Church Matters – Sunday 25 January

Sunday 25 January

8.30am Holy Communion – St John’s, Itchen Abbas

10am All Age Worship – St John’s, Itchen Abbas

6pm Evensong – St Swithun’s, Martyr Worthy

Exciting news – introducing our new Rector

We hope you have by now heard the very exciting news that, with all the necessary approvals in hand, Revd David Cooke has been appointed as the new Rector of the Itchen Valley Parish.

David will join us this summer after fourteen years as Vicar of Holy Trinity Barnes, in London. Before this he served as Associate Vicar at Holy Trinity Richmond, where he had previously completed his curacy. He trained for ministry at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, following a year as Pastoral Assistant at St Barnabas, Kensington. Prior to ordination, he spent several years working in marketing for Gallaher Tobacco.

David is married to Rachel and they have two sons.

David has sent the following message to all of us: “As a family, we are delighted to be joining in with everything God is already doing across the Itchen Valley and its community. We feel called to love and serve you and are excited about the journey ahead.

I’m especially looking forward to getting to know each of you — hearing your stories, sharing life together, and yes, pulling on a pair of wellies and walking alongside you as we grow in friendship and faith over the months and years to come.”

I would like to thank everyone involved in the process to choose our new Rector, in particular Beccy Clark, Mary Hogg, Lavinia Owen and Judy Bishop. Beccy and Mary ensured that our Parish Profile was a compelling document and one that properly conveyed our strengths, Lavinia joined Beccy in warmly welcoming both of our strong candidates for the role and their spouses when they toured the Parish as part of the interview process in December, and Judy put her great experience and excellent judgment to very good use in joining me as one of the Parish’s two representatives on the selection panel.

We have also much appreciated the outstanding support received from the Diocese during our current vacancy and throughout the process leading to David’s appointment.

We look forward to welcoming David, Rachel and their boys to the Itchen Valley and to our Parish community in due course and to continuing to flourish spiritually with David as our leader. Details of David’s Licensing Service in the summer will be provided once arrangements are finalised.

John Barber