The Benefice of St. Bartholomew

Children’s Activity Week - 31st July to 3rd August 2017

Details

Written by Gerry Purdue

Details of the 2017 Children's Activity Week for youngsters aged between 5 years and 11 years old are now available. The event takes place from 31st July to 3rd August 2017, and application forms for places need to be returned to the organisers by 16th June 2017.

To find out more, click here.....

 **The closing date for applications has passed. However, there are still some places avaiable**

Vacancy - Children & Youth Worker

Details

Written by Rev'd Richard Warhurst

We are looking to fill the position of Children & Youth Worker which has recently been created in the Benefice.  Details of this role is set out below.

Children & Youth Worker

We are seeking a motivated and enthusiastic individual for a new and exciting role to develop a roving Sunday School for our weekly Sung Eucharist.

There is an occupational requirement for the post holder to be a practicing Christian in accordance with Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010.

Part Time position - 6 hours per week
£2,500 p.a.

Enhanced DBS required

Click here to read and/or download for a full job description and person specification for the role.

For further information, please telephone the Rector on 01747 830174. Alternatively, you can send the Rector an email from this website - to send the email, click here and when the new page opens, select the 'Contact Form' tab, and then complete the form.

From the Rector - July 2017

Details

Written by Rev'd Richard Warhurst

Dear Friends,

First of all l want to record my (and our) thanks to The Rev’d Canon William Burke who came to help us in the Benefice shortly after I arrived. He had retired to Shaftesbury but soon discovered he “needed to work”. He has been a great help in the Benefice both in taking services but also in pastoral care of our congregations - and also of me; being a very encouraging, loyal and supportive colleague. He is leaving to take up the unusual post of House for Duty Rural Dean in the Diocese of Ely. We wish him well and thank him sincerely.

At the time of writing, we have recently returned from a wonderful driving holiday in Europe. On the whole, the weather was wonderful!

This led me to consider how we so often talk about and reflect on the weather here in the UK. That is not surprising really, because it is always changing. With the weather changing so frequently there is the sense that if you blink you can miss a season (usually summer) and we spend the rest of the year longing for that summer season. From time to time, I get the feeling that we approach life in a similar way; we look forward to a time when everything will be perfect in our lives, but then we never quite reach that point, or if we do it is such a short and transient stage that it has passed before we realise it, and so, we then look back with a sense of sad wistfulness on that perfect time, and yearn for it to come again.

Whenever I catch myself thinking like that I try to stop and instead of longing for something else, try to value the life that l have and the moment of life that is now. It is not always easy to do that, but if we as Christians believe that life is a gift, given by God, then we should always seek to appreciate what we are given and make the most of it, seeing it in the most positive light.

There are probably too many times in all our lives when we feel grumpy about our lot because we don't have what we want, our health has let us down or we just carry with us a sense of weariness. When you become aware of these tendencies in your own demeanour, just stop and remind yourself that this life is God‘s gift to you, try to appreciate it and live it to the full. If you approach your life in that way you may be surprised at how enjoyable it can be, and also how your sense of enjoyment seems to be contagious and infects those around you.

Finally, somebody once asked me what I thought as I approached the altar? This struck me, as I'd never really thought about this question (and indeed, thought it an odd one!) until the same question was asked by a fellow student at theological college of our Principal.The Principal was a deeply spiritual man with a first rate mind, so I was surprised by his answer; he said he thought “oh, hello Jesus, it’s me again”. At first I thought he was joking, but he wasn't.

When I approach the altar these days, l often repeat the phrase of The Jesus Prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’, but I can’t help myself from thinking “oh, hello Jesus, it’s me again”. At first l found this amusing, then it quickly became irritating and now l accept it as a valid prayer to God, revealing more of his intimacy and love than mine.

Yours ever,

Richard