Team Letter, April 2025

by | Apr 16, 2025 | Team Letter

Dear Friends,

The months of this year are flying by, and we are now in Holy Week on the cusp of Easter. Please do join in our Team services and other special services this Holy Week, alongside whatever is going on in your own churches. Our celebrations at Easter only make sense if we journey through this week with Jesus, rather than simply jump from Palm Sunday to Easter Day. Our team and special services are:

Maundy Thursday 17 April Team Communion St. Mary’s, 7.30 p.m.
Vigil St. Mary’s, 8.30 – 9.30 p.m. (you are welcome to stay for as short or as long as you wish)
Good Friday 18 April Churches Together Service Honiton Square, Penketh, 12 noon
Last Hour at the Cross St. Philip’s, 2 p.m.
Holy Saturday 19 April Deanery Vigil St. Margaret’s, Orford, 7 p.m.

Part of the busyness of this year has been taken up with the ongoing work surrounding Fit for Mission. Our deanery PCCs have been voting on whether to continue their involvement in creating a larger single parish, and the results of this will be known shortly. Whatever is decided, it will be important to try to find ways of remaining united as Christians in our deanery churches, given the differing views on this issue. That remains the case in relation to the Living in Love and Faith process as well, including the use of prayers of blessing within public worship and potentially within stand-alone services too.

Within our Team, the process of trying to find a new Vicar for St. James (to be shared with St. Barnabas) continues and it is hoped that an appointment will be made by the end of this year. An appointment process will also begin as I leave St. Mary’s on Sunday 1 June to take up a new role as Pastoral Co-ordinator at Mossley Hill Parish Church in South Liverpool. There will be a faith (bring and share) lunch after the 10 am service and I would be delighted to see people from across the team at that. It’s been an honour to serve as the Team Rector here and I am very grateful for people’s support and prayers for myself and my family during what has been an encouraging and challenging nearly 10 years. Please do pray for Sarah, Rebecca, Mal, Steve and Andrew as our clergy, and for Marise, Paul and June as our local missional leaders, and for each other as you continue to serve God and share Jesus with others here.

Finally, I wanted to promote the use of the Church Warrington prayer app for the prayer walking that we are invited to participate in as churches across our town from Easter Sunday (20 April) to Pentecost Sunday (8 June). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone could pray for every street in our town during this time? Visit https://churchwarrington.prayerwalk.app/

With my best wishes for a very Happy Easter,

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector

Parish Magazine, April/ May 2025

by | Apr 6, 2025 | Magazine Letter

Dear Friends,

We began the season of Lent this year with our Ash Wednesday services on 5th March. At the evening service, Sarah Peppiatt (my team colleague at St.Paul’s and St.Philip’s) challenged us to think about what we might be giving up this season based on the reading from Isaiah chapter 58 verses 1-12. She suggested that there would be little point giving up (or fasting) from chocolate or alcohol for Lent if our hearts remained unchanged in the process. However, if we were to give up gossiping about others or putting other people down, that would involve a change of our hearts and would be in tune with the type of fasting Isaiah talked about in the passage. For the fasting he describes as being chosen by God is, “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke…to share our food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter.” In other words, it is to do with how we treat other people (especially the poor and needy), to treat them well. That is more important to God than our outward shows of piety.

Following on from that, I would like to share with us all the PCC’s decision (taken in January) to hold a stewardship initiative this Lent. Stewardship is about considering the use we make of the three T’s – our time, talents and treasure – that we have been given by God. Do they reflect a proper sense of thanksgiving to God, giving to God his worth, or do we only pay cursory attention to them? On Sunday 23 February, we launched our stewardship initiative and each person on the electoral roll was given a pack of information to think and pray about (if you don’t yet have a pack, let me or one of the Stewardship Team know and we will ensure that you get one). Please do use this season to review what you give of your treasure (your money) as well as your time and talents (or skills) to God. Is it generous? Is it sacrificial (i.e. I notice the difference it makes to my life)? Is it given with a spirit of thankfulness to God for all that He has done for you and me? When you have reviewed your giving, please do complete the financial response form and the time and talents form and return both to our treasurer, Paul Ng, in the envelope provided in strict confidence. He will then pass on the time and talents forms to the stewardship team to follow up on offers of help which are made. Amongst other things, we are praying for a new assistant treasurer, and interments and bookings co-ordinators, so if you feel God is calling you to serve in one of these ways (or know someone who might be), do let us know!

Finally, for those who may not yet have heard, I have a new post as the Pastoral Co-ordinator for Mossley Hill Parish Church in Liverpool. This is going to be quite a change for me as I won’t be the Vicar there and I will be focusing just on pastoral care and not the many different things which Vicars tend to do. It will also be a part time post. I would value your prayers as my wife and two children prepare for this change, and I will certainly be praying for you all and working hard to support the parish here as it prepares for the vacancy ahead. I have had some great times working at St.Mary’s and across our team of churches, and I will be sad to leave. Thank you for all your support. But I’m also looking forward to the new challenge ahead as I respond to God’s call upon my life. What might God be calling you to do at this season?

With my best wishes and prayers

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector