Photo above by Sue Burroughs

Photos by Gill Webb

Experience Harvest (and Experience Christmas?)

On the 23rd & 24th September the Church was closed to the public as we were hosting "Experience Harvest" for the children at Wool School. This is a fun, interactive experience that encouraged the children (and the rest of us on the succeeding days) to think about giving thanks to God for the harvests from the Garden, the Ocean, the Flock, the Grain and the Earth.

We are hoping to host "Experience Christmas" soon - details to come if so.

Recruitment for the Benefice House for Duty post (based in the Lulworths)

West Purbeck Benefice has appointed the Rev. David Chillman as the new Associate Priest to the Lulworths parishes. David is an experienced priest who has been both as an Anglican incumbent and a regional dean in British Columbia, Canada. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1995 and served in parishes in Hampshire, West Yorkshire and Surrey before he and his wife, Jude, emigrated to Vancouver Island in 2014.

Further details in due course. We look forward to welcoming David to our benefice.

Revd David Chillman’s licensing is due to take place at 7pm on 2nd February 2022.

When is Holy Rood Church open for private prayer?

Holy Rood Church, Wool is now open for private prayer daily from 10am until 4pm.

Please observe Covid precautions and please use safely. In particular:

    Please use antibacterial hand gel where provided as you go into the church and again when you leave

    Do sit at least 2 meters away from anybody else in the church at the same time.

    Face coverings are encouraged but are no longer a legal requirement.

Light Party on 31st October 2021 4-6pm

Harvest: A Festival of Flowers and Crafts in the Church

9th-10th October

Thank you to Sue Burroughs and Gill Webb for the photos

Experience Harvest

On the 23rd & 24th September the Church was closed to the public as we were hosting "Experience Harvest" for the children at Wool School. This is a fun, interactive experience that encourages the children to think about giving thanks to God for the harvests from the Garden, the Ocean, the Flock, the Grain and the Earth.

There were six beautiful stations to visit and an activity to engage with as well as discussions about Patience, Peace, Humility, Generosity, Joy and Faithfulness. These are the Fruit of the Spirit that God helps us to develop.

The Church was open to visit on the 22nd and 25th September afternoons and we will incorporate this into our special Harvest Festival Communion on Sunday 26th.

Within this interactive way of exploring the rich harvest of land and the spiritual harvest of life, stations displayed the following topics:

The Six Stations

1. Harvest of the garden – Patience

Harvest of the Garden was about learning the importance of patience.  Seeds have to be sown, and crops must be harvested, at just the right time.  We need to wait and be patient both in the garden, the fields, and in our questions to God and our dealings with each other.

2. Harvest of the ocean – Peace

Fishermen and women may need to have courage to face some frightening weather conditions out at sea as they gather the harvest for us from the oceans.

At the Harvest of the Ocean station the message is about peace. Jesus calmed a storm for his disciples, who were struggling to save the boat in a storm (Matthew 8:23-27). He said that they should have trusted him and not been so afraid.

We may not be in a boat catching fish but we may face difficult times in our lives. Like the disciples, we can ask Jesus to calm our storms. With him on board, we aren’t alone.

3. Harvest of the flock – Humility

Living here in Dorset, there are many opportunities to see the harvests that come from sheep farming. Meat, milk, and cheese have all been 'harvested' locally at one time and another, but of course we mostly think of wool. In this station there were clothes, knitted blankets, and a fleece to touch and feel with examples of the various stages of fleeces being converted to the knitting wool we are all familiar with.

A card loom allowed the children to see how this worked: each person needed to thread in their own piece of wool to make a woven square. It wouldn't have worked so well with just one thread! Then they talked about all working together to create things we can't do alone. But you need to be humble enough to realise, that usually, you need other people's help - and ask!

4. Harvest of the grain – Generosity

At Harvest of the Grain, the children enjoyed making and tasting some bread. (We couldn't leave the ingredients out at other times as they needed to be fresh!)

There were different seeds (used to make flour in different parts of the world) and the children learned about sharing the resources that are there and ways they might be shared fairly and generously.

5. Harvest of the earth – Joy

There were some tools used by potters who make things direct from the clay of the earth and also some clay so the children could each make a small thumb pot to take home and give to someone special.

In this way they learnt about the joy of both giving and of seeing the joy of receiving.

6. Harvest Thanksgiving – Faithfulness

The final station is the Jewish Prayer Tent, or sukkah. From each of the other stations, the small groups had a badge to add to the prayer tent.

We had a representation of the tent at the back of church.

We might all join together to give thanksgiving for the Harvest and remember that as we Christians celebrate Harvest, Jewish people celebrate their ancient festival of Sukkot, or Tabernacles. (This year, it's from 20th to 27th of September 2021.) Their week-long holiday commemorates the Jews' oppression in Egypt (recorded in the book of Exodus in the Bible), and their miraculous escape. In their time in the wilderness afterwards, they lived in tents ('tabernacles'), reminding us all of God’s provision for his people and of our dependence on Him. Many observant Jews will still build their family sukkah at this time.

In his book "Faith in the Future" (1995), the late Lord Jonathan Sacks, a former Chief Rabbi, said:

"Judaism declared Sukkot to be . . . the 'season of our rejoicing'. For the tabernacle in all its vulnerability symbolises faith: the faith of a people who set out long ago on a risk-laden journey across a desert of space and time with no more protection than the sheltering divine presence. Sitting in the sukkah underneath its canopy of leaves I often think of my ancestors and their wanderings across Europe in search of safety, and I begin to understand how faith was their only home. It was fragile, chillingly exposed to the storms of prejudice and hate. But it proved stronger than empires. Their faith survived" . . .

And he goes on to tell the following story:

****

"Twenty years ago I built my first sukkah. It was almost a catastrophe. It happened like this.

My wife and I were newly married and had just settled in to our new home. One morning, leaving the synagogue, a friend said, 'I'm just off to the local timber yard to buy wood to build a sukkah. Would you like to come with me?' Delightedly, I said yes. We didn't have a car, and I had been wondering how to buy and transport the materials to make a hut. The offer was providential. We went back to his home to get the list of things he required.

The contrast between us, though, could not have been greater. The friend — who was later to become one of Anglo-Jewry's great rabbis —was superbly organised. He had drawn up architectural plans for his temporary dwelling. It was to be a stand-alone structure with windows and a door, and it was going to require considerable skill in carpentry. He had made a long and precise list of the materials he needed, and was ready to begin. I was shame-faced. I had no idea how to make anything, let alone a sukkah. In school, I had always come bottom of the class in woodworking, and when it came to practicalities, changing a light-bulb was the limit of my ability. Humbled, I followed him into the car, hoping that inspiration would come.

In the timber yard, he rattled off his list of requirements and ended up with an impressive pile of beams and planks and hinges and screws. I settled for an impromptu list of a few sheets of hardboard, some wooden supports and a bag of nails. We went off to our respective homes and began hammering away. Before the festival began we visited each other to see the results of our efforts. His was a thing of beauty, a summer house in which anyone could have faced wandering in the wilderness with equanimity.

Ours was modest by any standards. I had joined the hardboard to the beams to make three square walls, nailed them to one another, and rested them against the back wall of the house. It looked like a large packing case. There was a hole for a door.

The festival arrived, and as luck would have it, there was a storm on the second night. The wind howled and blew itself into a gale. In synagogue the next morning my friend sat dejected. His sukkah had blown down. 'What', he asked, 'happened to yours?'

‘It's still standing’, I said.

He could hardly believe it. His elaborate tabernacle had been overturned while my makeshift hut survived. `I must come round and see it', he said. 'I don't understand how any sukkah could have stayed standing after that storm.'

So we went to my home together to investigate the mystery. We soon found the answer.

Unlike his, our sukkah did not stand alone. It had three walls, and for the fourth we had rested it against the house. To stop it collapsing, I had joined one corner to the wall of the house with a single nail, and it was that nail which had held firm during the gale.

My friend laughed and said: `Now I understand the meaning of Sukkot. You can plan and construct the most sophisticated building, but if it is not joined to something stable, one day the winds will come and blow it down. Alternatively, you can make an improvised shelter which looks frail and probably is. But if it is joined even at only one point to something immovable, it will hold fast in the worst storm.'

‘That nail in the corner’, he said, looking at it with a smile I have never forgotten, ‘is faith.’ "

The Sunday Tea event in September and October was very popular!

Thy Kingdom Come 13th - 23rd May 2021

Thy Kingdom Come is a prayer movement, covering all denominations, uniting the Christians in nearly 90% of countries worldwide from the Ascension to Pentecost.

The aim for Thy Kingdom Come 2021, which is taking place from 13-23 May is to be a blessing and to serve the church where the need is greatest; by providing free, spiritually nourishing resources for all, to deepen and refresh their faith.

Now in its sixth year, Thy Kingdom Come has grown from an initial call to prayer from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Anglican Communion, to a worldwide ecumenical prayer movement uniting over a million Christians from across 85 different denominations and traditions.

Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, says: "Thy Kingdom Come" is about prayer: praying for those on our hearts, praying for those who don’t know Jesus - to find him, praying for our church as we seek to be simpler, humbler and bolder.'

Various resources online -

Explore the Thy Kingdom Come 2021 website for more details on this year's plans.

And you could download the app from Google or Apple to your phone or mobile device: