We will be open to visitors this week between 10am and 3pm, but please note that from Sunday afternoon until Friday next week 25th-30th August the church will be closed to visitors as it will be taken over by Sheringham Beach Life!Monday Cuppa will go ahead on Bank Holiday Monday as usual between 10am and 12 noon in the hall.Our Thursday service of Holy Communion will go ahead in the choir vestry at 11am.The church will be open to visitors once again on Saturday 31st August, when we will offer the last of our wonderful Teatime Concerts at 4pm.
‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;’This is the phenomenal promise that God gives to us. I think one of the huge problems of this is, how can something so simple lead to such a great gift. Later in the service we will be invited to share in the bread and wine and all we have to do is get up and go forward and eat the piece of bread that we will be given and then take a sip of the wine and then return to your place. Because you do this then you will be raised to life on the last day. Sometimes people can make belief in God so complicated that it leaves us confused and wondering whether we will ever succeed as a Christian.The simple truth is that God, in the person of Jesus has done all the hard work for us. He taught his disciples for about three years, was arrested, tried and was executed, and on the third day rose again. He then tasked those disciples with spreading the word to the ends of the earth. As his disciples we are continuing to spread the word about Jesus. The challenge that he laid before those first disciples remains the same throughout the ages.We are called to invite people to join us in eating the bread and drinking the wine, thus receiving the body and blood of Jesus our Saviour. I hope all of us want to learn more about Jesus by studying the gospels that tell his story and to hear what some early Christians wrote about their faith to friends in different churches in the first century.We also need to remember that Jesus was a Jew and that his Jewish faith was important to him and therefore we need to study the Old Testament of the Bible which tells us about the journey of Jewish believers from Abraham to Jesus.But we must always return to the rock of our faith - in the words of one of our Eucharistic Prayers:“as we do what you told us, we open our hearts to him, we remember how he died and rose again to live now in us. Together with him, we offer you these gifts; in them we give you ourselves.Send your holy spirit on us and on this bread, and this wine that they may be the body and blood of Christ, and that, sharing your life, we may travel in your company to our journey's end.” Amen.Andrew SSL
Lord, direct our thoughts, and teach us to pray. Lift up our hearts to worship you in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.‘Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.’ (Psalm 34: 13-14)Hymn: Awake, awake, fling off the night...Proverbs 9: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 15-20‘God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.’ 1 John 4:16 Let us pray: Most merciful God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we have sinned in thought, word and deed. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. In your mercy forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are, and direct what we shall be; that we may do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, our God. Amen.May the God of love bring us back to himself, forgive us our sins, and assure us of his eternal love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Prayer for the day: God of constant mercy, who sent your Son to save us: remind us of your goodness, increase your grace within us, that our thankfulness may grow, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.John 6: 51-58Please see the message from the minister.Let us join in prayer and ask for God’s empowering love to impact: the Church, that all may know and serve the Lord, to give our all in his good service; the world, that peace will reign and that all people will care and share; our neighbours, families and friends, that relationships will thrive; people who are sick or suffering, for the healing power of the Holy Spirit to be known; those who have been bereaved, that all who mourn will be comforted.Let us pray for the coming of God’s kingdom in the prayer that Jesus taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.Hymn: The Spirit lives to set us free...May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all for evermore. Amen.Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord, in the name of Christ. Amen.
Our Library of Inspiration is open every day between 10am and 3pm. Feel free to come and browse, and to be inspired as you look through our books to appeal to you - whichever direction you are coming from in your journey of faith.
