February
2012
Valentine’s
Day
again…
I
wondered
what
has
happened
for
you
in
the
past
four
years?
I was having a quick look for news stories that were running in February 2008. On 14th February that year Newsnight on the BBC had an interview with George W Bush, an article on Kosovo, space exploration and the pilot who had been wrongly accused of training pilots for the 9/11 attacks. We were all waiting for the Beijing Olympics that summer.
On the evening of 14th February 2008 I was installed (yes like a gas boiler) as priest-in-charge of Box with Hazelbury and Ditteridge, and in one way it still feels like I have only just begun and in another way it feels like I have been here forever.
There have been some great joys. One which immediately springs to mind is when I had a significant birthday, and invited the whole village to come and eat ice-cream in celebration. There have been many great weddings and other celebrations. There have been magnificent St Christopher’s harvest suppers, and picnics. There was the spectacle of ‘the pageant,’ seeing my friends and family perform.
There has been sadness too, some of our ‘new’ friends have died. I think with great fondness of Timothy Northey, Olive Currant, Tony Meyer and others. Some others have moved away to pastures new.
What, I wonder, has grown in those four years? How have we been blessed as a church and a community? Well, certainly St Thomas’ has grown significantly in Sunday attendance and St Christopher’s also edges up. One of my favourite things we now do is the regular breakfast before the family service once a month at St Thomas’. We also have more groups who meet during the week and we have the fantastic film nights at St Christopher’s. These are all really good things and there are many more including the growth of the youth and children’s work; holiday club amongst others.
So four years in to my post, I need to say thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me in my ministry here. Thank you to everyone who has poured tea, put up notices, mowed grass, cleaned cobwebs, tidied up, sung in choirs, handed out hymn books and service books and so on. We can only do what we do with your help; we can only do these things all together.
Which brings us neatly on to our new challenge. We have now joined with Colerne to form the new Lidbrook Group. In response to Ruby Eyles’ letter in the last magazine, we were all in Colerne celebrating Advent Sunday evening together at a fantastic and very special Advent service of Light. This was advertised through the church notices and on the church website. But we do need to work out how we communicate things effectively through the group. I was really pleased with the Christmas attendance in the Lidbrook Group. In the 24 hours from lunchtime on Christmas Eve until lunchtime on Christmas Day we had 932 attendances recorded at the eleven services. So thank you again to everyone who made that possible and a big thank you to everyone who has made the past four years so special. As we have a new start as the ‘Lidbrook Group’, let’s see what God has to bring us in the next four years.
Janet