The first Sunday in October is designated Dedication Sunday for churches who don’t know their date of dedication or who, like us, have an “inconvenient” date for a patronal festival. When the Bishop of London in th early years of the 20th century declared our patron saint to be John the Evangelist he condemned us to 27th December for our “name day”. Who wants to celebrate a patronal festival two days after Christmas?! If he’d declared for John the Baptist we could have celebrated on 24th June. And if all that sounds a little arbitrary I should perhaps point out that the original document has ‘St John’ – and then a gap which no one ever filled in. Which St John did they mean? We’ll never know. I find that really frustrating. Someone must have made a note of it somewhere, jotted it down in a minute, a letter – well, if they did, it disappeared. So we celebrate on Dedication Sunday only a few days short of the actual date of the dedication of our new building on 7th October 1747.
It must have been such a relief! Can you imagine what the trustees went through during the two-year build? How the congregation coped having to worship somewhere else while their beloved (I imagine) St Mary’s Church was demolished to make way for something new – and not just new but so completely different from the medieval stone and clapboard building they were used to. Certainly it had become unsafe and they had no choice but even so!
And then there was the cost. How to raise enough money to pay for it all. They did it mainly by subscription and pew rents (paying to reserve the same seat for yourself and your family every week – the system lasted well into the 20th century). Money is always an issue in any church. Money and volunteers, as Father Stephen has said in his letter and as we’ll be hearing throughout this “Stewardship Month”. Opportunities to give and to do will be presented Sunday by Sunday.
So many things rely on voluntary effort put in by members of the congregation – sometimes very considerable effort. Further on in this issue Helen Evans writes about what goes on in the creche – a closed book to most of us who only see the children at the start of the service and then again when they return for their blessing, sometimes triumphantly waving (or wearing) the results of their activities. But we don’t see the stories, the music, the hymn singing, nor the preparation – now we can at least read about it and understand a little more. Thank you, Helen, for opening up a window on the youngest group in our church.
Although glorious church music was being written in the 18th century we don’t know that any of it was performed in our church. It didn’t even have an organ for a long time, the current one being built by Henry Willis in 1884, and one organist brought his own portable instrument – until he fell out with the management and removed himself and the organ from the premises. We do better now and, quite apart from our services week by week, this autumn we have Schubert and Britten on 17th October, John Rutter conducting his own Requiem at our ‘Come and Sing’ on 7th November and Handel’s Messiah on 29th November. All these feature members of our own choir.
2nd Wednesdays
This is a new concept in stewarding designed to fill some gaps in our rota. On the 2nd Wednesday of the month (because there’s a concert on the 1st and a literary hour on the 3rd) someone will be in the church between 1pm and 5pm with kettle, tea and coffee for you to join for all or part of the afternoon. We might knit or sew (some of the hassocks may be in need of repair); in November we’ll package up the Christmas cards ready for sale. We could have a craft activity if anyone has any ideas or make squares for blankets but nothing rushed, no pressure, this is designed to be a relaxed enjoyable afternoon, a chance to meet friends and make new ones. You don’t have to do anything – just come along for a chat. October 14th, November 11th – we won’t meet in December because there’s a school carol service but will start again in January.
And of course we could do some preparation for the Christmas Market! Saturday 21st November in the parish rooms and whether you’re a maker, a baker, a shopper or all three put the date in your diary now.
October
Judy East