Holy Cross Group BROADCAST Of Churches February 2021 February Suzy Scriven John Morley Tarka Littleton Price: THE CHURCHES OF ST JAMES THE GREAT & ST PETER’S 50p SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF BLAKEDOWN, CHURCHILL & BROOME Jonathan Charles Independent family run business covering all areas of the Wyre Forest and West Midlands 1 Crane Street, Kidderminster DY11 6XT Tel. 01562 822625 24 hour personal service HagleyEyecare - S T U D I O - An Independent Family Business at 41 The Old Woodyard, Hagley Hall, Hagley, DY9 9LQ Eye Examinations Contact Lens Clinic Single Vision Glasses from £39.00 Other opticians’ prescriptions welcome. Over 1000 frames on display; designer and budget Free NHS Spectacles - Free NHS Sight Tests Private Sight Tests £22.50 Easy Parking - Home Visits Available www.hagleyeyecarestudio.co.uk Tel: 01562 887138 Specialist in Aga–Rayburn appliances Boiler replacements and full heating systems installed We service gas, oil and L.P.G appliances as well as offering new and reconditioned Aga and Rayburn cookers Let us give your existing Aga a new lease of life with full or part re-enamelling and replacing of tired and worn-out parts Contact us on 01562 752659 or 07770 698073 [email protected] www.najonesplumbingandheating.co.uk BLAKEDOWN PARISH ROOM Belbroughton Road, Blakedown DY10 3JG All queries and booking enquiries Tel: 01562 700788 Or via email to: [email protected] Call: 07803 295735 Central Heating ・ Plumbing ESTIMATES FREE 01562 700116 or 07836780637 40years experience CLIVE COX (REGISTERED PLUMBER) (Also known as Blakedown Sports Cars) All makes of cars serviced and repaired MOT’s Catered for Collection Service Available New House Farm Ind. Estate, Belbroughton Road, Blakedown. DY10 3JH Call John on: 01562 700898 or Mobile: 07976 427248 email: [email protected] Est. over 30 years BROOME VILLAGE HALL: Next to Broome Church, DY9 0HA (Access via Broome Lane) A GOOD PLACE TO MEET Suits groups of up to forty. Bookings welcome. Available at weekends and on some weekdays. Enquirers please phone 01562 701259 or 07778 397907 or email: [email protected] A.S. PAINTER & DECORATOR FOR ALL YOUR DECORATING NEEDS CONTACT ALLAN 07730477564 WRITTEN QUOTES ON REQUEST CLEANLINESS ASSURED ALLAN SILVERS 13 PRINCESS CRESCENT HALESOWEN WEST MIDLANDS B63 3QE DOUBLE GLAZING REPAIRS Replacement units for misted glass. Replacement handles and locks. Fred Barnfield established 30years Telephone: 01746 781912 Mobile: 07971 788489 Professional Tree Surgery NPTC Qualified and Fully Insured • Tree Felling • Hedge Cutting • Reducing & Re-shaping • Pruning • 24-hour Emergency Call-out For Advice or Free Estimates Tel: 01527 882505 Mob: 07810 618042 Email: [email protected] Web: www.acer-trees.co.uk Home: 01562 700775 Mobile: 07931 636062 Broadcast February 2021 Update from Archdeacon Nikki At the beginning of a new year already full of challenge I wish to assure you of my support and prayers. As you will know, the Reverend Canon Sue Oliver has been off sick for some time suffering with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and some other health issues. This will be reviewed at the end of January, but I anticipate it may be a while before she is well enough to fully resume her duties in the parishes. As soon as the situation is clearer, I will update the Church Wardens about how we expect things to be between now and Sue’s retirement at the end of May, and how you will be supported. In the meantime, please continue to hold Sue in your prayers. I am conscious that you have been without Sue’s ministry and oversight during a season of change in the wider diocese, and huge uncertainty in the wider world. The ongoing impact of the Covid 19 pandemic is hard for us all, both practically, in risk assessing our church buildings and keeping abreast of constantly changing guidelines for safe worship, and emotionally, as we see loved ones and people in the community succumbing to this horrible virus. May I express my gratitude for all who have worked hard to keep the life of the churches going through recent months. As part of our diocesan transformation programme, a Bishop’s Pastoral Order has been issued changing our deanery structure from February. More feedback was received from the Holy Cross South benefice than anywhere else! We adjusted the proposals accordingly, and the benefice is now in the Redditch and Bromsgrove Deanery. We will soon begin consultation on schemes to separate the parishes following this feedback, which suggested Blakedown, Churchill and Broome join with a Kidderminster team and therefore move into the Kidderminster and Stourport Deanery in due course; Belbroughton and Fairfield explore joining with a Bromsgrove team, and Clent becomes a joint benefice with Hagley (this latter consultation is already underway). This will take some months, but upon Sue’s retirement I would anticipate the respective parishes would be building appropriate relationships in these various contexts. For the time being, you are still joined as a benefice as these structural changes take time to facilitate. We have asked a very experienced priest, the Reverend Canon Wyn Beynon, who is taking early retirement to move with his wife as she takes up a curacy in the Greater Dudley Deanery, to act as an Interim Minister (non-stipendiary part-time) for the period from Sue’s retirement until the schemes come into effect. This means you will not be navigating another vacancy, so soon after your last one. Wyn has helped his current benefice through similar restructuring, has been Rural Dean and Chair of the Diocesan House of Clergy and is a wise and gentle priest who I am sure will be a safe pair of hands to help the benefice navigate these changes. He will work collaboratively with wardens and PCCs, Licensed Lay Ministers and those retired and neighbouring clergy who provide cover to ensure ministry and mission continues through the coming months, within the constraints of various degrees of lockdown, and until we are clearer about the longer-term plans for the parishes. I am always willing to be contacted with any questions, and will be holding you all in my prayers over the coming months. Nikki Groarke, Archdeacon of Dudley Broadcast February 2021 Letter from Pauline Jones February already! Although I am, of course, writing this at the beginning of January, just after the end of the Christmas period. February contains one of the main signposts in the Christian calendar – the start of Lent. Ash Wednesday, this year, is on the 17th February. Lent is a time for Christians to prepare for the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter. Many people “give things up” for Lent even if they are not practicing Christians. It may feel to some that the pandemic and its associated lockdown has already taken much away from us already. But Lent is not really a time to nudge us into giving up the fattening sweets or the unhealthy cigarettes. Its purpose is to help believers come to terms with the more difficult aspects of their faith, and to disentangle themselves from worldly vices or distractions that turn them away from God. Christians are supposed to fast, not to “purify” themselves or break themselves of “bad habits,” but to focus on God and, specifically, on Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. So, just a thought - instead of less, maybe Lent 2021 is a time for more. More prayer, more reading of the Bible and serious Christian books and more focussing on God rather than ourselves. I don’t think that will be too harsh in this hard time. Jesus answered “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone’” Luke 4.4 God Bless Pauline Be still, my soul: the hour is hast'ning on When we shall be forever with the Lord, When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored. Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past, All safe and blessed we shall meet at last. (Katharina von Schlegel, translation, Jane Borthwick) MAGAZINES – ALL VILLAGES If you are a paid up subscriber and you are unable to receive this magazine over the next few months because of your distributor shielding, or you prefer to receive a ‘virtual’ copy, please contact the Editor at [email protected] and you can receive a copy via email, in the form of a PDF to read. As you can imagine, some of the distributors may be unable to deliver during Lockdown, so this would also mean you can continue to receive your copies. Broadcast February 2021 A letter from Bishop John It might feel as though we have been in the season of Lent for a very long time. Because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to celebrate Easter properly last year and the remainder of the year had a distinctly penitential feel to it, as has the first part of 2021. There has been so much sadness, grief and loss during these past few months and we shall be living with the consequences of COVID- 19 for years to come. My hope and my prayer, though, is that not all of those consequences will be bad. Lent is the time for us to turn our faces towards Jerusalem and prepare to follow our Lord on the way of the cross. We do that knowing that out of crucifixion, God brought resurrection. That is the Christian pattern of things – God’s redemption involves bringing good out of bad, joy out of pain, new life out of death. After the resurrection Peter wanted to go back to fishing. It was what was familiar to him and he felt he could find comfort in that.