Letter from your Priest-in-Charge
February 2012
Do you
imagine St Peter’s church building as an
ancient monument or as a home? Well, in view of its age it’s
something of both.
It is a lovely old building and, thanks to the large windows,
it’s spacious and
light. It has a long, interesting history. But it’s also home to
the
worshipping community. And that’s not only the people who attend
Sunday
services week by week, but also all the people who come for baptisms,
weddings,
funerals and other occasions.
The church
building is sometimes used for social
gatherings – for concerts or drama. In August this year the
church will be
welcoming visitors to the biennial Music and Flower Festival. This year
there
will be even more live music during the weekend of the Festival.
I’m looking
forward to seeing the church decked with flowers, beautifully arranged
to
interpret the theme, “Love Divine”, smelling divine, with
musicians adding to
the beauty of the occasion and the church full of visitors enjoying it
all!
St
Peter’s has been a spiritual home to people in
Roydon for over 800 years and, like our homes, the decoration,
furniture and
layout has changed over the years. So
too has the way the building is used. Our style of worship now is very
different from that of our ancestors. We would like to use the space
more flexibly
so that we are able to offer new activities and involve the
congregation more
effectively in worship.
Once the
refurbishment of the Colte Chapel was
completed, the main part of the church building looked rather
unattractive in
places. There is a clutter of ill-matching furniture and the floor
needs
attention.
It
doesn’t serve worshippers effectively, as anyone
who has sat behind one of the pillars will know only too well! Our
wonderful
ancient font is hidden in a corner beyond the choir stalls, and guests
at
baptisms can’t easily see or hear what is going on at the most
important
moments of the service. The Church is not the building, but the people
who
gather there. If we forget that, the church building can become a
museum.
The newly
refurbished Colte Chapel has provided us
with a peaceful, sacred space for worship when we have
‘small’ services. We
would like to transform the main body of the church to make it equally
inspiring for larger services and for other occasions when the church
building is
used as a gathering place for the community.
Our
architect tells us that the brown, vinyl floor
surface in areas where the pews used to stand is unhealthy because it
does not
allow the building to breathe. The pews have passed their
‘use-by’ date. Some are
unstable and they are all uncomfortable, as you will know if
you’ve ever sat
through one of my longer sermons!
What we
are considering for the church building is a
refurbishment of the floor: removing all the brown vinyl surfaces and
replacing
them with quarry tiles to blend with the existing black and red
Victorian
tiles. A pattern of border tiles, where ‘old’ meets
‘new’, would retain the
story of the floor from the mid-19th century when pews were
first
installed.
Then we
hope to replace the pews with chairs. Chairs
offer the comfort people expect today, and would give us the
flexibility to
arrange them appropriately for whatever is taking place. They would be
stackable so that the floor may be cleared. This would open up all
sorts of
possibilities for use of the building – especially on weekdays.
What we
are hoping to achieve is a building that is
inspirational for worship and for community use, and adapted to the
needs of
the 21st century. Some are bound to ask, “Do you
intend to turn the
church round again?” Very firmly, “No”.
Please let
me know what you think about these
suggestions. May God be with you through the wintry month of February.