Weekly News

Dearest friends, What a terrific Sunday we shared last week. A beautiful mass at St. Luke’s with +Paul, celebrating our Patronal feast. And what a feast it was! A brilliant array of food and conversation after mass that lifted the heart and reminded us of the lovely community of Christ we are. Then, in the evening, a gentle celebration of Evensong – although gentle is the last word I’d use for the singing! We lifted the roof off with our…

Dearest friends, What does the future hold? If only we could get our crystal balls out and see… fortunately, the Holy Spirit guides and supports us as we figure out where we go next. This Sunday, we come together at 4 pm for a joint Evensong followed by an hour of discussion about what we would like to see in our parishes over the next 10 years. In many ways, our future is thrust upon us. We have a shared…

Dearest friends, Rejoice! What a wonderful Sunday we shared last week. Not only did we experience the love and joy of shared worship in the morning but we also launched our new church, Explorers, in Heathfield.  We were joined by 14 children who visited us from across Newton Abbot and Bovey Tracey.  We started with learning about Creation and the very beginnings of our life and universe before singing that great hymn ‘My God is So Big!’ complete with actions.…

Dearest friends, This Sunday sees the very first Explorers at St. Catherine’s School in Heathfield. We’ve deliberately kept the advertising low key and we’ve reached out to a few families by word of mouth. We’re praying that two or three families will come through the door on Sunday and come to know our wonderful people and the love of Jesus. They’ll do this through song, craft, prayer, and conversation – but it’s the parents who will be really changed by…

Dearest friends, I’ve always thought of faith in God as something that needs to be rooted. There are lots of ways to be rooted, if we look to creation we see roots that run deep, roots that skit across the surface, roots that seek and spread wide. All of these root systems achieve the same thing in the same way – they feed the plant and make it stronger. In our case we want to be stronger in our faith…

Dearest friends, Last week, I invited us to dream together about the next ten years for our parishes, much as Reverend William Keble Martin, and Cannon Courtney did all that time ago.  Your response has warmed my heart—your thoughtful messages, conversations after Mass, and eager questions show the love you have for our parishes.  I’m deeply grateful for your faith and commitment, and I’m excited to keep this journey moving forward. Planning for the future is our chance to ensure…

Dearest friends, When I arrived, just about 18 months ago, I wanted to take time to get to know people, get to know the parishes, and start to understand what the Holy Spirit was calling us to over the coming years. I wanted to spend time listening to the Holy Spirit and feeling my way forward as slowly as I could.  I think we’ve now reached a time where we can start to plan out the next 10 years together.…

Dearest friends, Next Sunday we celebrate the great feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. John Calvin once said that if you added up all the genuine relics of the True Cross you’d have enough to fill a ship. People have always laughed at those of us ‘stupid’ enough to sit and pray in front of so-called relics of the True Cross (there is one in Walsingham in the Holy Cross Chapel which I shall be praying in front…

Dearest friends, Next week lots of people from across the diocese will be heading to Walsingham for the annual pilgrimage of Our Lady of Walsingham. Walsingham holds a very special and very dear place in my heart. I head off to North Norfolk several times a year – sometimes just for the day – oftentimes for a few.  It is a ‘thin place’. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s a place that has been prayed in for such…

Dearest friends, Sometimes praying for one person to come to know Jesus is the most powerful prayer there is. This week we celebrate the life and work of St. Monica. She is one of the lesser know saints – which is a huge shame because the example of her life and her prayers are vital to our understanding of what being a christian is all about. She was born in Africa to a Christian family and married quite young to…

Dearest friends, A couple of weeks ago I was ensconced in Bath doing battle with the various Faculties both churches require. We were lucky enough to be invited to stay with some of Edmund’s friends who were joining him on a rowing week.  They’re a wonderful Christian family and one evening over dinner one of the boys passed a rather judgemental comment about one of the other lads on the rowing course. Quick as a flash his Dad said, ‘we…

Dearest friends, We have a few big pilgrimage events this summer. Sadly they’ve come very close together and are normally more spread out.  The first is the Glastonbury Pilgrimage on the 6th September. We’ll be heading there as a parish and aim to arrive in Glastonbury for 11am. We need to register / pay £11 per person which covers the Abbey admission fee. You can do this online or in person at either of the churches this / the coming…