News
CURRENT NEWS ITEMS
OUR NEW TEAM VICAR (Posted 15th May 2025)
Our new team vicar, the Rev Alex Holmes, was licensed in a very happy service in St Luke’s, Buckfastleigh, on May 6th. Alex will serve alongside our Team Rector, Gina Radford, with a special focus initially on ministry in Buckfastleigh and Dean Prior.
Alex will live in Buckfastleigh and will serve in the Dart & Avon Team on a half-time basis. In the other half of her time, Alex plans to continue her work towards a PhD in theology at the University of Exeter. The focus of her research is the fourth mark of mission as received in the churches of the Anglican Communion: transforming unjust structures of society, challenging violence of every kind, and pursuing peace and reconciliation.
THE DEBATE ON SEXUALITY (Latest update 29th July 2025)
The Church of England bishops issued proposals for allowing prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and blessing, to take place within normal church services, for same-sex couples in partnerships and marriages, but not allowing churches to hold stand-alone blessing services or to conduct same-sex marriages. These proposals were approved by General Synod in February 2023. Since then the debate has slowly ground its way forward. Further work is to be done before the next General Synod debate in February 2026.
In the meantime as churches we are committed to welcoming all, and many of us want to see change to a far more accepting position in the Church of England for gay people generally and for those in a same-sex partnership or marriage.
Our churches participated in the Church of England’s Living in Love and Faith process looking at issues of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage. We used the 5 session course, with 30+ people from across the mission community participating in very positive learning and discussion.
Perhaps the weakest part of the course was the biblical material, but two series of Bible studies by George Day are relevant to some of the issues raised in this LLF process and in the on-going debate. They can be found on the St Luke’s website at https://stlukeschurchbuckfastleigh.org.uk/media/
ARCHIVED NEWS ITEMS
Gina Radford instituted as Team Rector (Posted 5th November 2023)
Gina Radford was instituted as Team Rector in a warm and inspiring service at St Luke’s Church, Buckfastleigh, on 5th November. She is already of course well-known to us in her role as team vicar, and is thoroughly immersed in the work of all our churches. She has in effect been acting team rector for the last two years, but has now officially stepped into that role. She will continue living in South Brent, and will still serve on a half-time basis.
The Dart and Avon Mission Community
This started officially on November 1st 2018, during the incumbency of the Rev Tom Benson, and was inaugurated at a service of Holy Communion on Sunday November 18th 2018 in St Petroc’s Church, South Brent.
The service was followed by a bring-and-share lunch, with people from the different churches mingling together.
