As I look out the window today, at the start of January, it is raining again! Not a promising start to the New Year. Here’s hoping that February will bring brighter days and the first signs of spring with the snowdrops and crocuses. Such beauty!Our Junior Singing Club had their first public appearance at the Christmas Tree Festival. Their performance was excellent, and very well received by an enthusiastic audience.We had a wonderful Christmas at St Marks with several festive services held in the church with familiar faces and many visitors. It was good to see a large number of parents and grandparents attend the School Key Stage 2 Carol Service. Our Carols by Candlelight service, on Christmas Eve, was a wonderful event, with the children from St Mark’s Junior Singing Club stealing the show! They read a lesson and sang beautifully along with our choir. The church was bursting at the seams with many families coming along to experience this special Christmas celebration. The Team Epiphany Service was a joyous occasion bringing to a close our Christmas preparations and celebrations. The church smelt wonderful with the essence of incense for days afterwards! St Marks reputation as a ‘Party Church,’ will continue throughout 2025, welcoming our local community into St Marks, with social events and celebrations, and building on the strong and positive relationship with St Marks School, the pupils, and parents. Little acorns becoming strong oaks!Next month we begin Lent, with our Ash Wednesday Holy Communion Service at the earlier time of 10:30am. We will be looking towards the Cross and our preparations, with Christ, during Lent and finally, to that glorious resurrection of our Lord, on that first Easter morning. Until then….We look for the first signs of spring!May God Bless and Keep YouAnne Roper - Church Warden
Looking back over the past few months. The end of October was a busy time for us too, with our Activity morning on Saturday 26th when much work was done in our garden and in the Church, preparing us for the winter months to come. It was a very enjoyable morning, being kept refreshed with tea, coffee, fruit juice and water and, as always, having a good chat. A lot of surplus vegetation was taken to the dump and much dusting, hoovering and polishing took place in the Church. At the end of the month we also had a very good Harvest service followed by a wonderful lunch and during the week following we welcomed St Mark’s School and many parents to their Harvest service. Also in September and October, we were delighted to celebrate the 90th birthdays of Mary, Mike and Jenny – three of our much loved and long-standing members (Mike having been a member of the church from before he could stand!).November was very much a month of memories. In a very touching service in St Mary’s on Sunday November 3rd we remembered those who we knew and love but see no longer. St Mark’s were pleased to play their role in that service as Dave preached and a team of us helped with the refreshments afterwards, allowing those present to have fellowship and conversation together. The following Sunday was, of course, Remembrance Sunday, with an Act of Remembrance as part of our morning service at St Mark’s, followed by the Town Remembrance Service and procession to the War Memorial in the afternoon. It is a very meaningful time of year for many people.And so, we enter December – a month for looking forward. As many people will spend a lot of their time this month buying presents, sending cards, planning Christmas festivities and much else, the Christian church gears itself up to welcome our Saviour, worshipping him with the much-loved forms of service, readings, hymns and other music. In our quieter moments, we may ask ourselves what has happened since the last time we went through the familiar rituals and how God has blessed us through the happy and the sad times since then. As this edition of Church Alive! takes us through into January, we wonder what the New Year has for us with a relatively new Prime Minister and Government, a change of American President and many parts of the world bogged down in seemingly interminable wars and all the suffering that that entails. What we can be sure of is that the God who brought us through the turmoil of 2024 will be with us, whatever 2025 will bring. Anne and I wish you all a blessed and joyful Christmas and New Year. John Way, Churchwarden.
As I write, St Mark’s members are looking back on a number of great events including: Our Bric-a-Brac sale and Coffee morning, which raised £224 for Church funds, Mike Keats’ 90th Birthday celebration on 22nd SeptemberWe are also looking forward to a number of special events: Our Harvest Service, followed by a Bring-and-Share lunch on Sunday 20th October St Mark’s School Harvest Service on Thursday 24th October Our Autumn Action Day on Saturday 26th October, 10am - 1pm Pearl’s 70th birthday celebration on Sunday 27th October Jenny’s 90th birthday celebration on 3rd NovemberWe work hard to keep up our reputation as a party church at St Mark’s!The Herston Singing Club re-started on 15th October after a bit of a prolonged summer break. This group, for school years 3-6, meets after school on Tuesdays. After some snacks, to keep up our strength, we sing a variety of music. We look forward to our first engagement – singing at the Christmas Tree Festival in December. Some of us attended an excellent Deanery Synod open meeting in October. Rev. Jo Levasier, together with 2 Purbeck Headteachers, told us about the Churches’ involvement with local primary schools. The church/school/community partnership in Wool was particularly inspiring, and there were good news stories from many other places. Carol and I came back encouraged to re-double our work to strengthen the growing links between St Mark’s Church and School. Please pray for this work.We are sad to report that Oli Johnson, Anne’s husband, passed away peacefully in September, and Sheila Guy, a former St Mark’s member, passed away in early October. Our love and prayers are with those who mourn.As the days grow darker and we look towards Advent we are reminded that Jesus came to bring light into a dark world. We see all sorts of darkness around us, but even a small candle flame makes a huge difference in a dark place. Let us pray that we are able to show this light of Jesus to the people and places of Herston. Rev David Richards
September has not been the ‘Indian Summer’ we had all hoped for and the cold ‘wind of change’ has certainly brought about an Autumn chill this week, so we now look to October and the autumn season of Harvest and its splendid colours. A time to reflect on God’s creation and its riches. At St Marks we have certainly had a busy summer and there’s no sign of us slowing down as we’ve just held our third fund raising event this year, our Coffee Morning & Bric-a-Brac Stall on 21st September. We raised £224 for St Marks Church, while enjoying great fellowship, fun and of course plenty of cake!. So far, this year, thanks to the generosity of friends and neighbours attending events we have raised well over £1000 for charities, both local and national. Well Done St Marks. Both our Bible Study and Prayer & Share groups continue. Prayer is an important part of our Christian life and our worship at St Marks and, following the Prayer walks during August, we continue to use our Herston Prayer Cycle to pray for our local community, within the Herston area, each week. A time to reflect. We are looking forward to our Harvest Festival Service when we will be donating foods to Swanage Food Bank, as we have in previous years. Please note, this service will begin at 11am. We will then share a ‘Bring and Share Lunch,’ which I’m sure will be very enjoyable with plenty to eat include more cake!! We are also looking forward to welcoming the pupils from St Marks School for their Harvest Festival services later that same week, when they too, will bring their offerings for the Swanage Food Bank. We will, as before, be supporting the Parish funds, through the sale of Christmas Cards, which will be on sale in the meeting room after the Sunday services at the end of October. St Marks’ reputation as a Party Church continues, therefore we will be planning some future social events including our Christmas Meal at the Village Inn, possibly a ‘Pizza Night’ and another ‘Gathering at The Globe,’ supporting our local hostelry! Don’t forget on Sunday 27th October, British Summer Time Ends, and so the clocks go back – giving us an extra hour in bed. How lovely!!May God Bless and Keep YouAnne Roper Church Warden
