June Edition of Forward Move

FORWARD MOVE June 2021 Parish magazine for the Church of St Mary, Kippington (Part of the benefice of the Team Ministry including St Mary the Virgin, Riverhead with Dunton Green; and St Luke's Sevenoaks) Our mission … To be a bridge between God and our community sharing the love of Jesus and growing in worship, welcome and witness From the Team Rector … Dear friends, Can ever any Sunday be called ordinary from now on? In the Church’s liturgical calendar, this time of the year, from Trinity Sunday (May 30th) all the way to the 24th of October (the last Sunday of Trinity) is often referred to as ‘ordinary time’. The Sundays that are each referred to from Trinity 1 all the way through to Trinity 21. The ordinary Sundays of the long ordinary Trinity season. In this long and ordinary Trinity season you get the impression that as we have celebrated the glorious seasons of the year thus far – Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost – now we must wait until All Souls and All Saints, Advent and Christmas, when we can celebrate some more. In the meantime we now journey on a Sunday to worship and mark the ordinary Sundays of the Trinity Season – from 1 through to 21. Nothing spectacular happens in the liturgy, the colour green becomes a fixed for nearly five months and the Minister welcomes everyone to worship to yet another week of the long Trinity season. Green is such an ordinary colour. Our gardens and churchyards are filled to overflowing with green all over the place. Oh, how we long for a splattering of red, yellow, purple, blue – anything but green! Yet the abundance of the green of our gardens and churchyards remind us that at some point the grass needs cutting; weeds need pulling up and the hedges need trimming. Green is the colour of life and living; of growth and growing. Green reminds us that life goes on. Life goes on. There are many areas now returning to what they once were; there is a sense of normality and plans for an increasing sense of normality. Life journeys on. And the word ordinary? From this pandemic what a beautiful word is ordinary. Indeed, from this pandemic what a beautiful word is normal. So in the ordinary Sundays of the long Trinity season let us celebrate afresh the dark tunnel we are coming out from. Let us renew our searching and finding of the God of the ordinary; of the trivial, of the routine. What beautiful words they are – ordinary, trivial, routine. In this long Trinity season, these ordinary Sundays, let us truly thank God as we appreciate again what a miracle the ordinary actually is. In fellowship and blessing, Mark [email protected] (Tel) 073 75 299 944 or (01732) 452112. 2 The church centre was badly in need of a coat of paint. The chairman of the fabric committee decided he'd do the job himself. But all he had was one pot of paint. So, he assembled several buckets and some water, and he thinned the paint enough to cover the entire hall. Then he spent all day painting. That night it rained—very hard—and washed all the paint off. He was quite discouraged and asked God, 'Why...why God, did you let it rain and wash off all my hard work?' To which God thundered his reply, 'Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!' ******************** Summarising what was presented at the Annual Church Meeting, our regular finances just about broke even in 2020 - and we are very grateful to all those who helped us achieve this through their donations. Thanks, too, to those who have felt able to return to Church services over the last few weeks and who have made up the 'backlog' in their weekly envelope contributions. For 2021 we have been blessed with a number of Government grants which have covered the loss of income from the Parish Centre, but our regular giving - by standing order and by weekly envelopes - remains lower than previous years. At the Annual Church meeting I mentioned that, if half our planned givers were able to increase their donations by 9%, our regular income from giving would return to the levels of 2019 - before the pandemic took hold. Thank you so much to those who have already responded to this - each one of whom has already increased their giving by more than 9%! However we do still need something like an extra £3,000 this year if we are to restore our regular, planned giving to pre-pandemic levels. If you are in a position to help us with this, please contact either the Treasurer ([email protected]) or our Planned Giving Administrator - or simply ask your bank to increase your Standing Order! Chris Saunders Treasurer 3 Parish Jottings Life at St Mary Church, Kippington Sunday Refreshments - it has been good to restart the rhythm of refreshments in Kippington Centre following worship and the joy of being together, sharing one another’s company over coffee and tea. We do appreciate that it will take a certain amount of time for people to get used to being together, but we would be grateful for more offers of more assistance, simply to help us to put on coffee following worship each Sunday. Monthly Fellowship Event - we are now hosting monthly fellowship events mid-week in Kippington Centre, not simply as a way to enable people to feel comfortable once again in social events, but this may more likely be a continuous event as people have expressed not only appreciation for it, but as an opportunity for people across service times and on the electoral roll to come together. There is no need to book - simply turn up. The dates up until August are Wednesday 16th June, Friday 30th July and Monday 16th August, in the Centre between 10-30am-11.30am. Sidespeople Appeal - We are still looking for some able-bodied volunteers, especially to help us with the first Sunday family service and, more generally, across the service times. If you can lend a hand, duties would probably only be once every two or three months. Please do contact Dave White, our Church Warden, whose details are on the back of the magazine. Bidding Farewell to those who are leaving - as people are aware, Bishop James is retiring in July and leaving the Diocese of Rochester. We have all been very grateful to receive Bishop James’ ministry and leadership in the Diocese over a number of years. The PCC will be making a financial contribution to Bishop James’ leaving present, in the meantime, people are encouraged to go on to the Diocese of Rochester website in order to take part in an online survey whereby you can offer your own valued contributions to help those looking to appoint the next Bishop as to what characteristics of Bishop we are looking for and as well what should be the aspirations and aims of the Diocese over the next few years. We are also bidding farewell to our Archdeacon of Tonbridge Julie Conalty, who will be ordained as the Archdeacon of Birkenhead in the Diocese of Chester. Our Archdeacon has been very well served by Julie's ministry and although the Diocese is very sad to see her go, the Diocese of Chester will be able to appreciate and use her many valued gifts of ministry. Not only our Bishop, our Arch Deacon but also our Area Dean, Michael Gently has been appointed to a new post in another Deanery and again, we are very grateful for his help in the role of Area Dean in terms of the life of the three churches in the team as a whole and also with his help in the appointment process. Our best wishes and prayers are for Bishop James, Archdeacon Julie and Area Dean Michael at this time. Play and Praise - With the inevitable consequences of a number of things happening at this time, although Pray and Praise for Under 5’s will be restarting before August, it may be delayed by a few weeks. For any information about Play and Praise, or if you could help in any way, please contact Rev Mark. Family Service - Sunday 4th July - Church’s Birthday - at our outdoor worship; for family service at our 10.30am service on Sunday 4th July along with wonderful worship together, we will not only be providing tea and coffee and Janet selling outdoor plants as well, there will also be, a special birthday cake made and sharing that as well with ice cream. It will be lovely to 4 see everyone not only for our time of worship but to celebrate our birthday at St Mary Kippington as we continue to return. Angus MacLeod - following Angus’ funeral service on Friday 28th May, we print below words of appreciation from Julia, his wife, and family: “I wanted to write and thank you all for your support over the last few months and the kindness of everyone concerning Angus’ service at St Mary’s. Particular thanks to be expressed to the Choir and to Len Ross and as Angus had asked for a particular hymn, so it meant a great deal to us that the Choir were able to sing it on the day. The flowers were lovely and we were so pleased that Caireen was able to use some of the greenery from our garden. All of the contributions from family and friends on the day gave Angus a good send off and we’re all as a family, taking great comfort from this.” Forward Move - this will again be produced as a physical entity from the September issue, available at the end of August.

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