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‘Maureen’s Musings’
The Vicar’s monthly letter for the Parish News
February 2017
I am writing this in the midst of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and I am looking forward this coming weekend to welcoming visitors from other local churches to St Chad’s to take part in our service by reading and sharing their prayers with us. Soon too (next month) Lent will start with the possibility of attending Lent lunches both in this parish and within our neighbouring Ecumenical partnerships. Whereas our lunches are always mid-week, the Covenanting Churches Lent lunch is on a Saturday – which gives those who are otherwise engaged during the week a chance to be part of the Lenten preparation. Since there are now more churches in the Covenanting group than Saturdays in Lent (!) we will again be assisting our neighbours at Perton Church with the Lent lunch there.
Coming together and lending assistance where needed is all the more important – given the events in the wider society of this country and indeed internationally. Events which have led to – it seems – ever widening divisions opening up both within and between nations. All the more reason for Christians to offer grassroots, practical assistance wherever they see a need.
Although I was made both sad and angry by the theft from church of two of our new screens (we have now worked out that it must have been at lunchtime on Christmas Day!), I was also very touched by the response from the community and several people who even offered to donate spare monitor screens to us. I am sorry that we could not always take you up on your kind offer – these were quit large screens and the fixing is the key element. But the generosity of your actions – and the outrage you expressed on behalf of the community as a whole, was much appreciated.
Early in February I and the PCC will be taking a Saturday out for another ‘awayday’. Not a trip to the seaside (! – shame!) but a chance to spend a bit longer on the long-term, strategic planning that every organisation needs if it is to thrive. We will be assessing how well we’ve done on the actions we outlined from last year; what needs still to be achieved; what maybe needs to be changed and anything new we want to add. Plus a bit of imaginative dreaming…. “How about we ….!” It might sound all too familiar for those of you with any corporate experience in the secular world, but there is a difference. Our objectives are always related back to thinking of what God is calling us to do and to be in Pattingham and Patshull, and are rooted and grounded in prayer. It will help us greatly if you too are praying for us – especially on Saturday 4th February – that our plans and actions may serve to further God’s kingdom here and in the world.
Happy February – at least the snowdrops are blooming! – Every Blessing,
Maureen