Lewes Parish
- the way forward
Project Galilee
As a Church community we are exploring new ways of being Church as we respond to a shifting culture around us. We have formed our church community life around the themes of Bishop Richard Moth’s Diocesan plan: prayer, formation, mission and stewardship.
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​Former Mayfield Deanery: Burwash, Headfield, Mayfield, Watherst and our three churches are re-configured as one moderated parish and joined with the Lewes Deanery: Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath & Keymer, Lewes, Seaford & Peacehaven.
We are Parish of Lewes, creating one of four parish clusters. Our cluster Community of Crowborough consist with three churches: St. Mary Mother of Christ -Crowborough, St John Evangelist - Heron’s Ghyll and Our Lady Immaculate & St Philip Neri - Uckfield.
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It will explore a truly new way forward, as envisaged at the first Diocesan public meeting...
St Pancras School in Lewes closed at the end of the academic school year and with the implementation of the Diocesan Plan, The Word Who is Life, and the merging of our new parish communities into a Community of Communities it is an opportunity to explore a new way of being church as we respond to the shifting culture around us – both within the church and in society.
Galilee will utilise the existing school site, whilst fundraising for a complete refurbishment of the buildings and landscape, creating a contemporary space with modern facilities and connectivity.
The vision:
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​A place of encounter with Our Lord and with each other in all ‘the joy and hopes, sorrows and anguish’ of our lives – giving life to the ‘Truth, Beauty and Goodness’ of the Catholic Faith, and realising Catholic Social Teaching.
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Why Galilee?
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Galilee is the place of the Annunciation and of the ‘Hidden Years’ in which the Child Jesus was ‘schooled’ in obedience to God the Father and grew to maturity, being ‘filled with wisdom’. Galilee is the arena in which the first disciples encountered the Lord and heard the call to follow him. It is the scene of miracles, of the preaching of the Word of God of outreach to the marginalised and the dispossessed. Supremely, it is the locus of encounter with the One who is the Resurrection and the Life, our source of Hope, the Salvation of all.
For all these reasons, and many more besides, porches built onto the north-west sides of our English Cathedrals were often referred to as ‘Galilee’. They were significant thresholds of welcome, gateways to reconciliation, portals of encounter with the person of Jesus Christ – present in His Church.
Our own ‘Galilee’ in Lewes, situated to the north-west of St Pancras Church, is to be a place of welcome and encounter, of pre-evangelisation and evangelisation, of proclamation, formation, and outreach, wherein the People of God, being continually formed in the Faith, exercise the mission to which they have been called: to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation.
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The work:
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At the heart of the Diocesan Plan is the call to Prayer, Formation, Mission and Stewardship. Responding to the ‘signs of the times’, it recognises that the future of individual churches will rely on collaboration – creating ‘communities of communities’, sharing skills and resources, the consolidation and repurposing of catechists and volunteers into ‘hubs’. Here our communities will be best positioned to pray together and learn about the salvific nature of God, and to share this in our contemporary secular culture.
Therefore the purpose of Galilee is:
‘to ensure an authentic formation in the Catholic faith which proclaims, celebrates, and lives the faith, as part of the mission of the Church. In the first instance drawing together the communities of our New Lewes Parish followed by the wider conurbation as envisioned in the Diocesan Plan.’ – The Word Who is Life