The Sodbury Vale Benefice
magazine
Chipping Sodbury, Old Sodbury, Horton & Little Sodbury
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Old Sodbury
Contacts
Val Walker 16A Melrose Avenue, Yate 01454 318286 Tony Dixon 16 Chatterton Road, Yate, BS37 4BJ 01454 321 528
Rector The Rev. Canon Jane Kenchington, 01454 313159 email jane@kenchington.plus.com Assistant Curate The Rev. Val Bexon, 01453 521417 email:valeriebexon@onetel.com
If you would like to know more about Little Sodbury Nigel Rawlins the Christian faith or are thinking about baptism or confirmation please Little Sodbury House, Little Sodbury, speak to Jane or Val BS37 6QA 01454 312 269 Regular Weekly Events Nancy Nagle Winchcombe Cottage,Little Sodbury End 01454 319798 Monday 8.45am Morning Prayer, St John’s Chipping Sodbury 7.30pm Bell Ringers’ practice Church Tower Chipping Sodbury Wednesday 8.30am Morning Prayer, St John’s Chipping Sodbury Thursday 8.45am Morning Prayer, 10.00am Holy Communion St John’s Chipping Sodbury 7.00pm Choir Practice, St John’s Chipping Sodbury Friday 10.00am Tubbie Tots Church Centre Chipping Sodbury 7.00pm Youth Club (age 11-18) Baptist Church Centre
Horton Tina Hildick-Smith Kirrin House, King Lane, Horton 01454 320380
Church Office Open during term time Monday, Tuesday & Thursday mornings 9.00 - 12.00 01454 325160
Email sodburyvalebenefice@gmail.com
Web Site www.sodburyvalechurches.wordpress.com
Churchwardens Chipping Sodbury
Advertising Sylvia Franklin St. John’s Church Centre 07788 111 726
Paul Jones-Williams 1 Meadow Mead, Yate 01454 324970 Keith Stanley 132 Harescombe, Yate 01454 319467
March Deadline Please can you have all editorial to Michelle by February 10th. 2
Dear Friends, On the feast of Epiphany, in the homily, I quoted part of a sermon which Lancelot Andrewes preached in 1620 in front of King James I. The phrase in that sermon that struck me in particular went as follows: “The wisest thing the wise men did was to come to Jesus.” Throughout the season of Epiphany, we have been thinking of the different ways in which Jesus revealed himself to people and their responses to him. Within two weeks of the Epiphany season ending, we start Lent on 22 February. Traditionally, Lent has always been a time when we are encouraged to have a spring clean from a spiritual point of view. What areas of our lives need a bit of sorting? What areas of our lives do we really need to bring to Jesus and ask for help or healing or forgiveness? The wisest thing we could do is to come to Jesus and allow him to minister to us. Lenten disciplines also include trying to devote more time to prayer and reading scripture, so that you can be still before God and listen to God. There will be Lent books available for you to buy during February which can help you with this. We also have our Benefice Lent Course led by the Rev Pauline Green and the theme of the Course will be Prayer. More details about this can be found in this magazine. I really hope as many of you as possible will come to this course. It will run on Wednesday evenings as well as Thursday mornings. Almsgiving and fasting have also been traditional Lenten disciplines. Each year, the Bishop of Gloucester encourages us to participate in his Lent Fast. The money we save from forgoing a meal or a luxury can go to the two projects that the Bishop has identified for support this Lent. This year they are in one of our partner dioceses – Western Tanganyika and the other project is in Sierra Leone. The details of these projects can be found on another page in this magazine. I urge you to be generous – both these projects seek to help many of the poorest people in our world. There will be special (gift aid) envelopes at the back of the four churches throughout Lent for you to give your donation. I wish you a holy Lent. With love and prayers that you will do the wisest thing and come to Jesus,
Rev. Canon Jane, Kenchington, 01454 313159, email:jane@kenchington.plus.com
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have been purchased and the network will be tested out shortly and he hopes to have everything up and running by the end of the year.
KIBERA The Rotary Club of Chipping Sodbury, which has 46 very active members, who live within the Sodbury Benefice and surrounding villages, have been meeting in Chipping Sodbury for over 50 years. As well as meeting socially, we also raise money for local and international charitable causes, and are involved in community projects locally. The Rotary motto is ‘Service before Self’.
I know that the Church supports this project so I thought Church members would like to know of this progress. Richard Kingscott, Old Sodbury
Mrs Winnie Potts makes a Century
As our Foundation Chairman for the Club this year (Foundation being Rotary’s International Charity) I was looking for a project with a local input, which our Club could help with. I noticed in the Church Outlook magazine, May 2011, the article about the Kibera Project in Kenya, which suggested contacting David Parsons for more details. This I did and some of us met with his son Jon Parsons, the Field Director, when he was in Chipping Sodbury in August.
Mrs Winnie Potts, a parishioner at St Adeline’s, Little Sodbury, celebrated her 100th birthday on January 15th this year, with friends and family, at The Willows nursing home . Winnie started to worship at St Adeline’s in 1919 at the age of 7. Her mother and then her aunt played the organ there until 1996. Both her parents were churchwardens and the light over the pulpit is in memory of her husband William Potts.
Jon told us about his work with the Kibera project in the slums of Nairobi in Kenya and we have been liasing with him since to see how we could be involved. Jon needed £1,700 to finance the computerisation of the Micro-Finance project at Kibera. The project provides small sums, at no interest, for some adults, helping them to start their own business. To date they have over 350 members and this figure is growing. I am pleased to say that The Rotary Club of Chipping Sodbury has donated £1,000 to this project and has been able to obtain a grant from our District for the balance of £700.
She received many cards, including, of course, one from The Queen. She also received a missive from the Dept. of Work & Pensions which she thought was yet another form to fill in, but was in fact congratulations from Ian Duncan Smith. St Adeline’s sent her a card and a bouquet of flowers.
Jon tells me that the database design is already underway, the three computers 4
Two of a kind
Best Church Heating
If you wondered how Graham Newman played the piano with a broken arm here is the answer. Margaret stepped in to give him a 'hand' when he (they) played at the very last Old Sodbury Coffee morning in December.
It's official, Old Sodbury Church has the most entertaining and efficient heating system in the Benefice. The congregation are always amused as the clergy look like Mary Poppins when they stand over the hot-air heating ducts, but the young ones discovered a new game recently. Matt Hunter and his crew worked out that you could fill a Morrisons supermarket bag with hot air and it was sufficient to raise a model of John the Baptist well into the air. Must be a 'sermon' in this somewhere!
There was a great send off to all those who had taken part over the past 27 years. 5
Lent Books 2012 Lent can be used as a time when we can set out to devote a bit more time to spiritual reading and prayer. Every year, several books are written especially for using throughout Lent and here are a small selection on offer this year. They will be available for you to look at and order in time for the start of Lent. I’ll have them at Chipping Sodbury for the Benefice service and they’ll go round the other Benefice churches as well. Light Breaks Forth – The CAFOD Lent Book 2012 Price: ~£5.36 “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with one mosquito.” – so says an African proverb. One small mosquito can turn a peaceful night’s sleep into a waking nightmare. And each one of us has our own small but vital part to play in the great drama of Lent and Easter. In these forty days, shadowing the wilderness experience of Jesus, our lives, like his, are at a turning point. Do we choose the way of hope, love and justice, or the way of possession, competitiveness and power? This book contains reflections on the lectionary readings for each day of Lent 2012 written by some of our finest spiritual writers. Love Unknown – The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2012 by Ruth Burrows ~£6.71 Ruth Burrows, (who is a Carmelite nun), believes that many people, even regular churchgoers, miss the true meaning and joy of Christianity. God longs for us to know him as our Saviour, so that he can bring us to share in his own Trinitarian life. Burrows traces how God reveals himself to us through our personal lives, particularly our experiences of weakness and failure. Encountering the living and true God revealed in Jesus Christ challenges us to face our own truth, and so sets us free to receive boundless love, the joy, fulfilment, and holiness for which we were made.
On Retreat – A Lenten Journey (The Mowbray Lent Book 2012) by Andrew Walker ~ £6.71 A retreat offers a chance to nourish the soul, but for many people the traditional retreat experience is prohibitively expensive of timeconsuming. This book enables you to retreat at home! It offers you the annual opportunity that Lent gives us to look afresh at ourselves and at God and leads the reader on a journey of personal prayer from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day. Three other books that I have discovered recently, that might be of interest: God Hunting – a Diary of Spiritual Discovery by Jo Swinney ~£5.00 Jo Swinney set herself a challenge: to trial one spiritual discipline per month. This book is her diary of discovery. She invites us to join in the hunt for God through Prayer, Fasting, Bible Study, Worship, Solitude and Simplicity. This book is easy to read, even though what the author says is a challenge. From Wild Man to Wise Man by Richard Rohr ~ £5.00 This book focuses on the difficulty men experience in finding mentors for their spiritual journey and the presence of the Spirit to help us. Richard Rohr invites us (men AND women) to use our gender awareness to further our
Continued on p 7 6
…From p6 growth spiritually. This is a book for men and women since it seeks to help both genders to integrate both their masculinity and femininity. Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the two halves of life by Richard Rohr ~£ 9.50 In the first half of life, we are preoccupied with establishing our identity – climbing, achieving and performing. But those concerns will not serve us as we grow older and begin to embark on a further journey, one that involves challenges, mistakes, loss of control, broader horizons, and necessary suffering that actually shocks us out of our prior comfort zone. Eventually, according to Rohr, we need to see ourselves in a different and more life-giving way. This message of “falling down” is in fact moving upward and is the most resisted and counterintuitive of messages in Christianity.
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Private Chapels of Rest at Coalpit Heath & Yate
Jane Kenchington 7
Market Cross Baptisms: We welcomed into the Church: Steven Fraser Elmore and Ruby Mae Foster on 15 January at St John’s, Chipping Sodbury
Marriages: We send our congratulations to: Amy-Louise Catherine Curtis-Whitfield and Thomas James Woodward on 21 January at St John's, Old Sodbury
Funerals:We extend our sympathy to the family and friends of:
Victor Leonard Payne on 11 January at Westerleigh Crematorium Stanley William Cavill on 13 January at Westerleigh Crematorium Josephine Baldock on 20 January at Westerleigh Crematorium
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The third way is by sharing with others in Prayer Every Day in Lent. My hope is that parishes will again (or in some cases for the first time) respond to the challenge to Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, 22 ensure prayer is offered in each church each February. Lent is always an invitation to day of Lent. We have produced a simple prepare for Holy Week and Easter through service form, with readings, reflections and some kind of spiritual spring-clean. We all prayers, under the title of “Streams in the need that. We have to make our own Desert” and you can access this from 1 personal decisions about what might help us February on my homepage of the diocesan turn Lent into a time of spiritual growth. We website. are all different and so we will not all choose www.gloucester.anglican.org/ministry/bis the same things. But here are three things hop/ the Diocese of Gloucester is making It would be good if your available to help. None of them are new church would join in this but spiritual disciplines don’t need novelty and better still if you to be valuable. could be part of it. Three ways of our having The first is the Shrove Tuesday Quiet Day a holy growing and from 10 am to 3.30pm in the Cathedral on renewing Lent together! 21 February. The title this year is “Led by the Spirit in the Wilderness” and, alongside +Michael worship, silence, prayer stations and a sense of space, there will be three addresses, one by Bishop Sadock of Western Tanganyika, one by Bishop Mary of El Camino Real and one by me. You can find details on my home page on the diocesan website: www.gloucester.anglican.org/downloads/2 666.pdf
From the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt. Revd. Michael Perham
The second is the Lent Fast. Fasting is an ancient biblical discipline, good for the body as well as for the soul. It can also be good for the world’s poor if we give the money we have saved from our fasting. Our hope is to raise a lot of money for health projects in Tanzania and in Sierra Leone, where what we give will be trebled by European funding. Please consider sharing in the fast in some way or other. The details are to be found on my homepage on the diocesan website.
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The Bishop of Gloucester’s Lent Fast As I mentioned in my opening letter, Bishop Michael has asked us all to participate in the Lent Fast. The details of the two projects that the Bishop would like us to adopt are: 1. The Diocese of Western Tanganyika – Mubanga village dispenary This African diocese is one of our partner dioceses and it is looking to finishing the construction of a dispensary building in one of its remoter parishes. This will provide health services particularly to women and to children under 5 who are the most vulnerable people in these remote areas. 2. Sierra Leone- Kailahun Health Project This is situated in one of the poorest regions of this very poor country and the project is designed to improve the quality of health services available to local communities, particularly to mothers and babies. The project will enhance facilities in both main hospitals in the area, ensuring clean running water to all wards and providing a reliable electricity supply. Two additional ambulances will be purchased and hospital staff will receive training to improve their skills. This project is supported by the EU and for every £1 raised, the European Union will put forward another £2.50 for this project. Jane Kenchington SODBURY VALE BENEFICE’S LENT COURSE 2012:
HOLIDAY HOME
A five-week course entitled
“OUR LIFE OF PRAYER” led by the Rev Pauline Green All the meetings will be in the Church Centre, Wickwar Road, Chipping Sodbury. They will run on Wednesday evenings at 7.30am starting on Wednesday 29 February and Thursday mornings at 11am starting on 1 March. Wednesday 29 February & Thursday 1 March: Session 1: Basic Essentials
Thurlestone, South Devon Mannings,The Drive, Downs Road
Wednesday 7 March & Thursday 8 March:
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Session 4: Going Deeper
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bobandsueal@gmail.com 10
A Gathering at Horton On July 3rd last year, whilst people were gathering at Horton Church to enjoy tea and cakes provided by the ladies of the church during the opening of Horton Court, a swarm of bees did some gathering of their own on this gravestone. They also starred on Points West the next day. Thanks to Jenni Craft for the picture.
Mrs. E.J. Gauntlett M.Ch.S. HPC REGISTERED CHIROPODIST / PODIATRIST
6 Beaufort Mews 7 Horse Street Chipping Sodbury South Glos. BS37 6DA Telephone: (01454) 319083 Tuesday, Wednesday, & Saturday Mornings 11
Annual Parochial Church Meetings (APCMs) across the Benefice The Annual Parochial Church meetings (known in short as APCMs) are meetings that have to take place before 30 April. Each church in the Benefice will have an APCM and at these meetings, accounts will be presented, Church Fabric will be reported on, the Rector will give an account of what’s happened in the past year and various elections take place. The most important elections that happen annually are those where lay people can be elected onto the Parochial Church Council (PCC). But in order to be eligible to stand for election, you need to be on the Church Electoral Roll. Every parish must have an Electoral Roll. A lay person is entitled to have their name entered on the roll of a parish if they are baptized, 16 years old or more, have signed an application form for enrolment and a declaration that they are either: · A member of the C of E or of a church in communion with the C of E and are resident in the parish ·
·
During February, enrolment forms will be available at the back of each of the churches. If you aren’t already on the Electoral roll and you worship regularly, please do complete one of these forms. Since being here, I have been quite disappointed with the attendance at the APCMs in some of our churches. The APCMs do give the members of the churches the opportunity to hear what’s going on and ask questions of the PCCs. This can make for stimulating discussion. The other point is that with a poor level of interest in the APCM, we often don’t get many new people elected onto our PCCs, which is a great shame. Anyone who is on the Electoral Roll of a parish church can stand for election onto the PCC. I don’t hand-pick people: the PCC memberships are not the Rector’s clique – and they shouldn’t be anyway. The only rule we do have is that you are elected for 3 years, after which you come off the PCC for a year. This then encourages new blood. So please do consider if you would like to be nominated for election to your PCC. I long for prayerful, vibrant and positive PCC meetings where we can together discern where God is leading us and join in. The dates of the APCMs across the Benefice are as follows:
A non-resident member of the C of E who has habitually attended worship in the parish during the period of 6 St Adeline’s (held in church): 7.00pm months prior to enrolment; or Tuesday 20 March St John’s, Old Sodbury (held in Old A member in good standing of a Sodbury Village Hall): 7.00pm Thursday church which subscribes to the doc- 22 March trine of the Holy Trinity (not being a St James the Elder, Horton (held at Kirrin church in communion with the C of E) House, King Lane, Horton): 7.00pm Tuesday 27 March and they are prepared to declare St John’s, Chipping Sodbury (held at themselves to be a member of the C the Church Centre): 7.00pm Thursday 29 of E having habitually attended public March worship in the parish during a period Jane Kenchington of 6 months prior to enrolment. 12
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Telephone: 01454 324888 E-mail: richard@kenchington.plus.com
Young people the focus of New Year's Day messages In his New Year message, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, urged society not to give up on the young, despite the 'horrific' scenes of the riots last summer. He said young people can 'flourish' when shown the right support and love. Pope Benedict XVI also stressed the need to educate young people in moral values so they could become 'builders of peace'. He said: 'To assume responsibility for educating young people in knowledge of the truth, in fundamental values and virtues, is to look to the future with hope'.
Do you need a babysitter? If so, Sarah Kenchington would love to hear from you! Please contact her on either: 0790 040 3642 or 01454 313159.
Left over from Christmas ….Wrapped in swaddling.... If you wanted a demonstration of 'Swaddling', St John's on Christmas morning was the place to be. Val managed to get three teams to 'volunteer' for a swaddling contest using Andrex tissue (on special at the Co-op).
Energy Performance Certificates for:
Sales, Rental & Holiday Lets, Floor Plans
The boys won, and were rewarded with wine gums and Trevor, the organist, gathered up all the waste for his compost heap everyone seemed very happy.
Lynn Edwards MA, MCIEH, MCIH Domestic Energy Assessor Tel: 07973 166 692 or 01454 323 340 Email: office@lenergy-assessor.co.uk 13
Your Gospel You are writing a Gospel, a chapter each day, by the deeds that you do, by the words that you say. People read what you write, whether faithless or true, and say, “What is your Gospel according to you?” People read and admire the Gospel of Christ, with it’s love so unfailing and true, but what do they say and what do they think of the Gospel according to you? It’s a wonderful story, Christ’s Gospel of love, and it shows that His love is divine: I hope that its content will be there again in the story of your life and mine. You are writing each day a letter to others, take care that the writing is true – it’s the only Gospel that some others will read, that Gospel according to you.
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Sodbury Vale Benefice Calendar February 2012 Sun 5th 3rd Sunday before Lent
8.00am
Holy Communion (BCP)
St John’s C/S
9.30am
St John’s Praise
St John’s C/S
11.15am
Mattins (BCP)
St James’ Horton
11.15am
Family Communion
St John’s O/S
6.00pm
Evensong (BCP)
St Adeline’s L/S
Wed
8th
1.30pm
Women’s Fellowship
Church Centre C/S
Thurs
9th
10.00am
Holy Communion
St John’s C/S
10.45am
Coffee Shop
Church Centre C/S
9.00am
Benefice Prayer Meeting
Church Centre C/S
9.30am
Parish Communion
St John’s C/S
11.15am
Holy Communion (BCP)
St James’ Horton
11.15am
St John’s Praise
St John’s O/S
Sat
11th
Sun 12th 2nd Sunday before Lent
6.00pm
Evensong (BCP)
St Adeline’s L/S
Mon
13th
2.30pm
Mothers’ Union
Church Centre C/S
Tue
14th
3.00pm
Meditation Meeting
10 Lark Rise, Yate
Thurs
16th
10.00am
Holy Communion
St John’s C/S
10.45am
Coffee Shop
Church Centre C/S
9.00am
Benefice Prayer Meeting
Church Centre C/S
Sat
18th
Sun 19th Sunday next before Lent
9.30am
Family Communion
St John’s C/S
11.15am
Morning Prayer (CW)
St James’ Horton
11.15am
Holy Communion (BCP)
St John’s O/S
6.00pm
Evensong (BCP)
St Adeline’s L/S
Women’s Fellowship
Church Centre C/S
Wed
22nd
1.30pm 7.30pm
Holy Communion for Ash Wednesday
St John’s, O/S
Thur
23rd
10.00am
Holy Communion
St John’s C/S
10.45am
Coffee Shop
Church Centre C/S
9.30am
Parish Communion
St John’s C/S
11.15am
Family Communion (CW)
St James’ Horton
11.15am
Morning Praise
St John’s O/S
6.00pm
Holy Communion (BCP)
St Adeline’s L/S
3.00pm
Meditation Meeting
10 Lark Rise, Yate
Holy Communion
St John’s C/S
Coffee Shop
Church Centre C/S
Benefice Prayer Meeting
Church Centre C/S
Sun 26th First Sunday of Lent
Tue
28th
Thurs
1st Mar 10.00am 10.45am
Sat
3rd Mar 9.00am
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Costs Are :For full colour Adverts, per issue Whole page £60.00 Half a page £30.00 Our new style magazine is now coming up Quarter page £15.00 to its 1st Birthday and it seems to be much Business card sized £ 7.50 appreciated by all. Special thanks must go Discounts are also available for regular ads. to Stuart Bexon for trying out various We have decided we’d rather not actually printing options and chasing people for charge for the magazine, as we don’t want articles, Michael Stephenson who is now there to be any barriers to people knowing creating the design and type setting the more about our church community. magazine and Michelle our benefice However if any of you reading this do feel administrator who collates the information able to contribute to the cost it would really to be published. Sylvia Franklin has done an take the pressure off finding sufficient amazing job of drumming up advertisers advertisers for each issue. The current cost which means that even after distributing per magazine works out at about 50p per magazines to virtually the whole of Chipping copy, and as we have now decided to reduce Sodbury before Christmas, the shortfall over the number of issues to 10 a year (combining the whole of last year was just over £200. January & December and July & August) it makes an annual cost of £5 – and of course if you are eligible this could be gift aided. You may even feel able to sponsor another copy? Finally I would like to thank everyone who has contributed articles and photographs to the magazine in the last year. Please continue to tell us your news, the magazine can only be a good as the things you contribute!!
However finding advertisers is now getting harder – we are running at a considerable deficit for this issue and:-
The cut off date for articles is usually around the 15th of the month but the earlier the better! – and brilliant if you can email them as it saves retyping. Articles can be sent to:
Stuart Bexon – bexon@onetel.com or to Michael Stephenson Do you know anyone who might like to m.stephenson11@btinternet.com. advertise, say, a business, a service, a holiday cottage or an event? I look forward to receiving The distribution is increasing as we are now your comments printing more copies and distributing them and contributions, throughout businesses and shops as well as to our congregations, church visitors, wedding guests and at other events.
We need your help!
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