On Sunday 3 September at 10.00am we celebrate Baptism and all those who have been Baptised at St.Peter’s in recent years are welcome to come to share in this. After the service there’s a bit of  a party for the children complete with

a bouncy castle.

If your have a child who’s been Christened in the last few years do bring them along, you’ll be welcome and your children will be especially welcome

The annual Blessing of the Sea service on Brownsea Island takes place on Sunday 3 September and this year we’re delighted to welcome the Bishop of Sherborne, the Rt Revd Karen Gorham to Bless and Preach.This will be Bishop Karen’s first visit to St.Mary’s since her arrival as Bishop last year and its a great pleasure to welcome her. We also welcome the Mayor of Wareham, Cllr Malcolm Russell.

The new feature of our Blessing of the Sea event this year will be tea. Thanks are due to John Lewis Partnership and the management of the Castle hotel on Brownsea Island for laying on tea for us. It will be great to finish off together in this way

So, our ferry leaves Poole Quay at 2pm and we leave the island to return at 5pm. The ferry fare is £8 for adults and £5 for children. All are welcome to join us for this annual event with a difference.

On the feast day of St.Benedict (11 July), the father of western monasticism, we dedicated this splendid new white altar cloth. This generous gift was given in thanks giving for the lives of John Cornish and Olive Pimperton.

The new cloth is similar to the new green one with  a similar cross placed centrally and images of growth and refreshment emanating from it. Superimposed on this one is one of the church’s traditional symbols of resurrection; the lamb holding a flag with a cross upon it.

White is used in church for the great festivals of which the festival of the resurrection is pre-eminent. It’s also used for some Saints’ days, among then the Blessed Virgin Mary, St.Benedict and St. Osmund who we shall celebrate on Sunday 16 July.

An Ordination is always a great occasion. You get a real sense of the Church being gathered together from many places and across the ages. Ordination happens through the laying-on-of-hands with prayer, as it has done since the very earliest days of the Church and Bishops have been Ordaining Priests in in Salisbury Cathedral for centuries.

Following a few days in retreat Jonny Scott came to the Cathedral as a Deacon to be Ordained Priest along with nine others form across the Diocese and with the Cathedral full of people. It was a profound and moving time for everyone involved and the coach load who went from St.Peter’s were delighted to be there (in spite of the coach turning up an hour late to take us! Never mind, all was well in the end) We sung some great hymns and heard a marvellous and accessible Sermon from Canon Peter Kerr who had conducted the Ordinands’ retreat.

On Sunday 2 July Fr Jonny Presided at the Eucharist for the first time and we all shared great Patronal Festival lunch. All in all, a great weekend of celebration. totally adrenaline fuelled for Fr Jonny, but a weekend he wont forget.

And nor will the rest of us.

It was nice to see our old friend Brigid again!

It was VERY sunny – not complaining!

“The Life of Christ” is a remarkable and moving theatrical experience and a group from St.Peter’s had a taste of it on 24 June. It is, as it says on the tin, a play about the life of Christ, and it uses material from all four Gospels to make up what that life might have been. All the great moments are there: Annunciation, Christmas; Jesus lost in the Temple at 12 years old; his Baptism, and a range of moments from his ministry; among them some miracles and some parables and a good deal of teaching. The climax of course shows the Last supper, arrest, trials and crucifixion and some of the resurrection appearances.

What makes this drama so different is that it takes place outdoors on the beautiful Wintershall estate and the action moves around the estate, from wooded glade to riverside and from grassy bank to lakeside. The shepherds brought real lambs and Herod’s soldiers rode real horses and of course there was a very cute donkey. Sadly no real pigs for the Prodigal Son to feed and no real flying for the ascension, but this was a marvellous theatrical production which told the story with wit and accessibility. It was intensely moving and many an eye needed dabbing as the action unfolded. It didn’t shy away from tough moments and it had areal warmth in the relationships it showed. Visibility was sometimes compromised by the beautiful Wintershall trees but the brilliant sounds system ensured that every word of the dialogue was crystal clear for everyone. Great care was taken to transport those for whom walking was a challenge too.

The Wintershall ‘Life of Christ’ is an experience not to be missed and those of us from St.Peter’s who went have much to contemplate and much to learn from it. Thanks to Jan for getting us going with it.

Quite a crowd

Breaking bread

Calvary

…and a couple of Resurrection images

The 99th St.Peter’s Summer Fayre was a great day. Earlier fears about the weather proved unfounded as the sun shone and the people came out.

It was fantastic to hear the wide variety f different steel pan performances by children from Baden-Powell and St.Peter’s Church of England Junior School. Lucy Johnstone-Mcarthy is an inspirational music teacher who  who enables every child in the school to make music and about 300 of them performed at some point during the day.

There were lots of stalls selling books, white elephants, greeting cards and much else besides and we welcomed local charities including the RNLI, the Lions and the Dorset Wildlife Trust. This year an innovative development saw lots of exhibitors showing (and selling) local Dorset foods, among them our own local baker, Mark Bennett. All that plus some rides and scrumptious food added to the mix.

Thanks are due to the Mayor of Poole Cllr Lindsey Wilson for opening the Fayre for us and to Clive Deakin and Harry Jones a a great team for making it happen.

Check the date now

Saturday 9 June 2018

The Centenary St.Peter’s Summer Fayre 100 years old and counting!

Here are some pics

On Ascension Day 2017 we welcomed members of all the congregations in our East Poole cluster of Parishes: Transfiguration, Canford Cliffs; Holy Angels, Lilliput; St.Luke’s, Parkstone, and All Saints, Branksome as well as ourselves. It was a great celebration of one of the major moments of the Gospel story and one of the major doctrines of our faith.

But there’s more. Presiding and Preaching on Ascension Day was the Bishop of Sherborne, the Rt Revd Karen Gorham who spoke of Jesus’s departure as a moment of joy and celebration which led to his universal availability for us. she spoke of people seeing Him in all sorts of times and places.

We also welcomed Archbishop Moses deng Bol from Wau in South Sudan. Poole has a long standing link with the Diocese of Wau but reorganisation in South Sudan has seen that Diocese become a Province containing  a number of new smaller Dioceses and our old friend Bishop Moses is now ARCHbishop of the new province. It was good to see him again in what turned out to be a flying visit to Poole.

Here are some photos of an enjoyable evening

Our programme of Friday lunchtime recitals in association with Poole Arts Association begins again on 2 June. Come and enjoy a wide variety of styles of music and hear from some exciting and talented young performers.

Click here and follow the link for full details of this year’s Friday Lunchtime Recitals

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

So we proclaim the resurrection of our Lord and the eternal life that he promises us.

So we proclaim a new relationship with God and a new relationship with ourselves.

So we proclaim that there are always new possibilities even when all seems dead.

So we proclaim that we shall live in faithfulness to the God who can raise us up; forgive our sins, and promise a new beginning no matter what.

Our world can seem a dark place and as we look around us now we see wars and threats of wars; we seem famine and terror; we see people turning in on themselves and getting more and more protective and tribal and it’s tempting to despair; but there is also much to be thankful for, and just as the springtime shows signs of new growth all around us so we can see signs of hope all around us. Let us allow the new life of Easter to remind us to keep our eyes and our minds open for the signs of hope God gives us and let us trust in his promise.

Trusting in his promise allows us to be hopeful for the future and it inspires us to work for a world which is closer to the Kingdom described and lived by Jesus.

St. John called Jesus ‘The Word’

When they crucified him they were saying ‘We don’t want to hear that Word’

When God raised him from death he was restating The Word and saying ‘Yes, that really was what I meant.’

Click here for our Holy Week and Easter adresses