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Welcome to our traditional website for the

Three Valleys Team Ministry

 

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A new website has been created.

Please follow the link www.threevalleysteam.org.uk 

There are lots of new ideas, including "Word for the Week", a text and commentary to help each week. 

 

Please explore the new site (which will be run in parallel with this one for the moment)

and 

please send feedback using the contact details for the Reverend George Moody on either website.

 

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What is a Harvest Festival?

 

Harvest Festival is a very popular service these days. Many schools hold them and most Churches seem to hold them as well but what is this celebration and where did it come from?

A Harvest Festival is an annual celebration which occurs around the time of the main harvest in a given region of the planet. Its origins are lost in pre-Christian times but such celebrations appear to have been universal and references to celebrating the harvest can be found in the Psalms, the Romans did it, as did many other religious traditions.  Often the first fruits of the harvest were offerred as a sacrifice.

In Western Europe and Countries where Christianity took root harvest celebrations became Christianised.  So when Christianity arrived in Britain so did Christian ideas about harvest.  Eventually there were ceremonies and rituals at the beginning as well as the end of the harvest period and church bells were often rung on every day throughout the harvest.  A corn dolly was made from the last sheaf of corn harvested - a figure made of plaited straw, which was held aloft and carried with great ceremony to the celebrations - it often had a place of honour at the harvest banquet table, and was kept until the following spring.  The horse bringing the last cart load was decorated with garlands of flowers and colourful ribbons.

Interestingly, the tradition of celebrating Harvest Festival in churches with a specific church service began in 1843, when the Reverend Robert Hawker invited parishioners to a special thanksgiving service at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall. This act led to the custom of decorating churches with home-grown produce and the development the Harvest Festival service as we know it today.  As British people have come to rely less heavily on home-grown produce, there has been a shift in many Harvest Festival celebrations. Increasingly, churches have linked harvest to local industries and/or a concern for people in the developing world for whom growing crops in sufficient quality and quantity remains a struggle. However, the important message is to remember our dependency on the Earth and what it produces to sustain us. We are the stewards and a steward’s job is to work in harmony with his or her charge, taking care of it for the next generation and not exploiting it for short term gain.

Yours

 

Tony Gilbert

Team Rector

 

 

 I hope that you will find plenty of useful

 and interesting information in here. 

    

 

 

The Reverend Tony Gilbert

and

Tony with his wife Nicola