Saint Paul's Church, Landkey

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Forthcoming events

St Paul's will be participating in the Landkey Show and Fete (including a Dog Show) on 25th July 2026 at the playing field by Tanners Road, from 1:00 - 6:00 pm.

The church Wild Tent will be set up where visitors to the show are welcome to call in for a chat. If anyone would like to assist on the day, please let us know, either in the church or via the Contact Us page.

We are also looking forward to the Pet Blessing on 23rd August.

Sea Sunday

We were pleased to welcome Revd Richard Freeman, once again, to lead our service for Sea Sunday on 12th July 2026.

He and his wife, Angela, have become regular visitors to St Paul's and we are pleased to have them as part of our congregation.

Richard read the account in Matthew 8:23-27 of the storm on the Sea Galilee to assure us that Jesus is there for us when we go through difficult times.

We appreciated also the contribution that Peter Elder, himself a former merchant sailor, made in choosing the hymns, leading the prayers and providing images from his seafaring days for display on the screens. During his prayers, he read the poem, "Big Steamers", by Rudyard Kipling, the words of which can be read on the link below.

One of Peter's images has been uploaded and may be viewed on this page or under Church Life It shows him in Galveston, Texas, in 1979 when he was captain of the vessel "Ivybank". On that voyage, he was responsible for transporting, among other cargo, a huge second-hand drag line mining machine. After Galveston, they had a four-week passage to Mackay in Queensland via the Panama Canal. The cargo arrived in excellent condition!

The logo of the Sailors' Society is displayed here, as it was during the service. While we are not directly promoting this charitable organisation, we have used it here to illustrate the good which it and others do in supporting huge numbers of seafarers and their families.

We look forward to welcoming Richard and Angela back again next week for our Trinity Seven service.

Change to this Sunday's service

Due to circumstances beyond the control of the family involved, the baptism scheduled for this coming Sunday has been cancelled. There will instead be a service of Holy Communion, starting at the usual time of 10:30, rather than the originally-published time of 10:45.

Welcome back, AD Verena!

We were pleased to welcome Archdeacon Verena Breed to lead our service of Holy Communion for the second Sunday after Trinity on 14th June 2026.

Verena has responsibility for 153 churches in North Devon, meaning that our "quota" of visits from her could be regarded as having been used up when she led our service on 10th May, just a few weeks ago. We are grateful to her, then, for leading another service for us so soon, and we hope to welcome her once more in August.

With the church liturgical calendar having recently changed from Eastertide to "Ordinary Time", Verena focused her sermon on the importance of understanding and observing the "seasons" of the church. She had previously worked with schools in the Peak District villages of Wincle and Bosley and had inspired them to create an artwork featuring the liturgical calendar. The result was two colourful textile "dials" with sections depicting the seasons from Advent through to Christ the King. 

Verena displayed images from both schools on the screens during her sermon and the one created by the schoolchildren in Wincle can be seen on the right of the group photograph taken after the service and shown on this page.

Update: At our service on 21st June, Emma read out the words from a thank you card from Verena: "Dear Hazel & Peter and Church Family at Landkey, thank you, once again, for your warm welcome; it has been a real joy to preach and preside  - and to share with you the images of former schools' Church Year Calendars (Wincle (blue) and Bosley (cream) CofE primaries). Special thanks to Charles for making this possible! Already looking forward to my next visit in August. Thank you for all the hard work and commitment - it is tangible when one walks into church. God bless, Verena."

Welcome back again, Richard!

We were pleased to welcome Revd Richard Freeman to lead our service of Holy Communion for the first Sunday after Trinity on 7th June 2026. He was joined by his wife, Angela, and a photo of them with Cathy and our churchwardens taken afterwards may be seen on this page.

The focus of Richard's sermon was on the words of the prophet Hosea who says, in chapter 6, v6 of the book of the Bible in his name, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings." Hosea lived 800 years before the birth of Jesus but his words have just as much relevance for us in today's world as they did then.

We look forward to welcoming Richard and Angela once more to lead our service on 21st June.

A moving service

Our Pentecost service on 24th May 2026 was led by Revd Cathy Scoffield. In her sermon, she drew on the Bible readings for the day which described how the Holy Spirit descended onto the early Christians, enabling them to achieve things which no-one would have thought possible. She assured us that the same Holy Spirit is with us and helps us to face the challenges that life brings our way.

It was a moving service, in the emotional sense, as we gave thanks for the contribution to the church which Mike and Josie have made over many years in their formal roles of churchwarden and Licensed Lay Minister, respectively. Over and above these, their hospitality, as evidenced most recently by the superb Lent lunch which they hosted on 10th March this year, was always much appreciated. Josie’s thoughtful sermons will live long in the memory, including her belief that the importance of faith becomes apparent when it is really needed. Mike’s successful efforts in the wake of the Covid pandemic to install technology in the church to enable services to be held without the need for an organist or printed booklets have not been forgotten.

It was a moving time also, in the literal sense, as Mike and Josie were due to move on the following day to a new house near Barnstaple. Illness has affected their lives and the new house should give them added convenience. Mike and Josie chose the hymns for this Pentecost service and they were: Living Hope by Phil Wickham; Breathe on me, breath of God; Praise the Lord the Almighty with Lord the light of your love is shining to finish. The background music during Communion was The Benedictus from The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins, a particular favourite of theirs.

Tea, coffee, cake and some Asti were served afterwards, with many people lingering to wish Mike and Josie well. We are delighted that they will continue regard St Paul’s as their home church and we hope that they will join us whenever they feel able to.