Pastoral Team Newsletter from
St John’s Church Trent Vale September 2021
It seems a very long time since we published our last NewsletteR. In the past 18 months so much has happened and so much change.
The world was hit by COVID 19 and our normal lives changed forever. We were in isolation and lockdown, people could not meet friends and family. Churches and many public venues/businesses closed – some never to open again
Ways to communicate had to be found – WHAT A CHALLENGE.
Some of us have found ourselves spending more time at home. Time which would examine our lifestyles, values and priorities. We recognised the importance of loving families, caring friends and our gardens.
St John’s has always worked hard on reaching out, offering help and support not only to our church family but also to the wider community BUT the time had now come to work even harder. New ways would be needed to meet the growing needs of our congregation and those known to need help in a lockdown none of us had ever experienced before. Our part time Development Worker Revd Mike Bridgewater, who had sourced some groceries etc worked with Churchwardens, Eileen and Steve, Eileen’s husband John and our local Councillor Jackie Barnes, to distribute them to households across the benefice. Another innovative scheme was the delivery of large pots of vegetable plants to households in the area. It was lovely to open your door and find ourselves cared for with bags of groceries including fresh vegetables, fruit and eggs.
Revd Mike and Richard worked on another funded project offering Amazon Fire Tablets for those people who did not have access to one. Hopefully this will start again as restrictions alter.
In Holy Week on Ash Wednesday, members of all 3 churches, received a reading for the week and a pebble with a cross on it made from last year’s ashes. This was a much- appreciated gesture.
Daily phone calls still continue to check on our wellbeing. Offers of transport to attend appointments, to do shopping, collection of prescriptions and offers of practical advice. We all know that help is there for us whatever our situation. A great comfort. Transport became needed for us to receive our Covid jabs which were sometimes miles away.
This maybe an ongoing need when we have to have our top up jabs.
WhatsApp would prove to be a great benefit as we could receive Revd Chris’s midweek prayers. Revd Chris also started to live stream his Eucharistic services from all three churches for those who had access to Facebook. He had a world-wide audience including Stokies in Australia.
Messages and pictures brought us together and gave us useful information. Messages of love and prayers helped us as we experienced all the changing seasons of life especially for those living alone
Messages offering loving thoughts during bereavement. Encouragement during illness, congratulations on births, exam passes and birthday greetings including the recent news that Eveline Shore celebrated her 102ndbirthday by being taken out for a chicken dinner at a pub. Lifts were arranged for medical appointments, prescriptions collected and checking up to see how people were.
There were jokes to make us smile and poems to enjoy.
Our church had to compulsory close for a couple of months as per government laws but as soon as it was allowed, we opened for private prayer with sanitizing stations placed all around the church, the compulsory wearing of masks and our one-way system. As things changed, we were them able to hold worship services.
We have managed to have a Wednesday lay led service and, on a Sunday, Morning Worship if it is not our turn to have a eucharistic service on the 3rd Sunday of the month
As months rolled on Eileen’s broad choice of music and videos was invaluable as we had to sit in our masks without being able to sing.
Steve’s prayers, spoken from the back of church, grew in confidence and range, his sense of humour uplifting our spirits as we left the church via the one-way system to go home. He quoted frequently the words of the sergeant from the 1980s police TV programme Hill Street Blues telling us “Be careful out there”
The decision made years ago, when we were restructuring the church, and then funding a sound system and screen, has paid great dividends. All our music, Bible readings and services are downloaded by Eileen, and this has meant we have not had to handle hymn books or service sheets. It has also allowed a profoundly deaf person to follow the service fully.
In March our St Johns Centre was forced to close because of damage to the beautiful maple wood floor by an ingression of water caused by a damaged drain. Eileen is still liaising with the insurance company, loss adjusters and contractors to get the work done. The drains have been replaced; the floor taken up, but we are now waiting to have the new floor re-laid.
In the meantime, we have accommodated in church the dancing school, Slimmer’s World and the Karate group, as we have been able to move out the chairs and create enough space for them to use the church. This has created more work as the building has to be cleaned and sanitised after every user has finished. Eileen and John in particular, have become experts at this but thanks to all those others who help at the end of services. We have definitely become a Community Church and people who have never been into our church before are able to see what a magnificent building it is and how pleasant the people are.
Our congregation is very diverse coming from various countries, traditions and age groups. There is 1 family who attend consisting of 4 generations.
It is a measure of our Christian love that the congregation is willing to adapt and accept changes in the style of music and prayers.
8-year-old Tommy begins our Sunday service with a greeting or prayer before re-joining his mum, gran and great gran for the rest of the service. We applauded his spontaneity when he asked for us to pray for his football team who hadn’t won a match all last season.
During the Summer Revd Chris held a memorial service for Marion Lamplough who died in 2020 and because of lockdown was unable to have her funeral in church. Our screen showed many happy pictures of Marion, her husband Gordon and the family and many of her favourite hymns were played,
In July, Janet and Duncan were finally married by Revd Chris to become Mr and Mrs Oram as lockdown had prevented their previous attempts.
In recent months we have come to recognise our strengths and weaknesses and have given thanks for our many blessings. We praise all the staff of the NHS, all the emergency services and all those shopworkers who continued to work during the pandemic.
Throughout this pandemic and challenging times our church membership has grown, our style of worship has bloomed with new confidence, to accept change and gain from each other’s experiences.
The church garden and grounds have been looked after and finally the dying eucalyptus tree was finally cut down. Costly but needed doing as we did not want it to fall on anyone or damage property.
Restricted fund raising was done and we are now planning services for Remembrance Sunday, All Souls Day, Star Sunday and Christmas. Our thanks go out to Revd Chris who has arranged cover for Sunday Services up to the New Year.
Refreshments are being served after our Sunday service in a controlled manner and people are enjoying being able to sing hymns behind their masks.
As we are seeing a relaxation of many of the rules that were set in place to protect us from Covid, we are cautiously going forward into a new way of life and reflecting on how our lives have changed.
Our Rector Revd Chris is also changing his role and his final service as Rector of the Benefice of our 3 churches is on 17th October 2021. This farewell service will take place at Holy Trinity Church Hartshill. Revd Chris, who has recently suffered with poor health, is taking up a non parish part time role. We wish him and Heather all the best as we all begin a new chapter in our church lives.
With God’s help and guidance, we will continue our journey as we start a new life in October as we move into an interregnum when Revd Chris leaves on 17th October.
We will remember this pandemic and how the world is changing but God’s love for all is never changing
I would also like to thank Steve and Eileen for all their hard work and support to both us and the community
St John’s is full of love for all who attend and all those who live in the community
God Bless from Bobbie and all the Pastoral Team.
Ask (and keep asking) and it will be given unto you. Seek, (and keep seeking) and you will find; knock (and keep knocking) and the door will be opened unto you.
Matthew 7:7–8