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Every year at St Peter’s, we reach out for help from our community of Thurston for our patronal festival, the time when we celebrate St Peter’s Day in the church calendar.
We appeal for donations to help keep our church open. And we are so blessed by the financial support that our church receives, which has brought us through another year. To all of you that give so generously, thank you!
We are also blessed with a dedicated but small group of people who help keep the building in good order; keeping the church clean, maintaining the fabric of the building and looking at way in which we can provide for our community, as well as being a welcoming, peaceful place to come and enjoy the silence, to contemplate, take a break from a hectic life, walk around the churchyard and marvel at nature or visit a departed loved one.
Our church is a popular place to celebrate the birth of a child and to bring them to baptism, to enfold them in God’s dynamic, loving life of compassion and kindness.
People gather to witness the joining of two people in loving commitment to each other in marriages and blessings, to mark their love and begin a relationship with St Peter’s.
We come together in sorrow and grief as we say goodbye to our loved ones when they come to the end of their life with us here on Earth, commending them to God’s eternal embrace and passing them over to God’s loving care.
St Peter’s is a place that embraces the joys and sorrows, the happinesses and sufferings, the constancy and transformation of all of our lives. It is a place of togetherness and of solitude, of silence and song, of sacred stillness and the buzz of children and adults. It is YOUR Church! You are welcome there any time of the week, to any church service, event or in the stillness of the day. It is God’s invitation to YOU to be served by the building and the community that worships there (which we yearn to include YOU!).
For our church to maintain its historic building, run its services and employ its vicar costs many thousands of pounds every year. Even the equivalent of a pound a week from everyone in Thurston would ensure the security of this vital place of historic value, this sacred space, this home to a worshipping community, this hub of outreach, this place of remembrance, this holy place of worship and ancient centre of village life.
It would be an honest thing to say that, whilst we pray it should never come to pass, our church is in danger of a decline that may one day be irreversible. And whilst that is not yet the case, much like so much in life, we are only a few bad spells away from such a stark reality.
So thank you for considering donating to St Peter’s Church. We will always strive to serve you as best as we can to be the spiritual centre of Thurston.
Be assured of my prayers for everyone who lives and works in this village, faithfully, every day.
To donate please follow this link
God bless you all,
Fr Ben
