Dear Friends

It’s been a while since I last wrote, so my apologies for that, but life has been busy! One of the things which has been a particular focus in recent months has of course been Fit for Mission, the diocesan initiative to help us as churches in our deaneries to grow together Fit For Mission – Diocese of Liverpool. It was good to see a number of people from all our team churches at the Archdeacon’s visitation at St.Mary’s in June, when we heard from Canon Neil Cook, the Rector of Wigan, about the opportunities and challenges of working though a change programme. This of course takes time and is never all plain sailing but Neil did speak of some real encouragements that have come to the churches there through combining efforts to serve the people of that town and to share Jesus with them.

In terms of our own deanery, you may have already heard that there will be meeting on the subject of finance as it relates to Fit for Mission at Christ Church Padgate on Wednesday 27 September at 7.30 p.m. All are welcome but if you would like to attend, please email Gill Dottie at gill.dottie@liverpool.anglican.org by the end of August. There are also plans for a deanery vision morning for PCC’s on 16 September and a Fit for Mission Fair on the evening of 11 October but times and venues are yet to be worked out. I’ll keep you posted. A number of our PCCs are in the process of meeting Harriet Roberts, the newest member of the Fit for Mission Team, whose task is to help provide answers to the questions people may have about this process, so that they can make an informed decision by the end of November. If you would like to contact Harriet with your own questions or if you would like to have a conversation individually or in a small group, please do not hesitate to contact her via email at harriet.roberts@liverpool.anglican.org.uk with your contact details.

It was great to be able to attend the ordination of priests at Liverpool Cathedral on Saturday 10 June, including Rebecca Lloyd from St.James. The journey to being ordained priest can be a long and demanding one, as can the experience of being one! Last month I attended a service for my former training incumbent in Timperley who was celebrating the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. So do please keep Rebecca and all those ordained with her in your prayers.

I would like to thank members of our Team churches who gave up their time to help with the Churches Together stall at the Penketh Carnival on Saturday July 8th. Despite the tremendous downpour at the end, we were fortunate to have some dry weather during the rest of the day and to have some good conversations with and prayer for people who attended. Speaking of Churches Together, you may be aware that St.Joseph’s Catholic Church in Penketh are celebrating their centenary on Saturday 23 September which is a cause for rejoicing. Please keep their priest, Father Raymond, and their congregation in your prayers.

Later this month, local churches will once again be having a presence at the Creamfields Festival in Daresbury from 22-28 August. They are recruiting a team of 70 volunteers from the churches and there may still be some spaces if you are still interested in helping. Apply to volunteer at Creamfields 2023 ! Whether you can help or not, one thing we can all I hope do is provide a packet or two of Jammie Dodger’s. Why Jammie Dodger’s you may ask? Because they have a heart in the middle and as these are shared with festivalgoers, they will be a sign of God’s love to them. Drop off packets at your team church.

Finally, there will be a Church Warrington meeting on Wednesday 6 September at 7.30 pm at Wycliffe Church on Bewsey Street in the town centre to promote and pray for the leaflets being distributed across our town in preparation for the carols event at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Thursday 14 December at 7 p.m. If you can help distribute leaflets, please let your Vicar know.

With my best wishes and prayers.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector

Dear Friends

It’s nearly two months since I last wrote – how time flies! It was good to worship together as a team of churches during Holy Week, with communion and a vigil at St.Mary’s on Maundy Thursday, the Good Friday afternoon service at St.Philip’s, and the Easter Eve vigil at St.James’. It was also good to worship together as part of Churches Together in Warrington at Honiton Square on Good Friday lunchtime.

That sense of praying and worshipping together as Christians in our locality continued with the Thy Kingdom Come prayer walk on Ascension Day last week. I do hope that you are praying for 5 people who do not yet know Jesus to come to know Him and that God blesses you with some good conversations as you seek to share with and demonstrate faith to them. And as we gather in our own churches to celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, may we know the empowering of the Spirit to enable us to continue to share our faith for the year ahead.

As we prepare to move into June, so the Church of England prepares to ordain people as deacons and priests up and down our land, and across our world. Do pray for all those being ordained at this time, particularly in our Diocese of Liverpool, and especially for Rebecca Lloyd from St.James’ as she prepares to be priested. Do also pray for the young people from St.James’ recently confirmed by Bishop John at St.Andrew’s, Orford last Sunday and for the young people and adults from St.Philips’ and St.Mary’s respectively who are preparing to be confirmed at St.Philip’s on Sunday 9 July at 4 p.m.

At the end of March, some of you will have gone to the Parr Hall for the Church Warrington service to hear the evangelist J.John prepare us for a year of mission across our town. This will continue with the production of flyers this summer to distribute to each household across our town in September, informing them of the carols event at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Thursday 14 December at 7 p.m. at which J.John will speak. Do please play your part in helping to distribute these flyers, and be thinking and praying who you might invite to come to that event with you.

Finally ,a reminder that you are all very welcome to attend the deanery visitation at St.Mary’s on Tuesday 13 June at 7.30 p.m. Archdeacon Simon will not only commission churchwardens for their responsibilities but also talk about the diocesan Fit for Mission initiative (NB This meeting relaces the one originally planned for Sunday 11 June). Please do make the most of this opportunity to learn more about Fit for Mission and to ask any questions that you might have about it, as we continue to discern what God is calling us to as churches at this time.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector

P.S. Churches Together in West Warrington are hoping to have a stall at the Penketh Carnival on Saturday July 8, 12 noon-4 pm. If you can help either set up, staff the stall or take it down, please let me or Sarah/Martin know by Sunday 4 June.

Holy Week will soon be with us and, as ever, we have a number of opportunities to worship together as Christians across our team and in the company of those from other churches.

A heads up for after Easter when Churches Together in West Warrington are organising another prayer walk on Thursday 18 May which is Ascension Day and marks the start of the Archbishops 10 days of prayer known as ‘Thy Kingdom Come’. We are invited to use this time to pray for 5 people we know who don’t yet know Jesus for themselves. So do join us if you can:

Further details can be found here.

Many of you will no doubt have begun to hear through our churches of the Diocesan ‘Fit for Mission’ (FFM) initiative. This aims to help churches in deaneries to work more closely together in mission by joining together as part of one, or two, larger parishes. I appreciate that this may be a difficult idea for us to get our heads around when we are so used to often working largely independently as churches. But if we could pool our collective gifts and skills together for the sake of God’s kingdom here in Warrington, that could be very exciting! So may I invite you to attend two forthcoming deanery meetings at which there will be the opportunity to learn more about this:

Further information can be found by clicking here.

Finally, I am delighted to announce that John McCreadie has started work as the youth worker at St.Mary’s and St.Paul’s in conjunction with Youth for Christ. He will spend his time in local high schools as well as working with young people in these two churches. Another person beginning a new ministry next month is John Perumbalath, the next Bishop of Liverpool. You are very welcome to attend his installation service on Saturday 22 April at 3.00 p.m. at the Cathedral. No tickets are required – just turn up!

May you know the hope and the joy that Jesus’ death and resurrection brings this Easter season. With my prayers and best wishes.

Jeremy Tear

Pioneer Team Rector

I do hope that you had a good Christmas and that this New Year has started well for you. If you were struck down with a cold/the flu/Covid, my commiserations and I hope that you are now feeling much better.

As a team, all three of our Local Missional Leaders have been recommissioned by Archdeacon Simon since I last wrote two months ago; Marise Seville at St.Paul’s, Paul Smalley at St.James’, and June Dunning at St.Philip’s. It’s good to have them continuing to serve in our churches and if you would be interested in finding out more about what they do, please have a word with them or one of the clergy or look at the diocesan website Being a Local Missional Leader is a real privilege – Diocese of Liverpool (anglican.org).

I’m pleased to report that St.Mary’s and St.Paul’s have finally been successful in their desire to appoint a youthworker, in conjunction with Youth for Christ, who will work in local high schools and in our churches. The person appointed is due to begin in mid-March, subject to references and a DBS check, and I hope to be able to share more details in my next letter.

One other significant development that has recently taken place in the Church of England concerns the proposals issued by the bishops following the end of the Living in Love and faith (LLF) process. You may recall that we ran three study groups across the team back in the autumn of 2021 to look at the important issues of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage which LLF addresses. The proposals are to introduce prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and blessing for same sex couples. The bishops also reaffirmed the Church’s traditional belief in marriage being between one man and one woman, and hence same sex marriages are not being proposed.

The proposals come before the General Synod at its meeting in London from 6-9 February. Please do pray for wisdom for our bishops, clergy and lay people who will discuss these and make decisions about them. I am very conscious that within our team churches there will be those who support these proposals, as well as those who do not, and perhaps some who are currently unsure what they make of them. Whichever group you find yourself in, I do hope that we can respect one another’s viewpoints, even if you disagree strongly with someone else. Archbishop Justin has spoken about the need for us to learn how to ‘disagree well’ with each other within the Anglican Communion, and I want to suggest that it is possible for us to do that if we listen, love and respect each other, just as we tried to do through the study groups back in 2021.

With my prayers and best wishes.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector

Dear Friends

The season of Advent is almost upon us, and perhaps for many of us that signals the beginning of a headlong rush towards Christmas. There can be so much to do at this time of year – presents to buy, cards to write, food and drink to be ordered, etc. But in that busyness, we can easily fail to recognise the gift of this season. The opportunity to prepare ourselves once again for the coming of Christ into the world, and indeed his coming again at the end of time.

So how might we use this season wisely? One of the things we can do is to make time to speak to someone about our spiritual lives. That might be one of the clergy, a spiritual director (if we have one), or another wise and trusted Christian that we know and respect. Sharing our spiritual journey with another person at a deep level can be one of the most liberating and helpful things we do as Christians. We also might like to take time to read our bibles, to read a devotional book, and to pray. For some of us, these may be activities we do regularly, in which case why not make some extra time for this during Advent? For others of us perhaps that is not so, in which case it’s never too late to start. If you are looking for some advice on reading and praying, do contact one of the clergy. Another thing we might want to consider doing is joining an Advent course. This year, I will be taking part in the course being organised by Sabeel-Kairos, a Christian human rights charity working for a just peace in Israel/Palestine. It’s called ‘Challenging Apartheid in Advent’ and will run on the four Sundays in Advent on Zoom at 7pm. Further details can be found here. We may find the idea of apartheid in relation to the Holy Land a strange one – in South Africa in the past maybe, but not in the land of Jesus’ birth now? However, if you have visited the place and taken time to speak to those concerned for human rights who live there – whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or of no faith – then you will have realised that all is far from well. If you are Palestinian, you face daily challenges in relation to freedom of movement for work, education and healthcare. So much so that Amnesty International have recently published a report entitled Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians – Amnesty International. Do look at this link and join the course if you can, for part of our calling as Christians in this diocese is to work for justice, to be part of a bigger church making a bigger difference.

Finally, do pray for Marise Seville at St.Paul’s who is being recommissioned as a Local Missional Leader by Archdeacon Simon this Sunday, as June Dunning at St.Philip’s will be in January. Might God be calling you to serve His church in this way also? Do speak to Marise or June, or to one of the clergy if you would like to explore this further.

With my prayers and best wishes.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector

This time of year in the Church’s calendar is a season of remembering – All Saints, All Souls and Remembrance Sunday. It’s good to remember those who have gone before us for to ‘re-member’ reminds us that we are connected to others, other members of the church and the wider human community.

This year All Saints Sunday falls on Sunday 30 October and in particular we remember those Christian saints, or heroes of the faith, who have gone before us. The same day, at our Team Memorial Service, we remember All Souls, those we have known and loved who have died. We specifically invite to this service the next of kin of those we have taken funeral services for across our team during the past year. However, all within our team churches are welcome to attend this service to remember a loved one who has died, whether in the past year or longer ago. The service is at 3 pm at St.Mary’s and various members of our core team will be involved with that.

As we then begin November, our season of remembering continues with our Remembrance Sunday Services on November 13th. For those in Penketh and Sankey, there will be the act of remembrance at 11am at St.Mary’s cemetery, whilst all four of our team churches will hold services at some point that day.

This season of remembering will I expect be especially poignant for us as a nation this year as we remember the life of our late monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Her 70 years of faithful service are something that I think many will want to remember and I suspect that we will see larger numbers than usual at our services.

However we may choose to remember this year, and that will be in different ways across our team churches, I hope and pray that you find this helpful.

With my prayers and best wishes.

Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector