Rector’s News December 2023
The Revd Robert Gordon
I write with deep sadness as we mourn the sudden death of our friend and colleague The Revd Robert Gordon.
Robert’s ministry was very much valued across the Exeter Archdeaconry and the wider Diocese. He was ordained in 1989 and served his whole ministry in this Diocese (except for his curacy in Lichfield Diocese). Robert’s parish ministry saw him serving in Bideford, Feniton, St Peter’s, Tiverton for sixteen years and mostly recently amongst us here in the North Creedy West Mission Community which encompasses the parishes of Bow, Morchard Bishop and Lapford amongst others.
Robert was a wonderfully wise and compassionate colleague who embodied prayerfulness and humility.
For some of us the pain and sorrow of Robert’s untimely death will be keenly felt, and feelings and emotions will be raw. Please continue to keep Robert’s wife Steph, and their family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.
Mission Community Health Check
Thank you to all of you who completed the Mission Community Health Check. The results were fed back to us, and further details appear under the Church Mission Group article. As we move forward in Mission, everything we do needs to be supported by prayer and I have proposed that we start a prayer group. Details of this will appear in the weekly pew sheet, but I do urge to prayerfully consider becoming a party of this group.
I hope too that we can start some homegroups where we can deepen our knowledge and understanding of the Bible and what it means for us today. I hope too that these groups will provide safe spaces in which we can ask some of the questions we have always wanted to ask but were too nervous to do so. And… the important thing about homegroups is that we can enjoy one another’s company.
Advent
We should try to prepare for Christmas through prayer and the season of Advent gives us a focus for our prayers.
However we prepare, may Advent be a time of hope and a time of watching and waiting so that we may be ready to greet the Christ child once again this Christmas. And in those beautiful words of Christina Rossetti from the Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter, we could ask ourselves: What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
As we begin a new year in the life of the Church, on Advent Sunday, may God's love surround us and may His blessing be upon us.
Your friend and Rector
Matthew Tregenza