Author: Sue

We were delighted to officially welcome Revd Olly Mears last evening, 4th December, when he was licensed by the Bishop of Exeter to serve as Priest in Charge at St Disen’s here in Bradninch and also as Pioneer Minister for St Andrew’s in Cullompton.  Representatives from the parishes, neighbouring churches and the County Council added their words of welcome.  We look forward to working with Olly as we put into action words from the Bishop’s address to grow our church.

Revd. Olly Mears

We also take this opportunity to thank the PCC and particularly the Churchwardens for all their hard work in keeping the life of the church going during the 18 month vacancy.

St Disen’s celebrated the end of the church’s year and started looking forward to Advent and Christmas with a lovely three course lunch – a trio of starters, roast beef and a scrumptious selection of deserts.

As well as welcoming friends and family, we were also delighted that Revd. Olly and his family were able to join us.  Our thanks go to all who helped prepare the meal and made the tables look so lovely.

The church was beautifully decorated for Harvest Sunday when St Disens celebrated the harvest with a special service including well-known harvest hymns such as ‘Come Ye Thankful People Come’ followed by a lovely three course lunch.

With food from around the world available to us today at the click of a button it is all too easy to forget the importance of the harvest.  But many people are struggling to get enough food and our world faces a variety of environmental problems that threaten our future food supply.  Our ‘harvest homily’ exhorted us, therefore, to take our thanksgiving for harvests safely gathered in to a new concern for the whole world.

Our thanks go to all who decorated the church, cooked and served the lunch, and cleared away afterwards!

The Bishop of Crediton, Rector of Cullompton and Parish representatives are delighted to announce that an offer of the three year post of Interim Pioneer Minister for Cullompton and Priest in Charge of Bradninch has been made to Revd Oliver Mears, who has accepted.

We hope that Revd Mears, who is currently an Associate Minister in Rugby, will be joining us in December.  We look forward to welcoming him and his family to Bradninch.

We were pleased to welcome Cory together with his family and friends to St Disens on 7th May when he was baptised by Revd Keith Gale.

Bradninch folk were busy during February knitting hundreds of teddy bears for Bradninch Support for Refugees.  The teddy bears along with all the other goods and items donated will go to RAFT (Refugee Aid From Taunton) and thence direct to refugees in Syria, Greece and other countries.  The teddies will be put into the pockets of children’s clothes.   More collections of items for refugees will be held in St Disen’s Hall in April.

Congratulations to mum Cindy and son Arthur who were both baptised in St Disen’s Church during our morning service on Sunday 19th February.

Brothers, Oscar and Noah were baptised by Revd Christopher Rowley during our communion service on Sunday 15th January.  It was a lovely occasion and we were pleased to welcome the two boys and all their family and friends to St Disens.

Congratulations to Justine and Christopher who celebrated 21 years of marriage by coming together with family and friends at St Disen’s Church on 10th December to renew their marriage vows.

There is a lovely article on Marion Brown and the Bradninch Festival Choir in December’s issue of The Countryman.  Marion and the choir will be performing in St Disen’s Church at the Christmas Concert on Saturday 17th December at 6.00pm.

The choir at a pre-concert rehearsal.