Life at St Paternus

LIFE AT ST PATERNUS

Welcome to our church of St Paternus, in the Parish of North Petherwin, within the Anglican Diocese of Truro and the county of Cornwall, England. We are a friendly community and welcome all that wish to worship with us in our Church.
For services and events please go to the dedicated page for these and for news, notices and other activities please go to the `News and Notices`page.

Please read on.......

We are grateful to Helen and Ray who, as Churchwardens, provided the following report.

It seems quite a while since we said farewell to Geoffrey, our long standing vicar, and his wife Rosemary on a reasonably sunny Autumn morning back in 2020. Life at church is simply not the same and change is not always easy to embrace. However, we are glad to have a strong foundation to work from, thanks to Geoffrey’s legacy. Geoffrey' replacement, the Rev'd Alison Hardy and her assistant, the Rev'd Nicki Farr, have three additional parishes and are also working within the Launceston churches.

Other changes have been happening as well. After many years as Tower Captain, Peter Luscombe has stepped down. Peter has done sterling work for the church over many years, fulfilling several roles such as Churchwarden and Treasurer. Latterly, as Tower Captain, he was responsible for encouraging several new ringers, and with Norma’s unfailing support, they enabled regular ringing to take place most Sundays. Norma, likewise, has handed over the bulk of the work she did helping to produce ‘The Parish Magazine for Egloskerry with Tresmere, North Petherwin, Tremaine and Trewen.’ It has been a job that Norma has done so diligently and effectively, that most of us hardly knew what work was involved - the editing and production appeared seamless. Thank you Peter and Norma for all you have done – it is very much appreciated.

We are delighted to welcome Bill Willis as our new Tower Captain. Bill rang the tenor bell for 75 times prior to the afternoon Remembrance Service on November 8th 2020!

Likewise we warmly welcome Pat Matthews and Adele Marsh to the Parish Magazine team – we are delighted the Parish Magazine has continued, and thank you both for taking this challenge on!

Our first service without Geoffrey was on the 4th October 2020 - we were delighted to welcome Reverends Alison Hardy and Nicki Farr. Nicki gave the address and focussed on:

Fruitful Living:

To live a fruitful life we must keep a soft heart. The apostle Paul was zealous for the law but his heart was hardened until he met with Jesus. He was then transformed by his experience. To live a fruitful life, we looked at the letters of the word HEART to go on a journey from hearing God through to transformation. (There is a more detailed explanation on the notice board in church)

Since then we have had several memorable services (Harvest, Sea Sunday, All Saints with Holy Communion for the first time in eight months, and of course Remembrance). Now we are in the second lockdown and once again the church is not able to hold services. Our next service will be Holy Communion at 9.30am on 6th December. Lockdown presents challenges for all us- whether we face difficult decisions how to support vulnerable family members, or not being able to see new grandchildren. We know that we have friends in the Parish, the Benefice, and the Deanery who have had life changing events happen, and at times it has felt difficult to reach out because of the lockdowns and shielding. However, prayer is so important and we can just pick up the phone or send a card, text/WhatsApp - all wonderful ways to tell people we are thinking of each other. We very much look forward to helping with, and hosting, the community project ‘The Festival of Angels.’ We have a few jobs to do to prepare the church, some of which can be done at home, so if you have an hour or so to spare and would like to help us, we can find some ‘Angel tasks’ for you to do to help us along the way.

On the other hand, if you are lonely or needing a visit or some help, please contact the priest or the Churchwardens of St Paternus: Ray 781407 and Helen 785329. Additionally, we now have a Telephone Helpline should you prefer not to receive a visit.