Friday 27th June  11.35am 

  w/c Sunday June 29^th 2025

Dear Friends,

Our service this Sunday 29^th is a United Mission Community Service at 10am at Val’s field at Littlehempston. Please can you bring a chair, and any donations of cakes would be gratefully received.
There are no toilets, but you can pop into the church if needed.
Further details are in the notices section of the Newsletter.
Please could you consider car sharing if possible. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Thought for the week, Luke 9 v51-end

In this week’s Gospel reading Jesus is heading resolutely towards Jerusalem – He is on a journey. Journeying is one of the main ways Luke unpacks what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
On the way Jesus encounters three people.
The first person He encounters sems very willing to follow Jesus.
Yet in His response Jesus highlights to cost and inconvenience of being a disciple – “foxes have holes —but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Being a disciple involves being unsettled and possibly experiencing rejection.
Later Jesus says that to inherit eternal life we must love God and also our neighbour.
While we may be prepared to love God, loving others isn’t always so easy.
It requires time and effort; it can be inconvenient and costly.

Then Jesus meets a second person and invites him to “follow me.” But the person points out that he has commitments that will affect his ability to follow – in this case burying his parents.
There was no Mosaic law that commanded someone to be responsible for burying their parents – its was a social expectation.
Not only is being a disciple inconvenient and costly, but it mat require us to disregard what others expect of us, what we see as our social commitments.
It is hard to lay down some of the traditions and conventions that we hold dear to and shape our lives in order to follow Jesus.

Jesus’ third encounter says he will follow Jesus as long as he can go back and say goodbye to his family. Jesus replies “no one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” When you plough, just as when you drive a car, you need to keep your eyes fixed ahead to avoid going off course.
Looking back risks regret, fosters nostalgia and living in retrospect.
Following Jesus invites us to look forward, to keep our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, and the path He asks us to travel.

Discipleship can be costly and inconvenient. It may entail letting go of things that distract us.

Interestingly we don’t know how these three people responded.
The important question is how we respond.
The words of the hymn originally entitled “The heavenly vision” encourages us to:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.

Notices and Diary

• June 29^th United Mission Community service at 10am in “Val’s field” at Littlehempston.

Grid reference SX 823634, postcode use TQ9 6LX & then just keep driving up the hill. What3Words reference is affirming.garden.dilute

 Please bring a chair; cold drinks and cake afterwards. Directions – from Totnes take the A381 towards Newton Abbot. After about 2 miles take a left turn signed Littlehempston. (If you have got to the Pig and Whistle pub you have gone too far). Drive down towards the village and turn right at Ash Tree Cross (no ash tree any more, but tall willows close by) Don’t go under the railway line. Follow the hill up and up and up some more. At the top where it starts to drops down to the right take the un-surfaced lane straight ahead. My field is the second gate on the left and will have a sign. Please park by the fir hedge, anyone less able can drive around to the right of the barn and park nearer the field. What3Words reference is affirming.garden.dilute

• Sunday 6^th July installation of the Venerable Moira Astin, the new Bishop of Crediton, at Exeter Cathedral at 4pm. All welcome

Wed 2nd July                      St Petroc’s Morning Prayer at 8.30am

                                                      Thought for the week at 10am by zoom and telephone

                                                      St Petroc’s funeral at 11am (Peter Moore)

Fri 4^th July                              Morning Prayer at 9am by zoom and telephone

 Know you are in my heart and in my prayers.
Rev Gina