About five years ago the Diocese asked me take on a curate they were trying to place and a benefice of three churches who had been in interregnum for over three years, all on a temporary basis. In time the curate moved on as curates do and so we needed to find permanent pastoral oversight for the three churches and I am pleased to tell you that this process is drawing to it’s conclusion.
From 1st September St. John the Baptist, Stibbington and St. Remigius, Water Newton will be joining with St. Mary’s, Wansford, a move which makes perfect sense as it reunites the half of Stibbington to the east of the A1 with the other half to the west which has in recent years been reclassified as part of Wansford.
Elton is still in the final stages of arranging their future, but the options are looking interesting with, hopefully, a retired clergyperson having oversight for a couple of years before All Saints is joined to a new parish. Meanwhile I will return to my original churches of St. Andrew’s, Alwalton and St. Michael’s, Chesterton albeit as the Rector rather than Team Vicar and with a larger parish now incorporating Orton Wistow down to Ham Lane, the ever growing Orton Northgate and Orton Southgate with its own substantial business park.
This means that there will be changes in the website for instance (keep a look out for our new web address coming soon) and the possibility in some of St. Andrew’s and St. Michael’s service times changing. It is highly likely that Elton, Stibbington and Water Newton services will change, but I’m afraid that I have no information about that.
When we joined together we had no formal title and so we called ourselves the Alwalton and Elton Partnership, drawing our inspiration from Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he speaks of their “partnership in the gospel” (Philippians 1:5). Over the last four and half years I hope that we have striven together as partners to share the good news – the “gospel” – of Jesus and the amazing offer of an eternal restored relationship with God through Jesus’ death and resurrection. I also hope that although we will no longer be a formal group of churches we will still all hold to that shared goal as set before us by Jesus in the great commission recorded at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. So not an end to being partners in the Gospel, but September certainly marks an end to the formal Partnership between the five churches.
Over the summer we will still be joining together for our Sunday Services and these “Partnership Services” will begin at 10.30am each Sunday, details of where they will take place are on the website calendar. Then as we approach the end of the holidays, keep an eye out for what’s happening on September 5th – the first Sunday in the new pattern for us all.
