Category: Priest’s Monthly Letters

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

We had a very busy and fulfilling Bank holiday weekend. A wonderful Flower Festival at Broadwoodwidger, a super 5th Sunday service and lunch at Bradstone, and opening the weekend was the most wonderful party which so many of you came to to celebrate my birthday and my 30th anniversary of my ordination to the Priesthood.

There is nothing quite like being with friends and family, and for me the church has not been an extension of my family it is, and has always been an integral part of it.

We often turn to the church when things are tough, but that doesn’t mean we should not also share our celebrations and achievements with our church family too.

Whether it be a Golden wedding, or the passing of our Driving Test, a good set of GCSE results, or a trophy at the local show, or the arrival of a new grandchild, the church of God rejoices in the joy and achievement of its members.

So thank you so much for joining me in my celebration, and if you have something to celebrate, bring that celebration to church and let us help you give thanks to God for it.

With love and prayers,

Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

We are all used to the routine of our seasons, both the temporal seasons of the year, and the seasons of our church year. Everything has its time and place.

Sometimes though, things happen that disrupt our normality and make us think again.

This month, major works will begin at St. Nicholas Broadwoodwidger, and during this time the church will not be open for visits or worship. God will not be absent, but we need to find another place to gather to worship him.

I hope very much that those who worship regularly at St. Nicholas will explore and enjoy the worship that is offered in the other parishes in this Mission Community, as I hope that those of us who worship in the other churches will join with the people of Broadwoodwidger in rejoicing and thankfulness when the work is completed and we are able to use the building for worship again.

At present, we cannot be sure of when this will be, so watch out for further notices.

As many of you know, I look forward immensely to leading the singing in our schools. It is such a wonderful privilege to hear the sound of children’s voices raised in song. This is something that crosses all national and cultural boundaries. Do please come and support the Pearl of Africa Children’s Choir, who are raising money to support children’s education in Uganda (see separate notice). I can assure you that it will lift your spirits immensely!!

With love and prayers,

Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends

Sometimes things can be so familiar we need something of a jolt to notice their importance and significance. These past few weeks I have come to a new understanding of a very familiar bible passage, which I have known by heart since I was a small boy.

Psalm 121 is one of the most beloved of all the psalms… I will lift up my eyes to the hills…. It is even quoted in The Sound of Music!! I have said it and sung it thousands of times, but I never really thought about its context. And how important something was.

It is only in the past few weeks, when we have been subject to what feels like the hottest weather I can remember, that I have thought seriously about the words… The Lord is your shade at your right hand, So that the sun does not hurt you by day…

Too much sun is not a good thing, and although we are used to the idea of God being described in terms of light and brightness, here is an example of God being described in terms of darkness and shade as a protection from the sun.

Everyone’s relationship with God is, to a certain extent, influenced by the context of their lives, and there understanding, description, and experience of God may be very different to ours, but that does not make it invalid.

So I do hope that all of us will keep safe this summer, both from the excessive and oppressive heat that we have recently been subject to, but also from the dangerous misunderstanding that God is only understood from our point of view.

Jesus challenged his listeners to think beyond their own experience and backgrounds in many of his parables and by his pastoral encounters and miracles. It is vitally important that the church looks for God’s wisdom and power in all things, rather than limits it to what we think we know.

With love and prayers,
Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

At the very end of May, we celebrated one of our Fifth Sunday Special Celebrations, Celebrating the Unity of God in Trinity, at the Coronation Hall at the Fox and Grapes Pub.

It was the most wonderful occasion—not despite, but because of, a bit of a disaster…

The worshipping Community at Lifton Methodist Church discovered, with only a couple of days to spare, that the building works they had commissioned would not be finished in time for Sunday, and the church building would not be safe to use.

A couple of phone calls between the Minister and Parish Priest later, and all was sorted for our Methodist neighbours to come and join with us in our Fifth Sunday Celebration. To everyone that I have spoken with, it was the very best occasion we have had. It was joyful, friendly, and sincere, with members of all churches taking a full part.

My dad had a lovely phrase: “Our Pear-shaped can be God’s perfect apple!” God can transform human disasters into divine triumphs. The Miracle at Cana in Galilee and the Feeding of the Five Thousand are examples of God and human beings collaborating to rescue what would have been disasters, turning them instead into wonderful experiences of God’s love.

There is so much in the world that depresses us right now, but we know that God’s love transforms. We should look for every opportunity to demonstrate that in the world and the community we live in and share.

With love and prayers,

Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

What a wonderful Easter season we have had in our churches!

Both Lewtrenchard School and Lifton School came to Church in the last week of term, and filled the buildings with a mixture of wonderful readings and glorious singing! Our Easter Services were a real joy, full of energy and excitement. And not a mention of anything regarding eggs, chocolate or bunnies!!!!

Our church buildings were full of colour thanks to our wonderful flower teams. Those of us who gathered to hear the BarberPapas’ amazing Barbershop concert in Easter Week were privileged to hear the very best music sung and appreciated with utter joy, and will remember it for years to come.

We will continue to celebrate the joys of our life on this earth with our Celebration of the Senses Flower Festival at Kelly later this month. As we move into the summer, let us let the world know that life is to be enjoyed and cherished. Over the three days, all five of the senses will be stimulated by the wonderful things around us and the skills of members of our communities.

So do come and join us, and bring your friends!

With love and prayers,

Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

I write this letter is a state of both exhilaration and exhaustion!

Holy Week and Easter was a wonderful celebration of God’s love in Jesus which was made even more special by including a joyful Baptism and a wonderful wedding.

To add to this we were blessed by a visit from our German Barbershop friends who not only entertained us in spectacular fashion in a concert, but were a delight to host and look after for the days that they were with us.

With all that seems wrong in the world, it is good to remind ourselves of what it is to live in God’s love, and the events surrounding our Easter celebrations were indeed evidence of God’s love in action within our church and community.

Although it is impossible to explain in human terms, the pure unifying love of God is what we celebrate and contemplate on Trinity Sunday, and we have a special opportunity to demonstrate and share that love and joy with each other at one of our Fifth Sunday Special celebrations on May 31st at the Fox and Grapes.

Everyone, of all ages, is welcome to join us for worship and to enjoy fellowship and fun with each other at lunch afterwards.

So do come and bring your friends!!

With love and prayers,

Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

This is my Easter letter, and as such it should fizz with the Joy of all that Easter is about: The triumph of life over death, of joy over sorrow, and of light over darkness. That is God’s truth!

Unfortunately, as we are all too well aware, humanity finds this truth very hard to understand or follow, and we find ourselves, once again, in a world where death is celebrated, misery is promoted and darkness seems to be in control.

That is, most likely, how Jesus and his followers felt at the time of Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion. They were not the kind of people who could change the world. They were fishermen, tax collectors, ordinary men, who were not specially educated or prepared for leadership or world domination, and yet through their experience and God’s grace, that is exactly what they became, and they changed the world.

Thirty-nine years ago, I had the privilege of being one of the thousands of people at Durham Cathedral hearing Desmond Tutu, the then Archbishop of Cape Town, preach. This was during the darkest days of Apartheid, when he was leading the fight against the wicked oppression that was the law in his country. His communities were embattled against constitutional segregation and murder, and although many, around the world, were campaigning with and for him, there were also those who were happy for the status quo to carry on while it supported their own economic agenda.

What we all experienced that evening was a man of utter JOY. Not a false dislocated joy that just ignored the realities that he and his country were experiencing, but a powerful joy in God’s love and grace that helped transform the darkness around him.

It is my fervent prayer, that as we celebrate the true Joy of Easter this year, we may harness its joy and power to be utterly transformational and show the truth of Light and joy that we celebrate in the resurrection of Jesus to the world that seems in so much darkness and sorrow at present.

With love and prayers,

Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear Friends,

One of the phrases I use—probably too much—is that there is no such thing as Ordinary Time in the Church’s year, as following Christ is an extraordinarily wonderful thing to do! It is a play on words: we have just left a short period of Ordinary Time between Candlemas and Lent, and there is a much longer period of Ordinary Time over the Summer and Autumn. But there is nothing ordinary about the Christian life!

Over the next few weeks, we will once again take part in the most exciting time in the Church’s Year. We continue to travel through Lent, acknowledge the love within our families on Mothering Sunday, and relive and celebrate the dramatic moments of Jesus’ final days—his death and resurrection during Holy Week and Easter. The commemorations of Holy Week, which lead into Easter, remind us of God’s understanding of human suffering. We see a great deal of despair, unfairness, hurt, and suffering in our world at present. These were all things that Jesus experienced in his lifetime, and by living through them, He was able to triumph over them. So let us use this time to commend our world to God, who loves and cares for His creation so deeply.

Please come and join us in our commemorations and celebrations over the next few weeks. These are special times, prepared for with special effort. Eastertide is a time for joyous celebration. We are thrilled to welcome an exceptional group of young singers from Germany who specialize in Barbershop singing. The Barberpapas will be performing in St. Mary’s Lifton on 9th April at 7 PM. The concert is free and open to everyone of any age. I can assure you it will be a night to remember!

With love and prayers,
Philip

From the Parish Priest

I write this letter just after our Epiphany celebration.

I do hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We were very happy to see so many of you join us for our services across the Mission Community. It was a really good sign of people wanting to join in the worship and celebration the Church offered over the Christmas season.

Worshipping God should be enjoyable, and I have always found it so. However, it should also be able to challenge us as to how we live our lives.

This month sees the start of Lent, the season when we are challenged to think about how our lives reflect the life and love of Jesus.

The North Tamar Mission Community includes St Mary the Virgin, St Nicolas, St John the Baptist, St George, and St Peter, serving Kelly, Bradstone, Lifton, Broadwoodwidger, Stowford, Thrushleton, and Lewtrenchard.

This is not, as many suggest, a hard and painful thing to do, but an opportunity, supported by the whole Church, to reflect on how we live our lives as Christians.

So do please come and join us on our journey through Lent, starting with our Ash Wednesday service at St Mary’s, Lifton, where we can all support each other as we live and grow in Christ Jesus.

With love and prayers,
Philip

From the Parish Priest

The seasons of Advent and Christmas should be times of hope, joy, and celebration of the Love of God.

We are often so busy at this time of year, and there are so many demands on our time and finances, that we can too easily forget the heart of the Christmas story and season.

The world that Jesus came into in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago is the same world we live in today. The Christmas Story has wealth and poverty, despots and dictators, violence and oppression, as well as the peace of the Christ child, the love of Mary and Joseph, and the joy of angels and shepherds.

St. Mary the Virgin, St. Nicolas, St. John the Baptist, St. George, St. Peter, Kelly with Bradstone, Lifton, Broadwoodwidger, Stowford, Thrushleton, Lewtrenchard – The North Tamar Mission Community.

It is my hope and prayer for us all this Christmastide that we can see the light, joy, and love of Jesus Christ shine through all the darkness, sadness, and hatred that we see happening in our world. I invite you to come and join us in all the services, events, and activities, which we have planned to celebrate this wonderful season.

Everyone is welcome to everything! There is always a special place for children in church, even if the event is not specially designed for them. I would much rather hear the noise of a child’s presence than the silence of their absence!

So do come and join us in celebrating the wonderful truths of Christmas and help us to proclaim the love of God and pray for the world He loves so much.

With love and prayers for a blessed and holy Christmas, and a happy and peaceful New Year.

Philip