This weekend’s Bible readings:
Psalm 88 (p 597) and Luke 22:39-45 (p 1058)
The Promises of Jesus:
Our Lent course this year is taking place at All Saints@6, in Little Munden. The subject is the “Promises of Jesus”. The remaining sessions are:
10th March The Holy Spirit
17th March Jesus with us
Everyone is very welcome, whether you usually come to All Saints @6 or not!
Lent Appeal:
Before Lent, we focussed on our giving, to God and to our churches, through service and through financial support. Once again our Lent appeal is for our ministry and mission in this community. In this case, giving won’t be aggregated and shared between our three benefice churches, but will be allocated to the church in which it’s given. However, many of our costs are shared, so if you’d like to support the work of the benefice across the board, please let one of our treasurers know and we’ll make sure that happens.
Midweek services:
How well do you know the book of Lamentations? This week, our Tuesday and Wednesday morning services will start a short series using Lamentations to help us look at Christian lament. After Easter, we will be exploring what Jesus meant by the phrase ‘the Kingdom of God’ and what it means for us today. All are welcome to these services, where worship is followed by discussion and refreshments.
Pre-orders for the Real Easter Egg - £5 each:
Marion is taking orders now for the Fairtrade Real Easter Eggs, with a new story booklet to celebrate the real meaning of Easter. The last order date to get them in time for Easter is Sunday 10th March. Payment with order is preferred. Profits go to the food bank. You can email Marion on [email protected].
Benefice Bookstall:
Lizzy’s Christian bookstall was well received last weekend. She will have more stock over the coming months, but if there’s a book that you would like her to get for you, please speak to her.
Issues with the contactless donation point in St Mary’s:
We are still having trouble with our permanently set up contactless device. It’s an issue with the app, and we are in contact with the platform that facilitates it to get it resolved. Meanwhile, the QR code will still work for contactless giving, and we will try to have an alternative contactless device available at services and events. We apologise that it’s taking a little while to get this sorted out.
Palm Sunday:
On Sunday 24th March at 6pm in St Mary's there will be a service of music and readings to mark the start of Holy Week. There will be music sung by our benefice choir from Bach's St John Passion and readers will take us through the passion narrative as recorded by John in his gospel. Please do come along as we begin our observance of the holiest of weeks.
Lent course Wednesday evenings 6th to 20th March, 7.30 pm at Bishop’s Stortford College:
Entitled ‘Reality: Is yours authentic or augmented?’ this year’s Lent Lectures at Bishop’s Stortford College will seek to explore the reality of three areas of human existence: Faith, the Environment, and Spiritual Experiences. Long before the advent of Artificial Intelligence humans have been curious to comprehend nature of reality. New technologies only enrich debates within philosophy, politics, religion and science about the reality of the human existence. Tickets are free but must be booked through the college website. For more details, please speak to Isabel.
Be more informed about Palestine:
Basma will be re-running her talk about the Palestinian people on 16th March at 3.00 pm in Dane End Memorial Hall. For tickets, please contact Sue on 01920 318674.
FOSM Afternoon tea & talk:
This will take place the Standon Lordship and Jim Nicolson will speak about ‘My uncle, the Battle of Britain VC’. Tickets, at £25, are available from Diana on 07718 734897.
Hospital transport looking for volunteer drivers:
The dedicated hospital transport team offers lifts to local people who need them. It could be simply picking up someone in the village and taking him or her to the surgery, or it might involve a trip to an outpatients appointment at hospital. If you think you can offer some of your time (however little or large an amount), please speak to Wendy. Volunteers receive reimbursement for their petrol costs.
Website:
Our benefice website is on the www.achurchnearyou.com platform. The benefice page can be reached via this link: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/benefice/32-240BF/. The forward from https://ubsms.org.uk should point to that page.
Services for the next few weeks
Midweek services each week:
Tuesdays, 9.30am Holy Communion (BCP) & Bible study, St Catherine's
Wednesdays, 9.30am Morning worship & Bible study, St Mary's
Sunday services:
3rd March 8.00am Holy communion, St Mary's
10.30am Morning worship, All Saints
6.00pm Lent course at All Saints@6, All Saints
10th March 10.30am Holy communion, St Mary's
6.00pm Lent course at All Saints@6, All Saints
17th March 8.00am Holy communion, St Mary's
10.30am Holy communion, All Saints
6.00pm Lent course at All Saints@6, All Saints
24th March 10.30am All age worship, St Mary's
6.00pm Service of music and readings for the start of Holy Week, St Mary's
31st March 10.30am Easter communion, St Mary's
6.00pm Easter All Saints@6, All Saints
7th April 8.00am Holy communion, St Mary's
10.30am Morning worship, All Saints
6.00pm All Saints@6, All Saints