It was a time of remembering happy days at primary school and looking forward to new learning and experiences at their next school. Reverend Lesley spoke individually to each youngster and blessed them. Each youngster was presented with a book from Scripture Union ‘How to survive secondary school’ Please keep all our young people in your prayers that they relax and return refreshed to their new classes or schools in September.
We met at The Refectory for the summer party. We heard the story of The Prodigal Son, and the party given for him on his return to his father’s house.We played party games and ate a party tea! Thank you to all who help with these worship times for our youngsters.Please click the link to view more pictures!
Revd. Tony (pictured right) led the service and played in the worship band. Revd. Alex from St Bartholomew's and Holy Trinity Colne and Bishop Philip also participated. We worshipped, sang, prayed, listened to the Scriptures and heard testimonies of the transforming love of Jesus at work in peoples’ lives. Good to be all one in Jesus Christ.For more pictures click the link.
When did you last review your giving? Regular donations are important to our churches. The Church of England offers a Christian presence in every community. Together we seek to make this Christian presence the heart of all our cities, towns, and villages; by our wonderful buildings; by worshipping together; by serving our communities and by sharing our faith and values. This valuable contribution to our community has a cost, of which 75% is met by personal donations. For our churches to survive and grow, we rely on regular donations so that we can plan confidently for the future. The PGS is a national scheme which the Diocese pays for - so there are no additional running costs to our churches. The main beneficiary of this scheme is our churches. Through your generous commitment, we can be assured of a regular, tax-efficient source of income which has the capacity to increase with the cost of living yet involves virtually no administration (a real bonus for our Treasurers). Gift Aid is automatically collected and paid straight back to our church, each month (another huge bonus for our Treasurers). The Scheme is easy to sign up for. If you presently give to St John’s or St Anne's by standing order, it's simply a case of cancelling that and starting a new direct debit through this scheme. You are given an option to automatically increase your donation by inflation every year. Your direct debit is taken on the 1st of the month. You indicate if you wish to Gift Aid your donation & the scheme does the rest. St John’s or St Anne’s receives all donations in one aggregate amount soon after the 1st of the month and receives one Gift Aid recovery payment each month via the scheme. This benefits our churches, giving a regular, sustained income including regular Gift Aid. It greatly eases the admin for our Treasurers. Please join the scheme if you can. You can sign up for the scheme by one of 3 methods---online banking is not essential. 1) By phone 2) Online 3) Completing and posting the form that is attached to the Governance section. Please speak to the Church Warden or Treasurer at your respective church. Please consider this opportunity to help our churches and be part of this scheme.
