Update on Sunday Worship

Sunday 22nd June 

First Sunday after Trinity

Saturday
1:00 pm Wedding at St Bartholomew's, Greens Norton

Sunday
9:15 am Holy Communion at St Lawrence, Towcester 
10:15 am Benefice Sunday Worship via Zoom
11:15 am Holy Communion (BCP) at St Bartholomew’s, Greens Norton
11:15 am Holy Communion at St Augustine's, Caldecote


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Our weekly news contains details of services for this and next weekend, as well as daily bible readings, prayer requests and notices for forthcoming events.  Copies are available in churches for collecting especially for those who do not have emails.

Looking ahead to events and services that are happening please do look at the Monthly Calendar June. Copies are available in churches for collecting especially for those who do not have emails. 

Dear friends,

This week I have asked Rev'd Nigel to share with you his reflection from a week long placement he undertook at Towcester Primary School before half term. 

As you will know there is so much going on over the next few weeks. Please do support this weekend Midsummer Music at venues all across Towcester - especially the Hymns and Pimm's Service on Sunday afternoon at 4pm.

This Thursday, Our Voice, the benefice children's choir, has the wonderful opportunity to rehearse and sing with the All Saints Northampton.  They will be singing the anthem Lead me Lord by Sebastian Wesley.  If you would like to come along and support them the service starts at 6pm.

Next Sunday (29th) it is the 5th Sunday of the month so there will be a Benefice Communion Service at Greens Norton 10:15am please do come along as we worship together.  Then, from 12:30pm till 4pm, will be the St Lawrence Fete a busy and filled afternoon of entertainment alongside the important element of raising funds for the church. 

The following Sunday (6th) July we have Rev'd Nigel's first communion at St Bartholomew's 3pm - please can you let the office know if you are attending we currently have 1 person on the list!!! We also need people to offer to bring savoury and sweet snacks for the tea afterwards.

That's it from me this week and now over to Nigel... 

with my prayers 

Revd Paula Challen 
Rector 

Seeing the World in a Playground

This past week, I’ve been working at Towcester Primary School, moving across year groups, observing, listening, and being present. It’s a place full of noise and laughter, squabbles and silence, chaos and clarity. As I walked among the children, I realised I was not just visiting a school, I was witnessing a miniature world unfold before my eyes.

In the playground, I saw something profound. I saw the full stretch of human experience played out in a fifteen minute burst between lessons. I saw the confident child surrounded by friends and the one who lingered on the edges. I saw bold declarations of friendship and quiet acts of cruelty. I saw kindness offered like a gift, and exclusion handed out like punishment. And in all of it, I saw myself.

I saw the boy I once was, the one shaped by struggle and hard lessons, by the need to survive. I saw the young man I became, learning to wear masks and play roles. And I saw the man I am now, ordained not just by a bishop’s hand, but by the grace of God and the test of life.

One thing became painfully clear to me as I watched and listened: we are all, in some way, victims of our circumstances. We are shaped, often unknowingly, by what we see, what we hear, by our peers, our families, and the voices that surround us. Sometimes what seems wrong to others isn’t rebellion, it’s just life. It’s the norm. These children, like all of us, don’t always know a different way until a habit takes hold. And by then, change becomes its own struggle.

What struck me most was how deeply I wanted to help. I wanted to lean in and tell these children what I’ve learned. I wanted to say, “Don’t make the mistakes I made. Let me save you some pain.” But I realised something humbling: wisdom cannot be handed down like homework. It must be discovered, often through wounds and wonder alike. The child who falls learns balance. The heart that breaks grows capacity for love.

And so I ask myself, how do we change the world if we cannot simply tell people how to change?

Maybe the answer lies not in telling but in being. In showing up as people who have been changed, people who carry scars with honesty and hope. Perhaps it is in being a steady presence, one that listens, holds space, and loves unconditionally, that we become part of a quiet revolution, a revolution of grace.

We may never fully know our impact. A kind word, a moment of understanding, a recognition of worth, these things may ripple out further than we’ll ever see. We plant seeds we may never live to harvest, but the planting matters.
 
I left the school each day both heartened and haunted, moved by the potential I saw and sobered by the pain some of these children already carry. But I also left with a renewed conviction: the work of love, of presence, of hope matters. We cannot force change, but we can foster it. We can be the good soil in which it grows.

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s everything.

I have spoken before about discipline through kindness and discipline through fear.  One way produces gratitude, the other produces more fear. My experience showed me that Towcester Primary is of the former. Like the sunflowers that we planted on Wednesday, this school is the fertile bed in which the seedlings will flourish through a daily soaking of kindness and a gospel attitude.
 
Revd Nigel

Forthcoming Events

Worship for this coming week