STOP PRESS New Bishop of Tonbridge
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ochesterLink April 2018 STOP PRESS New Bishop of Tonbridge enerable Simon Burton-Jones is to Vbe the next Suffragan Bishop of Tonbridge. Simon currently serves as Archdeacon of Rochester and Canon Residentiary at Rochester Cathedral. As Bishop of Tonbridge, Simon will focus on evangelism and growth. He will have oversight and leadership of the education, youth and children, and community engagement work of churches across the Diocese, and will chair the Diocesan Board of Education, supporting the work of the 89 Church of England schools within the Diocese. The consecration will take place in London on July 3, 2018 – 25 years to the day since Simon was ordained Deacon in the Church of England. Deadline for May edition of Link is 12 April 2018 2 ochester Link CONTENTS: What’s On 6 April 21 April What’s On 2 BURRSWOOD Finola Maynard – Pop up pottery OTFORD VOCE at St Bartholomew’s Church, Otford Rochester Link to end in May 2 workshop 1 from 9:00am – 4:00pm in the at 7:30pm. Music ranging from the sixteenth Orangery. Make your own bowl and vessel on century composer Allegri to a modern close- Editorial from the Ven Dr Paul Wright 3 the pottery wheel, have some fun designing your harmony arrangement of John Brown’s Body, own tiles and learning new hand building skills. and a selection of classic hymns of pilgrimage. Leap of Faith 2018 3 £60 per person includes tea, coffee and pastries, Tickets at £15 - which includes refreshments Thy Kingdom Come and other new initiatives 5 a delicious lunch and cream tea. Groombridge, - are available from St Bartholomew’s Church Tunbridge Wells TN3 9PY. Call Reservations on Office The Green, Otford, TN14 5PD and on Ministering ‘on the edge’ - Chaplaincies 6-7 01892 865988 to find out more or book your 01959 523185 mornings only. place. www.burrswood.org.uk Spotlight on Safeguarding 9 ROCHESTER Gravesham Choral Society & 9 April Orchestra at Rochester Cathedral at 7.30pm. Verdi Requiem, Charlotte Richardson – soprano, Called Together - in your area 9 BURRSWOOD How to Manage Anxiety and Katarzyna Balejko – mezzo-soprano, Stephen Depression. Mondays 11:30am – 1:30pm starting Have Your Say! - The survey 11 Brown – tenor, David Ireland – bass, Conductor – 9 April. This six-week course will be delivered Alan Vincent. Tickets £15 (full time students £5). by a qualified therapist covering evidence-based From Nightclub to Sunday club 12 Box office: 01474 816684. For more information interventions using CBT to manage anxiety and visit www.graveshamcs.co.uk Beyond parish 12 depression. £200 per person for all six sessions. Groombridge, Tunbridge Wells TN3 9PY. Call 28-29 April Reservations on 01892 865988 to find out more BURRSWOOD Julie King – Spring Watercolour or book your place. www.burrswood.org.uk CONTACT US Painting weekend. Local artist Julie King Events, news and letters to editor at 11 April specialises in flowers and the natural world. Join [email protected] or her and capture Burrswood’s beautiful spring Anna Chaplaincy and Dementia Workshop with 01634 560000 gardens and flowers over this 2-day painting Dementia Specialist Project Officer Julia Burton- ADVERTISEMENTS workshop. £225 per person includes tuition, all Jones, 10:30pm-2pm at St Augustine’s Church, Email: [email protected] meals and one night’s accommodation. £120 per Slade Green. To book visit www.rochester. Copy for The Link needs to be typed and person includes tuition, tea, coffee and pastries, submitted by email please. Images must be submitted as either a TIFF or anglican.org/mission/hope-2018/ a JPEG file of 300dpi. a delicious lunch and cream tea daily. 10:00am (Set your digital camera to the highest quality setting and we will try to do 14 April – 4:00pm each day. Groombridge, Tunbridge the rest for you.) Wells TN3 9PY. Call Reservations on 01892 PERRY STREET Kent Police Male Voice Choir at 865988 to find out more or book your place. All Saints’ Church, Perry Street DA11 8RD at www.burrswood.org.uk 7:30pm.Tickets £10 (Tel: 07783493964 or email [email protected]. Cheese and Wine & Raffle. Rochester Link to end in May After many years of production and hundreds of editions, this May will mark the final edition of the Rochester Link newspaper. The ambition is to provide an accessible and engaging alternative before the end of the year, that will allow for the fuller sharing of stories, ideas, good news, and theological reflection than a monthly newspaper can reasonably allow. Have your say An online survey has been created to give people across the Diocese the opportunity to share their views on what they might like to see replace it. A link to the survey can be found on the front page of the diocesan website under Noticeboard or directly by typing: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/WVHG92X For those not online, a cut-out version is included on page 11. These should be returned by post to: ‘New publication survey’, Diocese of Rochester, St Nicholas Church, Boley Hill, Rochester, ME1 1SL, by Thursday 31 May, 2018. [Completed surveys can also be handed in at your local church, who will return any contributions via pre-paid envelope.] Jennifer Ross, recently appointed Communications Officer for the Diocese said: “Thank you to everyone, who has been involved with Link over the years.We know how important it is to have relevant and engaging ways to share news ST. MARY’S CONVENT WANTAGE and inspiration that help us stay connected as a Diocesan family. We’re looking St Mary’s Convent offers a variety of facilities and fl exible forward to creating something new that is interesting, useful and looks good accommodation for Group Quiet Days and Group Retreats. too, so that parishioners will not only want to read it, but even share it with Also, Conference facilities and private stays. others.” Everyone is welcome at the Eucharist and Daily offi ce in St Mary Magdalene’s Chapel. Looking ahead For further details please contact: Once available, the new publication will be a complement to the monthly online St Mary’s Convent, Wantage, Oxfordshire, OX12 9AU e-newsletter established in December, which connects subscribers to a variety of Tel: 01235 763141 news, information and resources on the Diocesan website, as well as a printable Email: [email protected] version which can be pinned on notice boards or placed in pew sheets. Sign-up www.csmv.co.uk is possible via the home page of the Diocese of Rochester website. ochester Link 3 He’s alive, we’re alive! By the Ven Dr Paul Wright celebration we should have a tradition of churches not only being clean, but that a e are still celebrating Easter, lot of their unnecessary clutter is cleared away so that nothing can get in the way Wwhich for the Church is of those who come into our buildings to the most important season in its worship or to be still and pray. Time that calendar. We should see it as a old carpet went and what about that old wonderful opportunity to celebrate, book stand with nothing printed after to give thanks, to express joy, 1987! to have a party and certainly to This takes me back to that point of our gather at our times of worship churches being museum like. They are through Word and Sacrament. not museums because they are places built to the glory of God and should act After all, we are celebrating the as a sign that points to the Kingdom of wonderful fact that new life has God. They are a resource that should come out of death and hope has enable us to worship our Lord; space overcome despair through Jesus’ to gather together and provide teaching resurrection. and an experience of what that new life in Christ can truly be for all God’s We have such a wonderful gospel to children. We also need to use them as proclaim. Our saviour Jesus died on the springboards out into the community … cross for all our sakes and all our sins the days of people turning up in their – “God so loved the world”. How can hundreds to make their Holy Communion people yet to know that deep love and on Easter Day because it was required forgiveness find out? Well one way is by Canon law have long gone. Getting through our churches. the message ‘out’ that the Lord is Risen means engaging in that wider It seems to me that our church buildings community, and we need to be seen as should be a very powerful statement of a sign of that ‘living experience’, that that fact, not simply with crosses and ‘resurrection life’. St Paul tells us that we pictures depicting the resurrection in are a temple within which the Holy Spirit stained glass or whatever other art form, dwells, but will anybody notice that of but that there should be something that us? Do our Christian values shine out, seems ‘alive’ within our churches. We and are our words reflective of the light know they are not museums - though that Christ is? certain parts of our church buildings certainly do look museum-like. Nor However you are celebrating Easter, I pray should they be treated as storage that the Lord will bless you individually facilities for our worship resources that and as a gathered community, and may overflow from out of the vestry – that your gathered community will be especially piles of books and papers! a blessing to the people it is called to Springtime is about new life, clearing serve.