All Saints, Little Munden

Weekly News - 23rd July 2023

Welcome:

This weekend we welcome Harper and her family and friends. Harper will be baptised in our 10.30 service. Please pray for Harper, her parents and God-parents as they take this important step.

This weekend’s Bible readings:

10.30: Romans 8:12-17 (p 1134)

6.30: Isaiah 44:6-8 (p 729) and Acts 4:1-22 (p 1095)

Pop up shop 23rd July:

The next pop up shop is open this weekend, on Sunday at our 10.30am family service at St Mary's. Marion is bringing some new fairtrade items from the One World Shop, which has replaced Traidcraft and sources fairtrade and ethically sourced products. Any profits will go to our local food bank. Marion will also order anything that she hasn't got in stock.

Choral Evensong this weekend:

Come and join us for a service of choral evensong this Sunday at 6.30 in St Mary’s, led by our benefice choir. All are welcome to this meditative service of word and music.

Morning worship 30th July:

You are invited to stay on for a picnic (hopefully in the churchyard) after the service at St Catherine's on 30th July. Please bring your own picnic and a chair, though there will be some food available if you should forget. The Sacombe folk will also provide cold drinks.

Midweek Music at St Mary's 26th July:

This month's concert, entitled A Tenor Odyssey, is on Wednesday at 12.30, and will be given by Hugh Legg accompanied by Michael Smith. Refreshments will be served from 11.30. Do come and join us if you can.

Mothers’ Union 26th July:

The next meeting of Braughing with Standon Mothers' Union will be on Wednesday at 2.30pm in the Old Boys School Braughing. Janet McKinney will talk about Diocesan membership and we will have a 2nd session assembling the emergency washbags for hospitals.

Holiday Bible Club 29th August to 1st September, 10.00 until 3.00:

This year’s holiday Bible club will run at the end of August. The theme will be Jonah, linking each part of Jonah’s story with gospel stories. Bookings are coming in now, and we’re confident we will have significantly more youngsters than last year. We need a bigger support team! We need people to help with groups, to preparing refreshments and to set up and clearing craft activities. If you’d like to know more or to volunteer, please speak to Caroline, who is starting to tap on shoulders! And if you know any children who might come along, please spread the word.

Changes at the Centre:

The Centre meetings will continue at 4 pm on Sunday afternoons until 3rd September, when it will switch to 5.45 for 6 pm, except on 4th Sundays, when we hope that the Centre folk will join our evensong congregation. Topics for Centre meetings in the autumn will include healing, study, prayer and outreach, among others. It will continue to incorporate live musical worship in a modern style. The programme between now and September will major on prayer. A variety of people will be leading, approaching prayer through different styles and practices and praying particularly for the Centre, the Alpha course, our benefice etc.

Anyone is welcome to come along. The Centre meets in All Saints, and there is cake!

Alpha Course:

We will be joining in with the Alpha Course in Thorley on Wednesdays from 13th September. Please pray about this and especially if you can invite anyone along. We hope that we will be able to take a group from our benefice. Please speak to John for more information.

Jazz Night DVD:

A DVD, priced £10, is available of the Jazz concert in memory of Len Sparks. If you would like to buy one, please contact Ann.

QR codes for giving:

QR codes have become a valued aid to make life easier. Over the next weeks, we will be introducing QR codes for giving to our churches. Scanning the code with a smart-phone will take the user directly to a page where he or she can donate and register the gift for gift aid. You will see that there’s a QR code alongside the giving details at the foot of these notices. Any giving through this particular code will be applied to benefice wide costs. In the next few weeks, each church will have a laminated QR code on its notice board which will direct donations to that specific church. In time, we will also be producing stickers for our service sheets, and donations will be apportioned according to where the service is being held. Of course, all the current methods of giving will remain in place!

And gift aid eligibility:

Please remember that if you’re a regular giver and you pay tax, completing a gift aid form will enable our treasurers to reclaim an extra 25% of what you give from HMRC. (And, if you’ve stopped paying tax, please remember to let us know!)

Website - changes:

Our benefice website is on the www.achurchnearyou.com platform. The ACNY platform has been/is rolling out a number of changes to improve their site so that benefice information doesn’t need to be duplicated for each church. Please bear with us as we work to populate the new pages.

Some people have been having difficulty reaching the benefice page. It can, however, be reached via this link: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/benefice/32-240BF/.

The forward from https://ubsms.org.uk has been updated to point to that new page.

Thank you to Mark for all his work on our website, for Ellie for from the ubsms site.

Services for the next few weeks

Midweek services each week:

Tuesdays, 9.30am Holy Communion (BCP), St Catherine's

Wednesdays, 9.30am Morning worship & Bible study, St Mary's

Sunday services:

23rd July 10.30am Family worship, St Mary's