During Lent we are called to give things up that may harm us, like alcohol, smoking, maybe to fast from chocolate or too much social media, or TV – the idea being that the time this frees up you can give more attention to God, in prayer and reading the Bible.

We are also called during Lent to remember those worse off than ourselves and there are so many ways we can do this. We can give our money to charity, maybe sending help to children in Gaza who are struggling without food and basic necessities:-

Donate to Gaza Appeal for Children in Crisis - UNICEF UK – (follow this link to financially give).

Or maybe you would like to organise a Lent Lunch or Lent Brekkie and invite people to join you, eat yummy food and donate to Christian Aid and their action against Poverty.

Lent Lunches | Christian Aid – (follow this link to find out how to go about it and see all the resources they provide to help you with this).

Or you may want to look closer to home and take up the Lent Challenge for our own area. We are committing to give generously to the Pop-Up shop during Lent, focussing on a particular area of food/household products each week as follows:-

Week 1 - we focus on bringing soft drinks for that week.

Week 2 – cans of food.

Week 3 – dried goods

Week 4 - Household cleaning products.

Week 5 – chocolate (small Easter eggs)

Week 6 – Special Easter food

This will call us to sacrifice some of our wealth but it will benefit others who are struggling. The church at St James, High Wych is open every day from 9.30 am to 4.00 pm for you to bring food and place in the green box provided, and we will make sure this food gets to the Pop-Up Shop.