St Mary's Church News 2005

1st Sunday	8.00am 9.30am 6.30pm	Holy Communion Family Service Evensong
2nd Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Holy Communion Evensong
3rd Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Morning Prayer Holy Communion
4th Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Holy Communion Evensong
5th Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Family Service Evensong

Mothers’ Union meets in the Old Grammar School 2.00pm, 1st Wednesday of the month. Leader Mrs Janet Neal, tel: 813054.

Sunday, 18th Dec
6.30pm Carols by Candlelight
Candles provided this year but still be careful!

Christmas Eve
3pm Family Nativity Service - come dressed up!
11.30pm Midnight Communion
Open to all to share in the moment of Christmas

Christmas Day
8.00am Holy Communion - a quiet short service to celebrate Christmas morning
9.30am Family Communion Service - bring your presents!

For the church the approach of Christmas brings us to the season of Advent. Not just a time for opening calendars filled with chocolates but also a time of preparation for the Advent [coming] of Jesus, which we celebrate at Christmas. We started this year with our Christmas Tree Festival and continued with the POSADA figures of Mary & Joseph going around the village urging people, to get ready for the coming of Jesus.

Although other places around the country, each year, go through the silly season of ‘wintermas’, putting up ‘winterlights’ and banning Father Christmas we are sticking to the old fashioned approach and keeping Jesus as part of our festivities! But just because we are including Jesus doesn’t mean that everything runs smoothly though!

The coming of the Christmas season reminds us that in Christmas shopping we nearly always find just the right present after we have bought something else. We worry that we have enough for the Christmas meals and afterwards wonder why we bought so much. Hindsight can be a wonderful thing.

The Christmas story we will hear once again in St Mary’s church over the season will speak to us of the ‘if only’s’.

If only God had chosen another way for us to get to know him then Mary would not have been pregnant.

If only they hadn’t had to travel to Bethlehem then the baby could have been born in better conditions and there would have been no need for a stable.

If only the Angels had appeared to a better class of worker there would have been no need for ‘common’ shepherds to be at the stable.

If only the wise men had not gone to Herod first then perhaps they would have found Jesus in the stable rather than in a house.

If only it could have happened at another time of the year we could have a good Bar-B-Q for Christmas Dinner….and better weather!

In reality God chose the best way possible for Jesus to become part of his creation, in a baby born in obscurity, knowing the danger of life from day one, becoming a figure of question and derision for many. All this so that we would have a chance to hear first hand what God has planned for us his creation.

May you all have a joyful and enjoyable Christmas. St Mary’s Church will be celebrating the Christmas Story in many different ways look out for more details.

Members of St Mary's Church in Rolleston have staged what they believe is a first for East Staffordshire and South Derbyshire - a Christmas Tree Festival, organised by Sylvia Martin.

On November 25th (2-6.30pm), Saturday 26th (2-7pm), Sunday 27th (1-5.30pm) and Monday 28th (2-5pm) the beautiful Church of St Mary’s was filled with over 30 trees, all created by local organisations with themes relating to their interests. There were a variety of trees, conventional, artificial and "different", and the decorations ranged from an "All Stars" tree by the Sunday School to "Nature's Sparklers" by members of the Tutbury Flower Club.

A special ‘Memory’ tree allowed visitors and friends to commemorate baptisms, weddings or the loss of a loved one by writing on a special card to hang on the tree. The donations for this will help boost much needed Church funds.

After an atmospheric tour of the Church people could follow the path lined with trees outside until they reached the Old School Room. There they were welcomed by ladies from the ‘4 C ’s’ craft group, with their stall of magnificent handmade items for sale, as gifts for everyone at Christmas.

Refreshments were available too, rounding off a splendid opportunity to join in with members of the congregation of St. Mary’s Rolleston to think about the true meaning of Christmas.

As the church clock struck 7 on a gloomy September morning, five intrepid cyclists set off to ride from Rolleston on Dove to Coventry and back, a total of 90 miles. They completed the ride in a riding time of 6 hours 50 minutes, and arrived back at St. Mary's church to a tumultuous welcome from a large crowd of family and friends. Further details and pictures can be found here.

With bombs going off in London and individuals shot dead on the tube then the question I am being asked is “Why?” The question underneath this is an age old one; ‘Where is God when things go wrong?’

In the bible there are constant referrals to this question, the book of the Psalms often asks the question of God, ‘Why do you turn a deaf ear?’ The book of Proverbs counsels against being involved in the schemes of the un-godly even if it looks as though they prosper! The story of Job who, although he loses everything, still retains his faith in God in spite of many who advise him to just ‘curse God and die’!

The question of ‘Why?’ has always been around as long as people have had breath to breathe and a mind to reason. And the reason that the question has always been around is that evil, accident and injustice have been in the world ever since someone has been here to put a name to it. It is part of what it means to be human and in this world, to be alive means being able to stand when so much goes against you. Kipling in his most famous of poems says; ‘If you can hold on when there is nothing left in you except the will that says Hold On!’

The people of London in this 60th year of the end of World War Two are behaving just like their forebears of those times and not letting the acts of bombers or security forces stop them going about their business. If we give in to bombers and fear then they have won. If in this life we give in to despair then the wrongness of life has won. For in spite of what we might believe from the media and from stories there is still love in this world and love overcomes all.

My Christian faith trusts in a God who has seen it all a million time over and still says I love You. That Christian faith extends to an ugly cross where love again experienced it all a million times over and still stays there. My Christian faith in the face of the question ‘Why?’ holds to a bigger picture that says yet there is still love. It is only love I have found that has any answer to that question.

Sunday 19th June was HOT!! Despite this and the fact that there were a couple of other local “Open Gardens” as well as it being Fathers’ Day, over £3,000 was raised for the Fabric Fund. Many thanks to all who supported us and to those who managed to visit all the gardens on foot, you deserve a medal!! We would like to thank all the kind people who opened their gardens and welcomed the many visitors, and the gallant team who provided refreshments, manned the raffle and all the other tasks that go on behind the scenes to make this event run so smoothly. Once again we were pleased to welcome local artists who set up their work in what shade they could find near the church, and the innovation of having flower arranging demonstrations in the church also proved to be popular.

A new event at the start of Advent will be a Christmas Tree Festival which will run from Friday November 25th – Monday November 28th. The idea is rather like a flower festival, but with trees in the church that have been decorated by local organisations or individuals.

Seasonal refreshments and crafts will be available in the old Schoolroom throughout the Festival and we hope to see many visitors to help us raise money for the Fabric Fund of the church. There will be an opening concert on the Friday evening and more details, opening times, etc. will be displayed in local notice boards.

Many village organisations have agreed to take part, but we would also welcome participation from individuals.

We shall have a “Memories Tree” to celebrate church involvement, over the years, in village life. If you have a baptism, wedding or a loved one that you would like to be remembered on that tree there will be the opportunity to do so. We propose to have differently shaped tags that can have just a name, or names, or a small photograph displayed on them for a small donation.

If you would like further information please contact Sylvia Martin (813320) or the Rector (810151)

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of his Ordination, the Rector of Rolleston, Rev. Ian Whitehead, took a party of 45 parishioners to Coventry Cathedral (on 2 July 2005) where he was ordained in 1995. After a guided tour of the Cathedral, they took Holy Communion from the Archdeacon in the Chapel of Unity, followed by lunch in the Refectory.

They then went on to Bedworth, Ian's home parish, for a tour of the Miners' Memorial Park, the Almshouses and Visitor Centre. After a guided tour of the Parish Church, they had afternoon tea, at the end of which Ian's aunt and uncle presented him with an engraved silver plate produced to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral after the bombing.

The picture shows Ian and friends by Jacob Epstein's bronze sculpture of St Michael and the Devil.

Come 2nd July I will have been ordained for 10 years. On that Sunday, 10 years ago, the sun shone and crowds cheered and I had no idea what to expect in the future! Over the previous 3 years I had gone from Factory Engineer in Nuneaton to Student in Nottingham to Ordination at Coventry and everything was changing around us.

We began in the parish of Hillmorton in Rugby but after 18 months it was obvious that a decision needed to be made because I was certain that I couldn't stay there much longer as I was suffering a breakdown.

So for the second time in 2 years our family was up-heaved and we went to the parish of Whitnash in Leamington Spa, this time for nearly 3 years. This was a brilliant training parish and one that I am still fond of, although a recent visitor from St Margaret's certainly showed us how much has changed there in 5 years! One plus point was that for 10 months I got to run the parish on my own with the churchwardens and PCC during an inter-regnum.

Then, in 1999 we had the privilege to come to Rolleston & Anslow and we have never been happier or more settled.

Ten years of ordination seems a long time and in that time the Church of England has changed no end, so much so that the Church I was ordained into doesn't seem to exist any more. So many things have changed from the financial end, now that each parish has to fund its own minister and the pensions of the retired and now, more than ever, the breakdown of parishes and the sharing of churches between Vicars. There is also the long wait for new Clergy to be appointed, as can bee seen in our neighbouring parishes of Tutbury and Stretton and the pressure to become more a specialist clergyperson rather than someone who can work across the board. Maybe some of these things don't affect us so much here in our village, but the Church of England is changing and not everyone is comfortable with those changes.

Like my own change of 10 years ago, from Engineer to Clergyman, there are stresses and strains but I know from my own experience God can still be in those times of change and it is he who remains constant. Here's to the next 10 years with you!

If anyone would like to join us from St Mary's, on Saturday 2nd July, for a trip to Coventry Cathedral, the 'scene of the crime!', we are running a coach trip - so see the notices in church for further details.

1st Sunday	8.00am 9.30am 6.30pm	Holy Communion Family Service Evensong
2nd Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Holy Communion Evensong
3rd Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Morning Prayer Holy Communion
4th Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Holy Communion Evensong
5th Sunday	9.30am 6.30pm	Family Service Evensong

Mothers’ Union meets in the Old Grammar School 2.00pm, 1st Wednesday of the month. Leader Mrs Janet Neal, tel: 813054.

The AGM is on Monday 11th April at 7.30pm. All on the Church Electoral Roll can attend and vote.

It is said there are lies, damn lies and statistics! This week I received a breakdown of the census results for our village and they make interesting reading. Apparently 82.5% of you are Christian, 9.1% have No Religion, 0.5% of you are Muslim and 0.3% are Other Religions. Here in the Village the biggest age grouping is the 45 to 59 age group with 23.5% so I am nearly there in that! Under 16 year olds amount to 13.4% of the village. 64.3% of us are living together or married whilst 28.9% are single. 59.9% are employed, 22.5% are retired and 2.2% are unemployed. What does all this add up to? Not a lot unless the village uses these figures to look at ourselves and ask the question ‘where are we and where are we going.’

Linked with lies, damn lies and statistics there are rumours, lies and misinformation. The latest is that I am leaving and going back to Leamington Spa! Both are untrue – we have no plans to leave and certainly not to Royal Leamington Spa. Having lived there for nearly 4 years none of us would ever swap Rolleston for Leamington! What does that add up to? The fact that we are staying here for as long as I feel that I have God’s work to do here. There may be vacancies in Leamington, even vacancies as Bishop of Stafford and Archbishop of York but I am certainly not swapping Rolleston for any of those. Why should I take a backwards step!

There is still so much to want to see happen here in the Church and Village. The whole ACCESS works have taken a small step forward with permission given by the Lichfield Diocese to make the proposed changes. Planning Permission is currently going through. The next step for us will be to call a Public Meeting so that you all can have a say in what is proposed and finally the funding for the project that is estimated at somewhere near £200,000. Elsewhere, as a Church, we are still committed to looking into some sort of Youth Work in conjunction with the Parish Council and other groups for those 13.4% of the village. The Church remains your church, not just for the 82.5% but the 100% of the village who wish to use us here as a resource. God is here for you 100% how can his church be anything less?

The latest Confirmation Service at St Mary's Church, held on 6 February 2005, was taken by the Right Reverend David Bentley, Honorary Assistant Bishop of Lichfield, who was Bishop of Gloucester for many years. The service, introduced by the Rector, Rev. Ian Whitehead, was followed by Holy Communion, with a full choir and organ. Five people were confirmed: John Wedd, Stacey Chadwick, Valerie and Barry Bowden, and Julie Wilman. They were supported by family, friends and a large congregation.