‘A time to thank God’: church celebrates 150th anniversary
THE number 150 has been on everyone’s minds in Sheet parish, Petersfield, this year. The church of St Mary Magdalen opened in 1868 and the community has been celebrating.
In July, the open-air Festival Service saw over 160 people gather on the village green. There was a BBQ lunch in the sunshine and a village street party. The speaker was Rev Peter Ingram, first Vicar of Sheet - which only became an independent parish in 1990. It was observed that there can’t be many 150-year-old churches hearing their first vicar preach! Then on St Mary Magdalen Day, the Bishop visited, sharing Communion and the celebratory pub lunch.
The anniversary services are not the whole story, however. At the beginning of the year, the church family was challenged to issue 150 personal invitations to church and to do 150 acts of kindness. At the time of writing, every one of the 150 pebbles measuring invites has been transferred to the glass jar in church, and there are still 80 days left to complete the kindness challenge.
The third challenge was to write about ‘Me & My Faith’ in just 150 words. The church is looking forward to publishing the results.
And that won’t be the only souvenir. A week-long exhibition of the church’s history attracted around 400 visits, including dozens from local children. The display was the culmination of many months of research and now all that wonderful material is ready to be published as a 64-page booklet.
The celebrations also aim to raise funds for the ageing organ.
As vicar Richard Saunders says, ‘The 150th has been a time to thank God for the past, enjoy his presence with us now and look to the future with confidence and faith.’