St Peter & St Paul's Church

Parts of our village church, the church of St Peter and St Paul, date from the thirteenth century and the church contain the tombs of three knights.

Our Rector is The Reverend Canon Dr Ian Tomlinson
The Rectory,
Ragged Appleshaw,
Andover
SP11 9HX
Telephone: 772414

Our Rector writes:

RETIRED CLERGY often say that when they have left all the administration and other functions of being a vicar behind, they can then get on with their primary priestly tasks of prayer and pastoral work. For parsons of my age, and length of service, such remarks are a warning. They tell me to prioritize my personal values and professional practices now. And that is just what I have decided to do, at the end of a season of excellent Annual Church Meetings and energetic initiatives shared with me by individual parishioners during the first quarter of this year, who, I am sure represent others in their enthusiasm.

So how can I turn duty and task into joy and achievement? I once heard it said that all church meetings should be as joyful as any Eucharist – that lovely Greek word at the heart of Christian worship – thanksgiving. Over bread and wine offered and shared, the new life of Easter is celebrated and participants are thereby transformed through Holy Communion. So nothing in life is now to be seen as mundane, but rather as an opportunity for renewal. My present studies inform me that, like a sailor tacking against a head wind, it is possible to find a way through all the demands and necessities of living, by taking up a variety of roles and positions suitable to the tasks in hand, in the range of situations that I find myself in as a parish priest, for example.

One such stance is that of refl ecting on the story of Jesus, both the one that I find in the Gospels, as well as the one that is rehearsed whenever the Church meets to praise and to pray, to plan and to act, to contemplate and to serve – for both versions are consistent and congruent with being fully alive in God’s world. Or at least they ought to be, and it is precisely that sort of challenge that inspires me to strive that they might be, in my own experience and when working with others.

Ian Tomlinson