December 2020 Price 90 pence Advertising If you are interested in advertising in this magazine the cost is £55 per annum for an advertisement eighth A4 page (landscape 90mm x 60mm) and £95 for a quarter A4 size (portrait 90mm x 130mm). Please contact Rose Grisman - [email protected] - for more information. Magazine readers please note that we are unable to guarantee the services provided by any of our advertisers. If responding to advertisers please do mention that you saw their advertisement in the Crediton Benefice Community Parish Magazine. Thank you. Contacts in the In this month’s magazine: Contact and Pastoral Care Crediton Benefice Community Page 2 RECTOR Rector’s Notes The Reverend Matthew Tregenza 01363 894038 Page 4 PRIEST AT SANDFORD Family Carols at Holy Cross The Reverend Paul Fillery 01363 777372 Page 5 LICENSED READERS Christingle Takeaway Carol Price 01647 24468 Page 5 Sandra Collier 01363 777013 St Nick Café PARISH OFFICE Page 6 Parish Administrator: Gill Lee Lessons and Carols at Holy Cross (Tuesday and Friday 9.30am – 12.30pm) Page 6 The Boniface Centre, Church Lane, Crediton, EX17 2AH Photo Gallery 01363 773226 [email protected] Page 8 Website: www.creditonparishchurch.org.uk News from around the Benefice CLERK TO THE CHURCH GOVERNORS Page 9 Sandra Thresher 01363 85467 [email protected] St Lawrence and Sacred Gardens Page 12 CHURCHWARDENS Life Back in Lockdown Crediton: Sheila Ralph, Mike May, Peter Brewer Page 16 Sandford: Linda Bennett-Smith, Chris Tucker Shobrooke: Rosemary Barber, John Lee Boniface Centre Yeoford: Carol Price (Licensed Reader) Page 18 Posbury: Fiona Mortimer (Chairman), Ruth Vigers (Treasurer) Children’s Society DIRECTOR OF MUSIC (ACTING) Page 19 Richard Stephens 01363 775170 [email protected] Poetry Corner BELL TOWER Page 20 Tower Captain: Geoff Sparling 01363 776681 Light Up a Life [email protected] Page 27 BONIFACE CENTRE BOOKINGS Plus regular features: Robin Lavery 01363 772536 [email protected] Choir Notes – Page 24 CREDITON MOTHERS’ UNION Friends of Crediton Church – Page 19 Anne Jerman 01363 772865 From the Archives – Page 21 Mothers’ Union – Page 26 HOLY CROSS FACEBOOK PAGE Prayer Diary – Page 14 James Turner [email protected] Reverberations – Page 18 PARISH MAGAZINE Rhymes and Things – Page 22 Editor and Advertising: Rose Grisman 9 Yeo Crescent, Crediton, EX17 3FL To all contributors to the magazine 07972 028069 [email protected] The deadline for items to be included Distribution: Kathleen Hughes 01363 777371 in the JANUARY 2021 edition If you would like a copy of the magazine delivered each of the magazine is month please contact Gill Lee or Kathleen Hughes SUNDAY 6th DECEMBER Thank you for your co-operation Annual subscription £9 ********** © ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2013. Material in Prayer Diary Distribution of the magazine will be reproduced with permission www.rootsontheweb.com by delivery and email, and hard copies will be available at All articles and correspondence in this magazine reflect the Evans Newsagents from views of the writers and should not be read otherwise SATURDAY 19th DECEMBER 1 DECEMBER SERVICES IN THE BENEFICE Please note - not all services have been finalised CREDITON SANDFORD SHOBROOKE Others 8.00 Holy Communion (BCP) 6 Dec 9.30 Holy Communion POSBURY 10.00 Holy Communion 11.00 Holy Communion Advent 2 11.00 Holy Communion 6pm Family Carols (& Sat 5) (BCP) 8.00 Holy Communion (BCP) 13 Dec 9.30 Holy Communion 11.00 Christingle YEOFORD 10.00 Holy Communion Advent 3 11.00 Holy Communion Family Service 9.30 Holy Communion Christingle Online (tbc) 8.00 Holy Communion (BCP) Saturday 19th 20 Dec 9.30 Holy Communion Carol Service YEOFORD ______ 4pm Carol Service Advent 4 11.00 Holy Communion 5pm Candlelit Carol Service 6pm Carol Service (& Sat 19) 10.00 Holy Communion 24 Dec Online Crib Service 4pm Online Crib Service YEOFORD 9.30pm Midnight Mass (tbc) 9.30pm First Communion 4pm Outdoor Crib Service Christmas Eve 11.30pm Midnight Mass of Christmas 9pm Holy Communion BEACON Barn Service? (tbc) ______ 25 Dec 8.00 Holy Communion (BCP) 10.00 Holy Communion POSBURY ______ 10.00 Holy Communion 11.00 Holy Communion Christmas Day 10.00 Holy Communion UPTON HELLIONS (BCP) 11.15 Holy Communion (BCP) 8.00 Holy Communion (BCP) 27 Dec 9.30 Holy Communion 10.00 Holy Communion Christmas 1 6pm Carols with the West Gallery Quire Contact and Pastoral Care during the ‘Lockdown’ Gill has returned to working in the Parish Office but due to Covid-19 working restrictions, please don’t call at the office but continue to make contact by telephone (01363 773226) or email [email protected]. There is also lots of information and the resources for the Sunday services on the church website: www.creditonparishchurch.org.uk And don’t forget the Holy Cross Crediton Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ CreditonParishChurch/ where you can also view the Sunday service. You don’t need to have a Facebook account to view the posts that have been made. There are Pastoral Care arrangements in place. Do contact the Pastoral Care group by email: [email protected] or phone Matthew (01363 894038) or Stella Stephens (07960 388198) if you, or someone you know, needs some help or would appreciate a phone call. Please use the same contact details to offer help. There are a small number of people where we are helping with shopping in particular and the team are also maintaining telephone contact with the church family. 2 3 Rector’s Notes which God wants us to understand is that By the time you read this Advent will he is always with us, though often he acts have begun and we will, hopefully, be able silently and in such ways that his creative to gather for public worship once again and redemptive work go unnoticed and on the 2nd Sunday of Advent. unacknowledged: yet still it happens. Advent and Christmas are full of fresh This puzzles us because what humans do things, new opportunities and when they try to act powerfully can possibilities, providing a chance to become noisy, sensation-seeking and become part of the world God is bringing dramatic. Usually we expect God to do the into being. Our Christian celebrations at same. But the coming of Jesus reveals this time of the year focus on hope. how God acts in and through silence and Advent and Christmas are centered on hiddenness. This is how God’s power is the hope God offers the whole human released into the world. It takes a lifetime race. Moreover, it is a sure and certain to ponder such truth. Though little by hope because God delivers his promises little we learn not to be disturbed when himself by coming into the world to share we find God working, powerfully and it with us. The wonderful festival of with real purpose but quietly, unseen and Christmas, which is enjoyed and relished unrecognised. God’s ways are not our by many of us, helps to provide the ways. grounds for Christian hope, the hard The other word – presence – is the name evidence for what we believe. many of our much loved Christmas carols Around us there is indeed darkness and prayers give to Jesus – Emmanuel – which, this year especially, includes our God with us. He is the source of both anxiety about the Covid-19 pandemic. Christian humility and confidence: two Nevertheless Christians are not negative. primary qualities which nourish each We do not predict collapse. Instead we other and which, in us, release the power point to an alternative: a better way. of God within the world. Thus at There are other possibilities which are Christmas listening carefully to what God creative and strangely powerful when we says and does in Christ produces a deep come to God. He enables them to flourish response of wonder, adoration and and bring fulfilment, joy and hope into a thankfulness. It was these things that bleak world. At Christmas we hear those enabled lowly shepherds to proclaim words from the prophet Isaiah: powerfully: "The people who walked in darkness Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, have seen a great light: peace. those who live in a land of deep darkness But as we journey through Advent on them light has shined." together, I just want to leave you with a Sometimes we describe the coming of few lines from the poem Advent 1955 by Jesus as the 'mystery of the Incarnation', John Betjeman: by which we mean (at least) two things – 'The time draws near the birth of Christ'. presence and silence. St John writes A present that cannot be priced about this at the very beginning of his Given two thousand years ago Gospel. The inner truth of Christmas Yet if God had not given so 4 He still would be a distant stranger STOP PRESS And not the Baby in the manger.' Competitions May each of us know and share together Don't forget that the closing date for the the hope of Advent and may each of us colouring and card competition is know and share together all the blessings Sunday 6th December. Entries can be Christmas brings. posted into the Boniface Centre or Your friend and Rector dropped off in church. If you are entering the competition all names and contact Matthew Tregenza details will be blacked out before any images are used. We just need the details to let you know if you are the winner. If FROM THE CHURCH REGISTERS you wish to donate some handmade OF THE BENEFICE 2020 cards to be distributed to people in Crediton then please either drop them off Funerals as above with no contact details before November 3 Rosemary Prouse the 14th December.