Church letter

May 2025

Click for the church letter from April 2025

Even the quiet months seem to end up busy.

As you will have seen from my piece last month, April and Holy Week and Easter were all pretty full on. As I sat down to write this month’s letter, I wondered what I was going to write about; I started to make a list of things happening from the end of April and through May; then, all of a sudden, things seemed busy once again!

On Sunday 27 April at 5pm, we will be holding a Choral Evensong service celebrating our patron saint, St George, for the first time in many years, giving thanks for the past, present and future of our parish church. This will be followed by a social time at the back of church with refreshments, nibbles, wine, tea and coffee. There will be an opportunity to learn more about the project for St George’s Church: ‘Restore, Renew, and Rejoice!’ If you are interested in your parish church, please do come along to the service and the social.

Then we have two annual parish meetings and annual parochial church meetings (APCMs) taking place – one in each parish. (St George’s APCM is on 12 May.) Again, if you are interested in what has happened, and what is going to happen in your parish church, you really need to come along and be a part of it. (There is also the annual meeting of the Friends of St George’s Church on 28 April.)

We have two Bank Holidays coming up, which are a blessing – they give us a break from work – but they also take two working days out of the month, which, ironically, makes everything feel even busier. And we have two concerts in the benefice this month, both at St Nicholas Church, Sandhurst. On Saturday 3 May, the Invicta Wind Orchestra presents a concert of ‘Music for VE80’ – commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day with film music and popular songs of the time; and on Friday 30 May there is a concert of Nordic choral sounds.

Also in May we have a Pilgrimage Walk, heading off from St Nicholas Church, on the morning of Saturday 17, and a ‘rogation service’ in both parish churches on Sunday 25 (think ‘harvest’, but a service of blessing for the coming year’s harvest rather than a service of thanks for the harvest!).

On 29 May we have a service to mark Ascension Day (Jesus’s leaving the earth and ascending to heaven) and then into June we have: Teas on the Churchyard at St Nicholas on Sunday 1; Pentecost on Sunday 8; the St George’s/Benenden Fete on Saturday 14; a Sandhurst Celebrates event on Saturday 21; and Revd Vicki Young’s ordination service as a priest on Saturday 28.

Why was I concerned about what I was going to write about in a quieter month?

As I said last month, your parish church has been an important and central part of village life down through the centuries. Let’s all ensure that continues. Please come along and get involved.

Revd David Commander, Rector and Area Dean