St Catherine's, Sacombe

Weekly News - 10th July 2022

This morning’s Bible readings:

Acts 11:1-18 (p 1105), Galatians 2:11-21 (p 1169).

Standon Flower festival:

As you will see at the service, the flower festival is underway! If you haven’t had a chance yet to admire the displays, please do so. On Monday, the great dismantling will start!

Refreshments will be available in the Village Hall from 2 until 5 pm while the festival is on. There will be music in church during the Flower Festival. Do come along and enjoy the music and flowers!

Sunday 10th July 'Flute cocktail' - a flute ensemble will play music for half an hour on the hour at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm.

Join us to sing Songs Of Praise at 6.30pm in church. Hymns and songs chosen and introduced by members of our congregations and sung by us all!

Knit & Natter group:

If you like knitting or crocheting, come and join us for a couple of hours in Standon village hall at 2pm usually on the 2nd Thursday of each month. Tea & cakes will be available. Our next meeting will be on Thursday 14 July 2022. For more information please contact Diane on 01920 821130 or Marion on 01920 745683.

Picnic after the service on 31st July:

The Sacombe folk would like to invite the congregation at St Catherine's on 31st July to bring a picnic lunch (and perhaps a chair or rug) to enjoy in the churchyard after the service. This will, of course, be an idyllic day of warm summer sunshine! Drinks will be provided.

PYGMALION at Brockholds Manor Garden Theatre 6th August:

Gates will open at 5pm for 7.30 pm performance. A tranche of performance only tickets has been released @ £25 per ticket. Patrons may bring their own picnic but are asked please to support the licenced bar where all profits are to benefit the St Catherine's Building Fund. Tickets to include a glass of prosecco on arrival and a delicious 2-course supper are still available @ £45 (or £40 for car shares of 4 people or more). Please contact Hugh to book on 01920 438021 or speak to any member of St Catherine's PCC.

Communion going forward:

This week the PCCs discussed the way we receive Holy Communion in church. There was a good discussion and most would rather continue as we are. However, a significant minority would like to return to receiving the wine from the chalice. There will thus be no change this week or next (when there is a baptism at Little Munden as well as Holy Communion) but after that we will try to provide a choice and see how it goes. This will mean two “stations”, one to receive the “intincted” (dipped) wafer, and another to receive from the cup. The Church of England has given very little restriction on these matters but one which continues is that there shall be no “self-intinction”, i.e. dipping the wafer in the wine yourself. This is because there are many instances of accidental contamination of the wine. If you have any concerns about this, please speak to John.

SOLID:

Some of our young people had a wonderful weekend last weekend at the SOLID festival. This is selection of the comments made by parents: ‘Would like to say a massive thank you for a great weekend Joshua loved it ❤️ xxx’ ‘All of you are having such a positive impact on Mia and giving her another happy safe place to be aside from home. Thank you ☺️’ ‘Both my girls are in bed already!!! They had a fantastic time, a big thanks to everyone involved in making the weekend such a fantastic time for them all.’ One of the young people has expressed an interest in being baptised and we are exploring the possibility of offering confirmation preparation to those who would like to explore that option. Please pray for our young people and those who are leading our youth groups.

Sunday lunch at the Star:

This will not be available this month as The Star are not taking bookings for food on that Sunday because of Standon Calling. Our next Sunday lunch will be on 28th August. Jeff has reduced our number to 8 as we have had a drop in numbers over the last few months. Consequently this month places will be on a first come basis so please let Heather know as soon as possible.

Holiday Bible Club 29th August – 1st September:

Preparations are advancing for this year’s HBC in St Mary’s. Posters are up and children are signing up. We are looking for helpers, please! The club will run from 10.00 until 2.30 each day. If you can volunteer for some or all of the time, please speak to Caroline or Lizzy.

Website:

Our new benefice website is on the www.achurchnearyou.com platform. The benefice page is: www.achurchnearyou.com/church/7825/benefice. Please visit it to see the range of information there.

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:

Sunday 10th July 10.30am Holy Communion, St Mary's