Church Blog
News, Updates, Thoughts

The latest news, updates, and thoughts from the team at St Mary's.

Dear Friends

A little over 5 years ago, in response to God’s call and prompting, Kate, Seren and I joined you in Darby Green and Eversley to help lead the churches and to see where God would take us.  None of us foresaw the crazy journey that the world would go on - over the last 2½ years in particular – but I believe God has been faithful throughout.  Even when things have been challenging, we have seen God doing things in our midst and have praised him for it.  We have loved being part of this church and have felt encouraged, supported, and loved during our time here – even on the difficult days. We want to say a huge thank you for so many who have done so much to make us feel appreciated and to help us.

This morning, the time has come to let you know that we believe that God is now calling us to move on to a new phase of ministry and a new challenge.  After much deliberation and soul searching, I have accepted the post of Priest in Charge of the Parish of St Clements in Poole.  I know this may come as a shock to many of you, and I must tell you that the decision was not an easy one.  Although we are very excited by the adventure awaiting us at St Clements, we truly love being here, and it took quite a lot for God to convince us it is time to go. We will miss you all terribly, but truly believe that this is the right step for us, and ultimately for St B’s and St M’s as well.

We will be leaving after Christmas with our final Sunday with you all on Sunday 8th January and I will be licensed in St Clements, Poole on Thursday 26th January.  Although we are sad that we won’t be with you for the next stage of the journey, we are excited about what God will do as we know he will lead you onwards as a benefice.

Over the next 3 months, I am focusing on finishing our time with you here well.  We will be doing all we can to help the churches make the most of this Autumn and Christmas season, to build up the church community and reach out with the light of Christ.  I will of course be working closely with Rachel, Derek, Jane, the churchwardens and the PCCs to ensure that, as far as possible, I can get things on a good footing before we go. But ultimately, as has always been the case, it is Jesus who will lead and grow his church. We will continue to pray that each of you, corporately and individually will follow him wherever the path may take you in the months and years ahead and ask that you pray for us to do the same.

I am very aware how truly blessed we have been to spend these 5 years with you all, and I can only thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the love and prayers we have received.  May God bless you all.

St Mary's Eversley Festival

On Sunday 18th September we will be celebrating St Mary in our main morning Service and opening up the beautiful grade 1 listed church for visitors to come and have a cream tea, listen to the bells and find out more about the churches history. In the evening we will be having our first Messy Church of the new school year and we'd love for you all to come along. The timings will be as follows:

10am Festival Communion Service

A Holy Communion Service focussing on our Patron Saint Mary and gathering together as the church in Eversley.

From 1pm until 3pm  

Bell Ringing, and Cream Teas available in the Church Hall
1.15pm and 2.15pm Church Tours Available

4pm  Messy Church 

Come along and join us at a service which begins with craft, ends with a meal together and offers a chance to create, learn about God, sing and pray together in the middle.  All Ages welcome, but Messy church is particularly suitable for children from 3-11 and their families and siblings.

All monies raised during the day will go towards supporting the local church and its community outreach.

Providing emergency food to local people in crisis

During the period April 1st - June 30th 2022 we provided the following with emergency food: Adults 719, Children 402, Total 1121

An example of what we hear from a typical client: "I'm going through a divorce and I have had to move to different rented accommodation. I'm trying my best to work, pay all the bills, look after my children...but sometimes I only have a few pounds left to buy food for the whole family. Your parcels make such a difference to our lives! Thank you"

Thank you to everyone who works for, supports and prays for Foodbank’s continuing ministry in this community.

For the next four weeks we will once again be joining in with generous June.

This is an opportunity for each of us to reflect on God’s generosity to us, and our own response both in terms of the time, talents and money that we give back to God, and also our attitudes to those around us. We will very helpfully be led in our thoughts with sermons both by live visiting speakers in some cases, and in talks pre-recorded by our Bishop’s David and Debbie. As we engage with generous June once more, we will be inviting everyone to review our giving to church once more and look at what God is calling us to give.

Could you spare an hour or two a month to help at the Darby Green Foodbank, part of Hart Foodbank?

We need help to deliver food parcels to clients. This would happen on a Monday or Thursday between 1:30pm and 3:00pm. We also need help collecting supplies from our central store in Fleet for our foodbank in Darby Green. Again, this would be Monday or Thursday 1:30-3:00pm.

In both cases you will need access to a car and be physically able to carry heavy bags and trays of food. Petrol expenses can be claimed.

If you can help or would like more information, please contact me.

Please join us for our Easter Services:

Thursday 14th April

7pm Maundy Thursday Holy Communion at St Peter's Church, Yateley

Friday 15th April

10am Good Friday Family Worship at St Mary's Church and on YouTube

2pm An Hour at the Cross

Sunday 17th April

8am BCP Holy Communion at St Mary's Church

10am Easter Family Communion at St Mary's Church and on YouTube

Our giant map of the parish of St Barnabas will soon be complete.

Jane Hughes has also given me a list of the roads in the parish of Eversley and at church on Sunday we will soon have this available to sign up on whilst we make a similar map for Eversley.

 We would love you to commit to praying every week for two streets in the parish(es).   If you live in the parish(es), one of these is your own.  The other is another which no one else has yet committed to praying for.  If you don't live in the parish, then we'd ask you to commit to 2 streets which no one else is praying for. 

If you are fit enough, perhaps you could go and visit the street you are committing to pray for, and prayer walk it. But if not then the act of praying from home for the people, buildings and communities represented by that street is a key indicator to God that we are serious about asking him to bless every person in our area with his love.

Praying for each street once a week or more frequently will also, we pray, open up opportunities in these areas for God to act.  Everyone can do this, so please do sign up when the sheets appear at the beginning of March and we will give you something to help remind you of your commitment to pray.

Alongside praying for our community, we also want to ask you to commit to praying for our Churches.

 Did you know that there are 10,080 minutes in a week?  I'm asking you to commit 10 of them (or 0.1%!) to pray specifically for your church.  Both of our churches face huge pressures at the moment and we need God to guide us and to step in with his resources to help us.  Regular committed prayer for our churches for 10 minutes each week is a way that every single person, regardless of physical ability, can help. 

Often people have said they don’t know what to pray for so we will commit to send out a short list each month of the particular things or areas that we would value prayer for over the next few weeks.  You do’t have to follow or take any notice of this list, but it is there to help guide your prayers if you wish.  Wherever possible we will let you know how and when God answers our prayers and the signs of hope we see.  Everyone can do this, so please do sign up in church this Sunday or if you can’t be there in person, drop us an email and we will give you something to help remind you of your commitment to pray and the first areas to pray for.

We have shared in prayer for the people of Ukraine on several occasions this week, including at our Ash Wednesday Services. Whilst we continue to pray for the situation, several people have asked about practical ways in which we can help, so we share the following for you to prayerfully consider:

One of the best and safest ways to donate is via the Disasters Emergency Committee have launched an appeal https://www.dec.org.uk or https://www.redcross.org.uk/ who are part of DEC. These are organisations who are well equipped to provide targeted assistance by ‘professionals’ at the places it is most needed, responding to need swiftly as the situation changes.

It is possible to donate physical items, but there is a very specific list of needs that Yateley Town Council are equipped to receive at the former Red Cross Hut, off Monteagle Lane, GU46 6LU. They also need volunteers to help receive and sort donations – if you can help with this please contact office@yateley-tc.gov.uk.

The donation point will be open Tuesday 15th – Thursday 17th March 4-7pm, and Friday 18th March 9am-1pm.

They will ONLY be able to accept the following:

  • Pushchairs
  • Torches
  • Dried and canned food
  • Batteries
  • Nappies, nappy sacks, and wipes
  • Baby products
  • Baby food products (including toddler food)
  • Special diet food (e.g. lactose and gluten free)
  • Thermos flasks/insulated cups
  • Sanitary products
  • Medical supplies

Two years ago this week, our churches began to respond for the first time to the Coronavirus pandemic and I wrote to each of you about some changes to the way we were going to have to operate for the (near!) future.

 Two years later, and after all we have endured, and all we see in the news today, I wanted to write to you again.  We may not quite be back to normal yet – whatever that might mean – but this week saw a number of things restarting, and I wanted to mark this moment with a thankyou.  A couple of times this week I have been reminded of the need for us to be thankful, even, and perhaps especially, when things seem tough or bleak. I have also been reminded that we should express that gratitude to those around us, often and earnestly. So I want to take a moment today to say thank you to you all. 

Thank you to all of you who have helped us to keep our churches going over the last two years.  Whether in practical, financial or spiritual ways I am aware of how much time, money and prayer has gone into our church life.  Turning up on a Sunday, whether in person, or online is a huge encouragement to us and to one another so thank you to all of you who have taken the time to come, in person or virtually and shared with us. Thank you to everyone on this newsletter chain for praying for the things which are happening.  Thank you to our prayer chain pray-ers for keeping those of us in need in their prayers and indeed for all of you praying for me too.  Thank you for those of you who have gone on rotas and agreed to support us in so many ways.  Thank you to those who have joined us recently, and those who have been part of our communities for many years.  Thank you everyone for your continued support.

May God bless you all