Thank you for all your prayers and messages of concern during this time when I have been absent from the parish.

In Bishop David’s letter on 12 March he expressed his concern that I needed some professional help. So I am very grateful for all those—whether fellow-clergy, medics or counsellors—who have indeed come alongside me since then and who have helped me understand the challenges I had been facing, and how these had negatively affected my words and actions in recent weeks. It has been a painful but healing time in which I’ve learnt much more about myself, but also about God—His holiness as well as His mercy.

In light of all this, however, I have realised and am in agreement with Bishop David’s judgment that—both for my own well-being and for the greater good of the parish—it is time for me to step aside from my role as Rector of the Itchen Valley.

I have loved being amongst you as Rector during these last three and a half years, grateful for our fellowship in the Lord, and believe that we have seen many good things happening under His gentle guidance. For all those good things, please ‘give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!’ (Psa. 136:1); but, where I have made mistakes, I ask for your kind forgiveness.

This sudden turn of events was decidedly not what I had in mind when I launched “Church Alive in ’25”; but, in this Easter season, I reaffirm my belief in a God who can bring good out of evil and who can take even our sins and weaknesses and work them into a yet more beautiful tapestry.

So I close with the words of a psalm that has meant so much to me throughout the last few difficult months and pray that these great realities of God’s mercy and compassion will be experienced by all of us in the Itchen Valley increasingly during 2025:

Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love. (Psalm 103:2-4, 8)

With love and prayers

Revd Peter

Revd Peter will continue to be on ‘sick leave’ for the next few weeks. If you wish to be in touch with him, please feel free to drop a note into the Rectory, but he’d prefer no emails or phone calls for the time being.

Peter is likely to be back in circulation more visibly during the middle two weeks of May, during which time there will be some appropriate farewell events/ services. It is currently envisaged that Peter will lead a final Communion service on Sunday 25 May.  More details to follow.