NOVEMBER CHURCH NEWS
From the
Rector’s Study
Dear All,
It is a dreadful thing when a child dies before a
parent. Our hearts go out to
Robert and Carol Lynch and the
family circle on the death of Ashleigh and we offer
them our deepest sympathies. It is hard to always understand
the ways of God. No-one can fully explain it. I was very proud of our
church family who supported the Lynch family
in
their loss and who came to pay their respects at Ashleigh’s
funeral.
What can we hold on to when things go wrong and when healing does not
happen in the way that we want it? This verse which was read at
Ashleigh’s funeral keeps coming back to me -
‘they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.’ Many of you
are weary, or face difficulties in your lives - that seems to be the
normal life! There is only one source of strength and support in these
times and it is God the Father. Whilst we do not always understand, and we
cannot always explain, yet there is still only one avenue down which we
can find comfort and renewal. Do you want your strength renewed? Then the
answer is - wait upon the Lord. Pray, wait, surrender. You will find the
strength you need to face what is around the corner. That is God’s
faithful promise, and he will not break his word.
We were delighted to welcome Arthur Burns for his
placement at the beginning of September and he has proved to be a great
asset to the church during his time with us and we want to thank him most
sincerely for his contribution and wish him every blessing as he continues
with his studies.
Pat Storey (Rector)
HEALING SERVICE Sunday
29 November, when there will also be a service of Holy Communion. Please
put this in your diary. Come to pray for yourselves, your friends and
those whom you love.
N:COUNTER Sunday
8 November at 6 30 in the Church hall will be led by Titch and will focus
on the story of Mary and Martha. All are welcome!
KIDZ KLUB SPECIAL Sunday
29 November—a speaker from Christian Aid will come to Kidz Klub to talk
to the children and young people about the Bishops’ Appeal this
year—Flush Out Poverty. We
have already looked at how we might save money and water in our October
Family service, and many of you are now putting pennies away when you
spend a penny(!) and are counting your sheets of toilet paper! The project
will teach children about the value of water as a resource, and how we can
help people who have no access to clean water.
LEAH LUNCH takes
place as usual on Monday 2nd November. Please tell the Rector
if you cannot come. We always welcome new members. If anyone out there
would like to come and enjoy a great hot lunch, a good bit of craic and
some spiritual food too then let the Rector know and come and join us!
LEAH COOKBOOK
www.leahcookbook.com As
many of you are aware the LEAH lunch has been so successful that we want
to continue it for as long as possible. In order to make this happen we
need to raise funds for the project and thus we are launching a cookbook
for the LEAH project. Ivan Taylor will be giving us all his secret recipes
for his soups and stews, and the Ladies’ Guild helpers will be
contributing recipes for their tray bakes. The cookbook will be a really
glossy and professional publication and will be priced at the bargain
price of £4.99. We hope that you will all buy several copies for your
Christmas gifts this year! The cookbook will be for sale at the Ladies’
Guild sale on Saturday 7th November, and will be launched the
week after the sale. Please do support this effort and encourage our LEAH
folk. We are extremely grateful to Shane Smith who has given his services
in publishing to this project and has designed a superb cookbook for us
all to read over Christmas! The effort that Ivan and Elma have put into this
project is unbelievable. They have procured the services of Shane free,
organised a publisher, and spent hours setting out the photographs and
print for printing. The thanks that they would appreciate is that we all
would do our part to make the cookbook an overwhelming success.
VESTRY MEETING
Monday 9th
November 7.30pm
KIDZ KLUB BOOKSTALL
on Sunday 15 November after the
family service. Normally we have had this in June when we finish for the
Summer but this year there was too much going on in June and we decided to
hold it in November instead. Every child will get a voucher to spend at
the bookstall which will be set up in the choir room for the children to
spend during the tea after the service.
CARE FOR THE FAMILY
are
running a seminar on How To Raise Teenagers in the White Horse Hotel on
Monday 9th November at 7.30pm. If you have teenagers, or are
about to have them - then this seminar is for you! It should be very
instructive and a bit of fun.
SITTING DUCKS attended
a choir rehearsal and joined with the singers for the October Family
Service. They also had a demonstration on the organ and were given copies
of ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Church Music’ written by the
organist— Jim is not only an excellent organist. The aim of these
activities was to give our young people an experience in church music and
an idea of what our organist and choir do each Sunday.
CHRISTMAS CRECHE—
Saturday 14 November sees the
opening of our Christmas creche to allow our young parents to go and shop
child-free for a few hours. This is a one-off event just to see how it
goes and what the demand for this service is - if lots of parents turn up
we will do it again in December for a Saturday morning. Please do come and
let less exhausted adults look after your children while you have peace to
shop! All volunteers will have been through Safeguarding Trust. We look
forward to seeing you on Saturday 14 November 10.30am-1pm.
Ladies’
Guild
Sale
Saturday
7 November
10
30— 12 noon
Admission
£2.00
This is a substantial fundraiser for our church and we
do appreciate the hard work that the ladies put into this annual coffee
morning and sale. It is rather pointless if we do not get people coming,
so please put the date in your diary and come and support us! There will
be lovely cakes, crafts and bric-a-brac for sale along with our newly
published LEAH Project Cookbook. Please come, have a coffee, buy some
tasty things, and a cookbook(!) and have a morning of fellowship together.
The
November meeting of the Ladies’ Guild will
be held on Thursday 5 November at 7.30 in the Church Hall. The guest
speakers will be Bishop Ken and Mrs Mary Good who will give a talk
entitled ‘Faith Story in words and Music’. All ladies are welcome to
this meeting.
CROWN JESUS launched
their prayer event on Saturday 24 October at which Bishop Ken Clarke
spoke. It was an inspiring event with worship, prayer and teaching and it
was good to meet with lots of other churches in the district who will be
joining with us to support the Crown Jesus campaign which aims to bring a
new depth of faith to us all, and to attract newcomers to the Christian
faith. Please look out for the publicity in your local papers when the
campaign begins in the new year. There will be a course called Lost for
Words on Wednesday evenings to help to train us to talk to our friends
about our faith. There will also be youth and children’s events and much
else. We look forward to the Crown Jesus campaign in early 2010.
PRAYER MEETINGS continue
fortnightly at 6pm on Monday evenings in the office. Please do come along
if you would like to pray for someone you love, or even if you want half
and hour to sit in peace and quiet in God’s presence.
FUNERAL - ASHLEIGH LYNCH
24th October
As a church family, we were greatly saddened at the
death of little Ashleigh (15 years) who was regularly a part of our
worship. Ashleigh had her own space made in one of the pews for her
wheelchair and we got so used to seeing her worship with us. Our thoughts
and prayers are with Robert and Carol, David, Gillian and Kirsty on the
passing of a much loved family member. Ashleigh will always be remembered
as a sunny, pleasant, and extremely well looked after child. We offer our
sincerest sympathies to the family circle.
Church News information supplied by W
McSparron, B Sc., M.A. (Magazine Editor)
Website maintained by David Ferguson
