This week we are transferring the feast of All Saints from the 1st November to a Sunday to enable its full celebration. It is a 5th Sunday of the month so all are invited to join in with the 11am Holy Communion at Lynton.The celebration of All Saints carries into a season of the church year that we call Kingdom Season - it is a time for focusing on the promise of God for our future. This includes the promise that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we can trust that God's love carries us through our own death, to share in God's closer presence, and that we can entrust those we love, who have died, into that same eternal love. Importantly this season also takes us beyond our own individual future to remember that God's promise is to gather all things into the eternity of love: all creation into renewal and rest.

As we celebrate All Saints we are reminded that though we worship in small communities, we are surrounded by a great host of those whose perpetual worship is in the closer presence of God - from every period of past history, from every nation, from so many varied experiences of expressing their life of faith - all now united in love for the God who holds us all in being, in earth as it is in heaven. The promises of God are as individual as each of us, and as immense as to be beyond our imagining.There is a tradition, which we will be keeping in church on Sunday, of finding a saint to inspire and guide the coming year. Many saints' stories are very familiar to us, others less so, but this tradition encourages us to find out more about those with whom we share faith though perhaps from very different experiences.

For those who are not able to come to church I have included the list with this mailing. You may just like to choose a name that interests you. In church I will encourage all who want to to take a "lucky dip" and pull a name from a basket. If you can't come but would like me to pull one for you do drop me an email and I will let you know which saint has found you!As we celebrate All Saints, All Hallows as it was traditionally called, let's pray that as we find our inspiration in those in whose lives God's light has shone bright, so our lives will encourage others to find their joy in all that is good, loving and holy.

God bless

Samantha