Parish Magazine for The Four Ways Mission Community St Paul, Landkey, St James the Apostle, Swimbridge with The Holy Name, Gunn, St Peter, West Buckland & St Michael, East Buckland February 2021 1 The Mission Community of St. James, Swimbridge with the Chapel of the Holy Name, Gunn, St. Peter, West Buckland, St Michael, East Buckland and St. Paul, Landkey Patrons: The Bishop of Exeter andy NewsletterThe Earl Fortescue Trust (Patronage suspended) Priest-in-Charge: The Reverend Shaun O’Rourke, The Rectory, Swimbridge EX32 0PH DearTelephone Brothers 01271 and S830950isters, mob 07914361905 email: [email protected] Reader: Mr Christopher James, 6 Tree Close, Gunn, Goodleigh. EX32 7PA 01271 831075 Reader: Mr Peter Rozzell, 5 The Babbages, Bickington. EX31 2LN 01271 373033 Reader: Mr David Rushworth 01271 372725 St. James the Apostle, Swimbridge Churchwarden: PCC Sec: Sarah Muirhead Treasurer: Janet Patton 01271 831065 Electoral Roll: Mary Fardon 01271 344629 Organ/ Choir: Janet Patton 01271 831065 Bell Ringer: Chris Ley 07890331478 C of E Voluntary Aided Primary School: Head Teacher: Website : www.swimbridgeparishchurch.org Chapel of the Holy Name, Gunn Deputy Warden: Bryan Hawkins 01271 830597 Treasurer: William Crosbie-Dawson 01271 831141 St Peter, West Buckland Churchwarden: Pat Witheridge 01598 710512 PCC Sec: Gail Barker 01598 761149 Treasurer: Ally Ayre 01271 830011 Electoral Roll: Liz Overall 01598 760314 Bell Ringer: Peter Crook 01598 760437 Deanery Synod: Pat Witheridge 01598 710512 St Michael, East Buckland Churchwarden: Diane Tearall 01769 579031 PCC Secretary: Charlotte Smalley 01598 760248 Treasurer: Rosalie Priscott 01769 572943 St Paul, Landkey Churchwardens: Hazel Price 01271 831259 and Mike Foster 01271 831334 PCC Secretary: Charles Waldron 01271 831414 Treasurer: Ann Rumble 01271 346463 Organist: Robert Loveridge 01271 371372 Deanery Synod: Hazel Price and Eric Price 01271 831259 Website: www.landkeyparishchurch.org MOIMM Committee Secretary: Paul Ellis 01598 760534 Magazine Editor: Maureen Hawkins Taddiport, West Buckland, Barnstaple EX32 0SL Tel: 01598 760287 e-mail: [email protected] Please Note Material for the Magazine should be submitted to the Editor by the 1st of the preceding month 2 Services While there are no services in our churches Revd Shaun will livestream services from St Paul’s each Sunday. They will be accessible on his Facebook ‘Mission Prayer Programme’ page and also on Zoom. If anyone would like to view them on Zoom, please send Shaun an email (revd,[email protected]) to request the link. 3 February 2021 Newsletter Dear Brothers and Sisters, I hope you are all keeping well and that this month we will get good news regarding the virus. Let’s hope that the vaccination programme is working and the easing of lockdown is on its way. I am of course writing this at the beginning of January. As you all know I suffer from a bone marrow cancer, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia and diabetes to boot. In our last lockdown I was the first in the Deanery to open all churches, the first to have communion in our churches as well as broadcasting a daily service and because Landkey was the only church to put broadband into the church I live stream a service from there every Sunday as well as now zooming the service to anyone who has an email address and wants to join. When I attended my last consultation with the consultant at the hospital to discuss my upcoming treatment which removes my immune system completely, he checked to see if I had received my letter from the government instructing me to shield again and only leave the house for hospital appointments. I told him I was still working and that all my churches were open and that I felt an obligation to keep the spiritual side of our communities alive and well. He turned to me and said, “If you catch this virus you will end up in hospital, you will end up on a ventilator and you may not be leaving through the front door. He reminded me that my condition means I have next to no defence naturally and that the four-hour infusion that I was having the next day would mean I would have no defence at all. He remarked, “If you die, will your parishioners pay the mortgage or buy your children food or send your children to university? Who will look after them?” I fell silent. The first rule of a good Christian is to care for your family. It is instilled in us as priests that we must not lose sight of what it means to be a husband or a father and so I came home and thought about what he had said and came to the conclusion that I was putting my wife and children at risk; at risk of losing their father, my wife of losing her husband. 4 I contacted all my worship team and I consulted with my wardens and explained to them what had been said to me. They agreed and gave me their blessing, and so we went back to broadcasting our service on a Sunday. Swimbridge asked if they could open-up and just play some hymns and say some prayers with Janet doing her best for the few that were still coming. David our new priest also said that we would come and do the occasional communion with them and did so with my blessing. Unfortunately I have been told that some of our congregation are upset thinking that I am just abandoning the churches. This is not true. I am following medical advice, still doing services every day and every Sunday and working from home. I was asked to explain to you all why I am not at open church services although nearly all of you know about my illnesses and the treatments that I have and that I have no immune system. Again I find that I have to explain my personal medical conditions to the general public something most people would find unacceptable. I would ask if you or anyone you know has any questions about my health or the reasoning behind my decision to continue to work in the way I do, to please speak to me, otherwise rumour and untruths start to wind their way into our communities and that is not good for our churches. So now you know let us put a line under this and move forward. Let us hope that by the time you have read this our vaccination programme is up and running and we are all back in our churches. Keeping you all in my prayers and thoughts Father Shaun 5 News from St Paul’s Landkey A virtual welcome to all! Services at St Paul’s are now suspended, unfortunately, until such time as the pandemic is more under control. We took this decision because we felt that we should not risk bringing people together when the virus poses as great a danger as it has since the outbreak of Covid-19 began almost a year ago. Current Government and Church of England rules allow public worship to continue but it has also been made clear that churches do not have to open if they would prefer not to. We will aim to restart services as soon as we feel that the risk of virus transmission has been sufficiently reduced. In the meantime, Revd Shaun will livestream services from St Paul’s each Sunday. They will be accessible on his Facebook ‘Mission Prayer Programme’ page and also on Zoom. If anyone would like to view them on Zoom, please send Shaun an email ([email protected]) to request the link. For this month’s article, I will look back at the two Christmas-themed services which we held in December and round up other news before continuing with my Making Sense of the Bible series in which I examine the background to another translation of the Bible. Before proceeding, though, I would like to extend a welcome to all to join in with St Paul’s services, despite the fact that they are being held virtually! As Revd Shaun says, the church is the people, and we are not closed! 6 Christmas services in review With some trepidation as to the wisdom of holding events during the pandemic, we decided that we would hold two Christmas-themed services. The first, held on Sunday 20th December at 4pm, was an outdoor carol service. We felt that an outdoor setting would offer a reduced risk of passing on infection by comparison with an attempt to gather people inside the church with the accompanying need to restrict numbers attending. Mike and Josie Foster worked hard to set up a wooden crib in the garden below the church complete with lights and a power supply. Revd Shaun would bring his sound system to set up outside the church on which carols would be played. An Order of Service was created and adapted for mobile phones and a thorough Risk Assessment carried out. It was hoped that the forecast showery weather would not spoil the plans. Anxiety levels were raised a few days beforehand when outrage was expressed on social media (where else?!) at the apparent lack of social distancing at an outdoor carol service held at Darts Farm, near Topsham. An examination of the arrangements which Woodbury Churches had made for this event revealed that theirs were very similar to the ones that we were planning for our service. 7 As 4pm arrived on the day, the showers became less frequent and Shaun took to the microphone to welcome an encouragingly large number of people arranged at various locations in front of the church.