After a filling breakfast church of pastries, bacon sandwiches and lots of fruit juice, this month’s family service at St James we were focusing on Pentecost and the fact that God speaks my language! Our bible reading was from Acts 2:1-8, 12 and 14 God certainly knew how to draw a crowd! The dramatic wind and the mysterious flames excited people’s curiosity, but then it needed to inspired words that made sense for the people around. So when God chose to speak to people that day, God’s spirit gifted the apostles with languages that people could understand. We talked about the fact that each of us are unique with our oen individual upbringin, culture and understanding of the world and how, at Pentecost, we see how God’s spirit takes this into account so that each of us is able to make sense of Gods unique love for us. We had great fun running around the church trying to find the apostles, and then trying to remember all their names, and created a great poster for the children’s board in church. Pop in and have a look if you have 5 mins. Next months family service is titled ‘Shh! It’s a secret!’ Come along and find out what that secret is on Sunday 2nd of May. Join us for breakfast at 09:30 and our 45min family service from 10:00, we look forward to seeing you there!
Dear All I cannot believe we are in May…….I was so happy on Wednesday 1st May as at our first gathering for Wednesday Welcome we were able to open the hall doors and some of us sit outside. It was lovely and warm with no coats!! For our first session we had a good number of people join us to eat cake, chat and get to know each other, it was lovely with a good variety of ages with us. Our next Wednesday Welcome will be on 5th June 2024. Don’t forget we meet to pray online every Tuesday morning at 9.30 am:- Online prayer sessionsTuesday mornings at 9.30 am – link below https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84557900182?pwd=MDhIR2ZBSFc4RXdxWW4zL3FJRGx0dz09Meeting ID: 845 5790 0182 Passcode: 640464 And it is not too late to join in with the Alpha Course, here is the link:- Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/81553868122?pwd=TC8vSWdDYVJVMzIyTDI4ZGMwQ3J2Zz09Meeting ID: 815 5386 8122Passcode: 246665 Thy Kingdom Come This year it was agreed at PCC that we would join the global wave of prayer calling all Christians to pray between Ascension and Pentecost for more people to come to know the love and peace of Jesus Christ. We invite you to take part in this from 9th May to the 19th May 2024, where we commit to pray for five people we know to come to know Jesus, along with churches from over 85 different denominations and traditions in over 172 countries around the world. In praying ‘The Kingdom Come’ we all commit to playing our part in the renewal of the nations and the transformation of communities. Resources will be available on Sunday at the back of church to help you with this and this will be the focus of our prayer meeting on Tuesday. You might want to be thinking about the 5 people you would truly love to come to know the love of Jesus in their lives before you begin praying for them on the 9th. Looking forward to meeting you again soon. This Sunday we have our BCP said service at 8.00 am and our Family service with breakfast at 9.30 am. Every blessingAlison
Hi EveryoneI seem to have been in baptism week this week, which is lovely and I’ve been able to hold a few babies I have spoken to three families who want baptism and I have another 2 who are coming to see me in the next couple of weeks. We are looking at baptizing both adults and children and the hope is that these new families will find their home in our Family Service once a month on the first Sunday of the month. For your information, our Family service starts at 9.30 am in St James, High Wych with breakfast, followed by a more informal, family friendly service which runs for about 45 mins to an hour. There is always a children’s activity and we love having the children with us, we usually get the instruments out to make lots of ‘joyful’ noiseIf you are exploring faith and have questions about the Christian faith, or just curious to find out what the Alpha course is, we will be running our Alpha course again from Wednesday 1st May through to 5th June so that you and/or your friends can join us. We will start at 8.30 pm so that all children could be in bed! Alpha is a video led, introduction to the Christian faith that lasts for 6 weeks – we do it online, so no need to find babysitters and we finish the course with a get together at the Rectory where we meet face to face. Here is the link for you to click on the night.Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81553868122?pwd=TC8vSWdDYVJVMzIyTDI4ZGMwQ3J2Zz09 Meeting ID: 815 5386 8122 Passcode: 246665Our Bible study – The Bible Course finished on Wednesday night and was thoroughly enjoyed by the many of you who came.The last session spent a little time with Revelation and I thought you might like to watch some of the videos that the Bible Project have put together. They have done one for each book of the bible I believe so you can watch whenever and whichever you want. This link takes you to Revelation:-https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/revelation-1-11/Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday.Every blessing Alison
Dear AllIt has been a ‘get back’ to the routine of our week this week as a community - school is back, toddlers is back, normal working patterns restored, the prayer meeting was on again. Toddler Mums and Grans have been telling us how much they had missed our baby and toddler group, Jimmy’s over the holidays. I had missed Jimmy’s too. Two weeks seemed like such a long time.Our routines help us though don’t they to be ‘ok’ when the world around us is going mad, personally or otherwise. The weather is going crazy, sunshine, wind, torrential rain and hail (all in one day – Monday 15th) and I woke up this morning to see that Israel have retaliated and bombed Iran, and conflict continues in Gaza and between Russia and the Ukraine it feels as if the world is whirling into insanity around us…. and this reminded me of a piece of scripture…“Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire….test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil and may God himself, the God of peace sanctify you through and through”. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22So, hold on to what is good and avoid every kind of evil and God will be with you. I hope you can see God working in your life in the small every day kindnesses you give and receive, the people who listen to you and who you listen to, and pray, pray continually. If it would help we have an online prayer meeting every Tuesday morning at 9.30 am (e-mail for the link) and remember, St James, High Wych and St Mary’s, Gilston are open every day for private prayer. I am available if you want to talk anything through, please use the contact info below.Every blessingAlison
