This is the first magazine of 2017, so I would like to begin with wishing you all a Happy New Year.

We are at the beginning of the year, but already significant things have happened for the life of the Parish. The vacancies at Outwood and Wrenthorpe have given the opportunity to start a new way of working collaboratively across the parishes.

After prayer and consultation, this has resulted in me being licenced as Priest in charge of Outwood and Wrenthorpe. At the same time, two young Priests have been licenced into each Parish. Jonathan Bish into Outwood and Jo Kershaw into Wrenthorpe. They are a married couple so will be living in the Wrenthorpe vicarage.

We are in the process of thinking and praying how this will work out. I want to encourage a good relationship between the parishes. It is all too easy to live in next door parishes and yet know very little about what goes on there or the people who live and worship there.

Each parish has it’s own distinctive style and the plan is for that distinctiveness to be retained but for us to grow in understanding and valuing the differences. The Church of England has a rich tradition of diversity and we have an opportunity to experience something of that in our own communities.

I would like to encourage people to come along to events in each parish, so we are inviting people from Outwood and Wrenthorpe to come to our Ceilidh on 11th March at St Peter’s school. There is a Youth Event at Wakefield Cathedral in the evening of 24th February and I am hoping that young people from each parish will come to that. Wrenthorpe are having a ‘Sing-along to Frozen’, with optional fancy dress, on 11th February

We are planning to use the same material for our Lent groups in each parish, and to encourage some mixing from the congregations.

There are some important things to agree and decide e.g. what do we call the new grouping? I look forward to a year developing this new relationship; may God bless it.

Rev Bill Henderson