Welcome to our Summer Special
Inside this edition of the newsletter you can read about the Community Festival and events surrounding the lead up to the Olympics that happened here, but to start with some reflections on the Patronal Festival service at St Margaret Mapledurham at which we thanked Keith and Ann Knee-Robinson for their years of leadership and service.If you are getting away over the summer, I trust that it will be a time of re-creation; if not, I hope the sun continues to shine as it is (honest!) as I write!With my very best... Read more...
Welcome to the June edition of our monthly newsletter.We are giving over this month’s edition to reflections on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Celebrations.
Rector’s Diamond Jubilee Sermon
I met the Queen once. I’m sorry to say that she hasn’t taken the opportunity to develop it into a deep and meaningful relationship .. she’s not even following me on Twitter! We met in 1994 when she visited Wolverhampton and came to the church where I was curate. The town was a thousand years old and we had a service to celebrate. To be honest, I... Read more...
Welcome
to the May edition of our monthly newsletter. I hope you enjoy reading it. Do let me know of ideas of how to improve it as it is fast becoming one of our best tools for internal communication across the parish.
On Sunday 22nd April, Rabbi Lionel Blue came to St Peter’s to talk to us about our Parish Values.
Born in 1930, he described losing his faith as a 5 year old when his fervent prayers for the speedy demise of Adolf Hitler and Oswald Mosley were not heard, in spite of his Russian grandmother’s assurances... Read more...
Dear FriendsI am thrilled to give over most of this month’s newsletter to Marion’s week in Westminster Abbey. I hope that before too long there’ll be a few photos on the website of the visit about 50 people from the parish made to the Abbey whilst Marion was there. You can read some reflections from some of those who went in this edition as well. I’m sure there will be other opportunities to read more about this wonderful week.Below you’ll see two dates for your diary. You may already have the APCM booked... Read more...
Dear FriendsWelcome to the second of our new-look Clergy Newsletters. Thank you to those who have offered comments and suggestions for how to develop it further—all ideas are really very welcome and are carefully considered.Communication across and between our churches is one of the vital areas of development that we are seeking to improve over the next few months. Not only are we bringing in more contributions to this newsletter, but we are also trying very hard to ensure that agendas for Church Leadership Team meetings and for Church Forums are publicised on the Sunday sheets... Read more...
Dear Friends
The Newsletter
You will notice something new about this month’s letter .. it’s from all the clergy rather than just me. I couldn’t help notice that having a letter that contained contributions from only one person could hardly be described as ‘inclusive’. So, in order to be more inclusive (though I understand that this is by no means fully inclusive) the monthly letter will now include contributions from Jeremy, Marion, Keith and Graeme as well as me.One of the benefits this offers is that we can reflect things going on in the churches rather than... Read more...
Dear FriendsAs I mentioned in last month’s letter, in which I shared some personal reflections on the Christmas story in relation to our set of values, this month I am reproducing the sermon that I have given in each church as the “official” launch of our parish values. I hope we can devise a way to ensure that the conversations I suggest at the end can happen.With my best wishes for the New YearDanOne of the fun things to do with youngsters (when trying to get them to think about their place in the world... Read more...
Dear FriendsParish ValuesDuring October and November I shall be at each Sunday service across the parish to speak about our new parish values: inclusive, life-giving, generous. One of the questions that has already arisen is about the meaning of the words: what do we mean when we use the word ‘inclusive’, for example. Rather than provide a dictionary definition of each of these words, I would like to encourage you to explore what you think they mean and, more importantly, how our life together, as follows of Jesus, can be further enhanced by keeping them in our... Read more...
Dear FriendsPCC Away DayTowards the end of September the Church Council spent a day considering the values of our parish. We had a very creative day out of which emerged three words which we feel define who we are and what’s important to us. It’s vital to say that this is not about working out what we want to be like, but what are like. These three words will help us to become even more “us” than we are at the moment. I will be talking in all three churches on these values during October and... Read more...
Dear FriendsWomen BishopsYou will remember that before the summer holiday the Church Forums and then the PCC had discussions about Women and the Episcopacy. All these were to feed into a meeting of the Deanery Synod (with reps from churches across Reading) on 7th July. We had a main speaker from both ‘sides’ of the debate and many comments and questions from the floor were taken. Then a number of questions were posed and votes were taken which suggested the following positions:1. there was a clear majority in favour of ordaining women as bishops2. there was... Read more...
