and start it soon afterwards.

One other encouraging piece of news is that we have been awarded the bronze eco church award by the Christian environmental charity, A Rocha. Churches up and down the UK are invited to think about how they practically care for the environment, in terms of their buildings and grounds, and to provide an environmental focus through their worship, preaching and prayer. I am pleased that we have received this initial award and hope we can go on to get the silver award during the course of the next 12 months. My thanks go to Margaret Emsley, David Scarisbrick and Clare Grimes, who together with myself, make up our church eco team. Do let me know if you would like to join us!

With my prayers and best wishes for a very happy Easter.

Jeremy Tear

Pioneer Team Rector

Team Letter, April 2022

by | Apr 3, 2022 | Team Letter

Dear Friends

It was good to welcome numbers of people from across our team, and Penketh Methodist Church, to our communion service on Ash Wednesday at St.Mary’s. Being able to join together in person for this service once again was a real blessing after not being able to do so last year. If you have joined one of the team Lent courses being run by Sarah, Martin and myself, I hope that you are finding that helpful as well.

Looking ahead to Holy Week, there are a number of Team Services taking place:

Maundy Thursday, 14 April Communion St.Paul’s 7.30pm
Vigil St.Mary’s 9.00pm
Good Friday, 15 April Churches Together Service Honiton Square 12noon
Last Hour at the Cross St.Philip’s 2.00pm
Easter Eve, 16 April Vigil St.James 7.30pm

May I encourage you to join in as many of these different services as possible and not just to attend services in your own church this year? There is a tremendous breadth of opportunities here to worship across our team, and indeed with fellow Christians at Honiton Square on Good Friday, so why not make the most of these and make your experience of Holy Week an even richer one? For those of you unfamiliar with vigils, the word comes from a Latin word meaning ‘awake’. On Maundy Thursday, we are invited to keep awake with Jesus as we remember his time in the Garden of Gethsemane in silent prayer interspersed with readings from John chapters 14-18. On Easter Eve, we are invited to keep awake with Christians throughout the world as we recall the mighty acts of God through Scripture in anticipation of his raising Jesus from the dead. And there is the lighting of an Easter fire outside as we anticipate Jesus, the light of the world, the risen one.

Finally, I want to mention our new team bible verse for this year. The core team of clergy, our ordinand, and local missional leaders sensed that we were being drawn to 1 Philippians chapter 3 verses 13b-14: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. It is not that we should, or can, forget the hurts and the pains of these past two years of Covid, but rather we felt that we don’t want to be held back by them as we seek to build back our churches as we emerge out of restrictions. I hope this verse may prove helpful to us all as we focus on what God has in store for us ahead in the coming months.

With my prayers and best wishes for very Happy Easter.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector