North Tamar Churches

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

Dear friends,

They say that Christmas gets earlier and earlier every year!

This year I saw my first Christmas display in a supermarket in August!!!!

I love Christmas — both the festive atmosphere in our homes and communities, and the joy of our Christmas Worship in church.

Despite what commerce may claim, Christmas begins on Christmas Eve.

The twelve feast days end with the wonderful celebration of the visit of the Wise Men on the feast of the Epiphany (January 6th), and the season concludes gloriously and finally on February 2nd, when we celebrate the last event of Christ’s infancy on the Feast of Candlemas.

Now, I am not a killjoy, and I am not in any way saying that we should not fully embrace the joy and hope of Christmas — but when we start Christmas so early, we stop ourselves being able to appreciate the joy and excitement of the season of Advent.

Advent Sunday heralds the start of a new Christian year — four weeks of excited anticipation, not just for our Christmas celebrations, but for God’s call and purpose for each of us.

The words, symbolism, and music of the season are some of the most poignant and meaningful that we have.

There is a real danger that we blind ourselves with so much early Christmas light that we fail to see or experience the beauty and joy of watching and waiting, which are the great Advent themes.

This year, Advent Sunday falls on a Fifth Sunday, and we will be celebrating it with every fibre of our being at a special Fifth Sunday Service in Lifton Community Centre, followed by a celebration lunch.

Do come and join us at the start of a new church year as we make our Christian New Year’s resolution and commitment to watch for, and wait on, the Lord Jesus.

With love and prayers,
Philip

From the Parish Priest

Dear friends,

As many of you know, due to recent — and not so recent — events in our families’ lives, Katie and I are in the position of reviewing and sorting out vast numbers of archive documents and photographs that we have inherited from our parents.

There are packets and packets, and album after album, of small black and white photos — mainly of anonymous faces — staring out at us.

“I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
— Matthew 25:35

The context of these pictures is a million miles away from our lives now, and it is so easy to forget the real lives behind the faces staring out.

But these were real lives of real people — not characters in a book or a play — but human beings made in the image of God, each carrying the likeness of Christ in their faces.

The same can be said for the faces we see today on the screens of our televisions and phones, or in our newspapers — people whose lives we hardly recognise, as they struggle with war, violence, statelessness, and extreme poverty.

It is so easy to ignore — or even deny — the humanity of people who are different from us. And sadly, the language sometimes used by those who claim to lead us to describe fellow human beings can be uncaring and unchristian.

Whatever opinions we may justly hold regarding the security of our nation, the stability of the world, or our society, we must never remove the humanity from those whose situation is desperate.

History — and the present — is littered with examples of people being denied their God-given human dignity by others who believe themselves to be superior.

Jesus walked, talked, and ate with all the groups of people that the authorities of His society regarded as enemies or worthless. And we must always work to demonstrate the priceless value of each and every human life — wherever that life is from, whatever language they speak,
whatever the colour of their skin, whatever situation they find themselves in.

With love and prayers,
Philip

From the Parish Priest

Christmas Already?!?

Dear Friends,

This may seem a bit soon, but I am preparing for Christmas and need your assistance!

Between Advent Sunday and Candlemas (basically all of December and January), we will be hosting six major Mission Community events—one in each of our parishes, but for the benefit of all! These will be in addition to our usual activities. I hope to have a full timetable of these ready for the next magazine.

One of these events will be a Crib Festival—a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the Nativity scene and enjoy the many beautiful interpretations that adorn our homes, schools, and churches.

We would love to have as many cribs on display as possible. If you have one or more—we would be very grateful if you’d consider lending it to us for the festival.

Whether it’s:

• Been in the family for years
• Made by the children at nursery
• Knitted by a favourite auntie
• Carved as trench art during the wars
• Made of wood or plastic
• Old or new
• Crafted locally or brought from afar

—We would love to include it, along with its story, in what we hope will be a wonderful festival leading into Christmas.

The Crib Festival will take place the weekend before Christmas, concluding with a special Carol Service.

More details will follow, but I wanted to give everyone plenty of notice so we can prepare the best display possible.

Those of you who know me well will know that I hate the early celebration of Christmas. I love Advent to be a season of waiting and hoping, and I so enjoy the excitement of Christmas Eve and the joy of the Christmas season—but that doesn’t happen unless someone has done the preparation in advance.

So… if you would like to be part of this year’s celebration, let me know—and it will be wonderful to have you on board!

With love and prayers,
Philip