Dear Friends,
On Friday of last week, the Bishop of Lincoln, The Right Revd Christopher Lowson, announced his formal retirement from his office with effect from 31st December this year.
Bishop Christopher’s letter has been circulated widely and indicates he will from October, be on study leave allowing him to reflect on his time as our diocesan bishop.
He took up office on the 19th September 2011, at a time when many of us feel we had lost our way. His firm hand at the tiller during the first few years has paved the way for the structural reorganisation that we are now preparing to face. I am hoping that Bishop Christopher will be able to visit the deanery during the next few months to allow us to say a thankyou and farewell.
In front of us now, we have many new and I would say exciting challenges to look forward to, as we start to reorganise and become a church able to grow and be sustainable for the future.
May I ask that you keep the diocese and +Christopher & Susan Lowson in your prayers at this time.
Every blessing
Fr Chris
Our Prayer for the Week
The Walesby Group, set into the north western edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, consists of 10 parishes, 10 worshipping communities and 11 church buildings. With a population of around 2100 we are a benefice of very small communities, living in the vast open spaces of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. As worshipping communities we aim to grow ourselves in our faith and discipleship, support and engage with our local communities and bring new people to Christ.
We are blessed with beautiful buildings and faithful commitment from our congregations. As the group continues to integrate together, we are being enabled to offer a variety of worship and outreach styles. Lay ministry and leadership is key to all we offer, and encouraged as we endeavour to open the Kingdom and its values to all.
The Christian faith is focused on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. We also believe his death achieved something very special: the opportunity to reconnect with the God that we might believe in but might sometimes feel remote from.
We believe that Jesus was not just a human being but, in some way that we cannot fully understand, God as well. We believe in God the Father, the creator of the entire universe, and the Holy Spirit, who is the way we can experience Jesus today. Not three gods but one, who together are described as the ‘Trinity’ – a description not so much of philosophy but of the relationship at the heart of God.
In the most famous Christian prayer we pray ‘Our Father…’ This creator God wants a relationship with us, for us to be his children and to give us, as Jesus says, ‘life in all its fulness’ (John 10.10).
