WHAT'S ON AT ST JOHN'S IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS AT A GLANCE Thursday 18th January 9am - School Collective Worship*10am - Morning Prayer Sunday 21st January - Epiphany 3 8am - BCP Holy Communion11am - Reflective Sunday Worship Thursday 25th January 9am - School Collective Worship*10am - Morning Prayer Sunday 28th January - Presentation of Christ in the Temple 8am - BCP Holy Communion (said)11am - Parish Holy Communion Thursday 1st Feb 9am - School Collective Worship*10am - Morning Prayer * Children are welcome at all our services, but these services and events are especially suitable for families and children (as well as people of all other ages!)Bible Readings Epiphany 3 New Testament: Revelation 19: 6-10 Gospel: John 2:1-11 Future Events 'Heads up' We'd also like to give you the 'heads up' on some events coming up in early Lent for your diaries: 14th February, 10am - Ash Wednesday Service (this replaces Thursday Morning Prayer)27th February, 7pm (and 10am St Michael’s) - Start of 5-week Lent Course - 'SHAPE' And also looking ahead, don't forget our All-Together Worship and Vision Morning on 4th February 2024, at 11am - see below for updated details on all of these CAR PARKINGBecause car parking at the church is becoming difficult, we are again opening up the school playground on Sunday mornings for everyone to use. The playground is at the back of the school, and is large enough to accommodate about 30 cars. Please do use this area to park in, but take extra care when exiting into the street as cars do tend to speed up and down the hill. DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES - ST JOHN'S VISION MORNING, WITH FOOD! 4th FEBRUARY 2024 at 11am What's God's vision for St John's church? How does God want us to flourish and grow in 2024 and beyond? Instead of our usual format for All-Together worship, we’ll be thinking together about these exciting questions in our readings, sermon slot, and prayers, as well as over a light lunch afterwards. Bring your hopes, dreams, ideas and prayers for our church! Most importantly, please do come along and have your say. ASH WEDNESDAY SERVICE - 14th February 2023, 10am (and St Michael’s at 6pm) Why not try something new this year, and mark the beginning of Lent with this reflective service of Holy Communion. STARTING 27th FEBRUARY...A 5-WEEK LENT COURSE DESIGNED TO HELP EVERYONE TAKE THE NEXT STEP ON THEIR FAITH JOURNEY Would you like to: - discover your gifts, skills and purpose? - live a more joyful and fruitful life? - serve God and others more fully? - grow more into the person that God made you to be? Then come and take part in our Lent SHAPE course. Over 5 weeks we’ll use the SHAPE acronym to answer the following questions: S - Spiritual Gifts – What has God gifted me to do? H - Heart’s Desire – What do I have passion for and love to do? A - Abilities – What natural talents and skills do I have? P - Personality – Where does my personality best suit me to serve? E - Experiences – What have I learnt from my past experiences? It would be fantastic to see new people, as well as regular attenders, on this friendly, accessible course. We’ll meet on Tuesdays - 10am at St Michael’s and 7pm at St John’s starting 27th February. FEBRUARY / MARCH PARISH MAGAZINE February/March Parish Magazine - It's Time to put together the Next edition It's time for the next edition. Regular contributors have been contacted, but how about something from you. To give you some ideas for content: Things going on in Lemsford and Stanborough or people who live there. Things associated with St Johns Church and School or people associated with them. Things associated with the Church, broadly. The deadline (please) for submissions is Saturday 26th January. This will help us to have the magazine in church for Sunday 4th February (CW - The Second Sunday before Lent) BTW - You can still get your Dec/Jan magazine in Church, or online: here100 CLUB - DECEMBER RESULTS Nigel says: The December '100 Club' draw took place on the 29th December in the presence of two PCC members. 117 numbers were in the draw. The winning numbers were: 1st: Number 37 (winning £105.30) 2nd: Number 8 (winning £63.18) 3rd: Number 74 (winning £42.12) Thanks to everyone, parishioners and friends, who are supporting the '100 Club'. The next draw will take place on Friday 26th January 2024. If anyone who has not yet signed up to the '100 Club' would like to do so, please contact the Promoter Nigel Johnson whose email address is najofwgc@gmail.com Could You be a St John's School Foundation Governor? St John’s school currently has vacancies for up to three Foundation Governors. Foundation Governors are nominated by the PCC, represent the Church of England on the Board, and help ensure that the Christian ethos of the school is maintained. Please pray and think about whether you - or someone you know - would make a great governor. They don’t need to be a member of St John’s church, but would need to be able to fulfil the role description above. As a governor myself, I promise you that it’s an extremely rewarding (and often fun) role, and is manageable alongside other responsibilities. Please contact me if you’re interested. Rev Kathryn Food Bank Our local Food Bank at the New Zion Christian Fellowship church would appreciate receiving donations of food and other things from us now and all year round. It would be wonderful if you could support them by bringing various things in on Sunday mornings, and placing them in the big plastic box which will be placed in the porch. The sort of things the Food Bank would like to receive are: All food with good sell by dates (tins of fruit and veg, jams, packets of cereal, coffee, tea, long life milk and so on)Toiletries such as shampoo and conditioner and toilet rollsCleaning products (kitchen and bathroom cleaners etc) We are asked not to donate clothes. Nigel will arrange to take our offerings to the New Zion church every Wednesday morning.
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