Well, it has certainly not been the year we were planning for. This is the year we should have been celebrating the 850th and the 650th anniversaries of our churches in Pyecombe and Poynings respectively. Instead, our churches have predominately remained closed, although more recently we have been able to open some of them for private prayer. Newtimber remains open all day, every day. Pyecombe was open during the day until the recent lockdown curtailed this for the time being. Poynings is open for private prayer on Saturdays, but sadly we have not been able to facilitate the opening of St Andrew’s at Edburton yet, at all.
Sundays on Zoom
Church services for all four parishes have been conducted on Zoom since March, initially from the Rectory study but for the past several weeks, it has been lovely to be able to host them from within Holy Trinity, Poynings where we have also welcomed a small congregation to be present in the church. During the recent lockdown we have continued to Zoom from Holy Trinity, but without a congregation present in church. This has enabled us to continue to worship together and has, I think, strengthened our sense of being a single community.
Mid Downland Parish
Hopefully our greater sense of community will make our transition from four distinct ecclesiastical parishes to one all the more natural. We will become the single ecclesiastical parish of Poynings with Edburton, Newtimber and Pyecombe on 1st January, 2021. That’s a bit of a mouthful, so our working name will be the Mid Downland Parish. This formalising of the informal union that has been in place for some time will make for easier administration and will safeguard us against the possibility of being unable to recruit churchwardens and other parochial officers in all four communities. It will also enable us to gain some financial benefit from managing a single relationship with utility and service providers.
There will be a single Parochial Church Council (PCC), with representatives from each parish church. All four of our churches will maintain their status as parish churches and there will, of course, remain a need for a group of volunteers with a particular interest in each of the churches. The first Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) of the Mid Downland Parish will take place in January, when churchwardens, Deanery Synod representatives and PCC members will be elected. Full details of the meeting will be published in due course.
Currently each church is financially independent but they already share common costs. The biggest is our Parish Share – the contribution we make to the diocese – which is simply divided between the four. Apart from that the main costs are utilities, insurance premiums, and day to day running costs. These are met through the regular subscriptions of individuals and through the wonderful fundraising efforts of each of our communities. The income and expenditure is remarkably similar in each of the four churches so bringing them under a common account will not in any way result in funds being diverted away from the community in which they we raised, and they will remain absolutely essential.
The union of our parishes does have some potential benefits to all our parishioners; for example, anyone who could have been married or baptised in any one of our churches could now be married or baptised in any of the four.
Christmas services
Our planning for Christmas is necessarily a bit speculative, but our hope and intention is to hold our Carol Service at Pyecombe at 6.00 p.m. on Sunday 13 December, when the Pyecombe Choir will be singing outside the church before we go in. It will be a simpler service than usual, with restricted seating and no public singing. On Christmas Eve, at 4.00 p.m. we will Zoom a Nativity service, with children in mind, and at 9.30 p.m. we will Zoom a Bethlehem Midnight Mass (Bethlehem is two hours ahead of us).
On Christmas Day, at 10.30 a.m. a communion service will be Zoomed from within St John the Evangelist, Newtimber, when we hope we will also be able to host a small congregation so that those without access to Zoom can still join in.
I very much hope that you will be able to join us for one or more of these occasions.
If you would like to be added to the invitation to our Zoomed services, please let me have your email address and I will ensure that you receive them.
With every blessing for a joyful Christmas and looking forward with you, in hope, to the New Year.
Revd Tim.
