WELCOME to our Church website!
Dear Friends,
My picture is missing since my last message – because the beard went in a nearby Turkish Barbers! I am also a year older!
Sadly too, the refugee crisis in nearby Calais has only worsened with another war of words about ‘borders’ and no-one has responded to my call that we should be doing a lot more to welcome refugees to our own shores. Post-Brexit apathy has already crept in?
On a cheerier note, it has been a busy Summer in the Parish consolidating plans for a new Cottage Hospice and Chapel on the site of the Good Shepherd Church in Five Ashes. Planning has now gone in to Wealden District submitted by Hospice-in-the-Weald and you can view their plans online. I believe this to be a great sign of partnership and service (what theologians would call ‘kingdom values’) for the whole community in the years ahead and, the pastoral possibilities for Church and Hospice together are very exciting.
Another new development for a Family worker is also being advertised on this website, so lease let any potential candidates know…whether newly qualified since graduation or, more experienced….we do not discriminate! Our PCC is committed to this work with our children and parents whether their background is faith-based or not. But we do believe in the planting of seeds and helping them to grow.
Please let our Editors of our bi-monthly ‘Parish News’ know of your Summer adventures, experiences or recommendations…film, drama, music, or even religious!
I warmly recommend a book that took me out of my (poor) biological and scientific ‘comfort zone’: “A Sting in the Tale – MY ADVENTURES WITH BUMBLEBEES” – by Dave Coulson. He is currently Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex but what impressed me more is his desire to change our thinking about biodiversity, planting, agriculture and climate change…and our love for the bee population in particular, who make our world of flowers and pollination so vital, colourful and life-affirming.
Fantastic and timely I say – when, God-willing, we begin to rethink our nation’s energy and environmental needs, and really take stock.
