Rev Mark Houston

Dear friends. I hope you have all enjoyed some rest over July & August.  I feel as if I had managed some times of relaxation & refreshment ... and then we brought a new puppy into the house!!!  Eddie is a 3 month old Border Collie who, along with 'big brother' 7 year old Kirkbie is bringing much excitement to the vicarage. On 1st September both churches (St Mary's in Allithwaite & St John the Baptist in Flookburgh) merge to become one group, or benefice to use the legal term.  I will be vicar of both parishes.  We will, of course, seek to continue the work of sharing the Good News story of Jesus with our other Anglican friends as well as our ecumenical partners on the Cartmel Peninsula.  But, I would say our top priority is to be God's 'hands & feet' in our immediate, local community.  Let us, by the way we live our lives, encourage the world weary to be intrigued by whatever it is that makes us different to them.  As our church communi...

Dear friends of both St Marys and St Johns. I've been in post since early March.  There has been quite a lot of 'getting stuck in' as well as a fair bit of sitting back & watching what is already going on.  As a family we have obviously been hit with the death of my father at the end of May (& if I have said to you before - A huge thank you for your cards, kind words, prayers etc, they have meant a lot). So, what is this update?  There is already quite a lot of information being circulated and I am not trying to compete with any of that.  I will be trying not to duplicate information (although inevitably that will happen).  In my last job I would usually send out something, probably on average once a month, and it usually came to me at a random period in the week so would get emailed out as and when.  Paper copies would be prepared for anyone who doesn't use the Internet, which could be collected from church.  I am, however, conscious of inform...