New Life
One thing I was adamant I would not be doing when I came here was managing decline. Christians are Resurrection people, and Christ’s rising from the dead shows that new life comes when people least expect it.
To that end, we have added new services on Sundays for the first time since the return after the pandemic. When I came here as Rector, I was lucky enough to inherit from my predecessors a commitment in the Wellsprings Benefice to one service every Sunday in every village, which is no longer the norm in many rural areas with villages of this size. We have now not only maintained this but added extra services.
Main features of the new pattern of services are:
- A Communion service every Sunday in the two largest villages, Potterne and Seend.
- Evensong every Sunday in one of the churches of the Benefice: rotating between Bulkington, Potterne, Poulshot, and Seend over the four Sundays of a month.
- An extra 8 o’clock Book of Common Prayer Communion service in Potterne, making two per month.
- Two extra services in Seend, giving us an 11 am service every Sunday in Holy Cross, as well as a monthly Evensong and a monthly 8 am Book of Common Prayer Communion. These are a ‘Café Church’-style service on the second Sunday of the month, and a ‘High Mass’-style service on the fourth Sunday: this is from the Book of Common Prayer and is sung to the classic Merbecke-setting.
We seek to accommodate the full-spectrum of Christian traditions in our villages—and I am always open to hearing suggestions of new services that people want to try. I am also very keen to have more people trained as Lay Worship Leaders, enabling them to lead Morning Prayer, Evensong, and praise- and Café-style churches.
With thanks for all that you do to make the Gospel live in our villages,
The Rev’d Gerry Lynch