Latest news from St Johns
January 2020 news is now available online, to peruse at your digital leisure.
The bird survey is not on the online version but as you must be connected to be reading this, so why not head on over the the RSPB website to see what it’s all about?
Today’s lectionary reading is from 1 John 4: 7-10
7Â Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Â Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love… 12Â No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Here are some prayers from Inclusive Church for Epiphany, which we celebrated on Sunday:
You share your love with every people;
we draw limits of race and creed.
Lord have mercy
You immerse yourself in love of life;
we hold back in fear and shame.
Christ have mercy
You change the water into wine;
we refuse to let our hearts be moved.
Lord have mercy
Christ has broken down the dividing wall that made us strangers to one another;
he has made us one humanity
that God might be all in all;
he is our life, our hope, our peace.
A poem
by Christopher Herbert, entitled Hedgehogs:
The hedgehogs
come snuffling and scuffling
through the garden
like old men walking along a path
Lord, thank you for the strangeness of hedgehogs.
At the beginning of this new year, we thank God for all that comes from the edges of our understanding and experience; and for all that challenges us from the highways and along the hedgerows, pointing us to deeper ways to love and pray. May we walk a wiser path and delight in your presence with us O God. When we feel our own prickliness to difference and put limits on your love, speak to us by your Spirit and immerse us in your love for all you have made and all who seek you. Christ, be our peace. Amen.
Steven Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church, Canterbury Press 2008, p.149
Christopher Herbert, Prayers for Children, The National Society and Church House Publishing, 1993, p.48
This weekend the cinema returns to St John’s. This is our own fundraising initiative, all profits go to the church nothing is siphoned away for any other purpose.
Here are our two shows for you to choose from.
Tickets can be booked online or purchased on the door.
Our sponsor a shingle initiative will close at the end of the year. So there is just a few more hours to go. This may well be the only chance you ever get to have your name as part of the fabric of St John’s.
Sponsor a shingle today to avoid missing out.
Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of the fabric of the building for many years to come.
You still have time. Click the button below to sponsor a shingle today
Crib service starts at 5pm
Today is the last Sunday of Advent as we continue our prepartion for Jesus coming.
We have an 8am and 10am service today, all are welcome to come and celebrate with us
” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16
Our Carol Service is this Sunday in the evening, so our next Healing and Wholeness Service will be in January. As we look forward to celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, we pray for all in need of healing – body, mind and spirit – over this Christmas time.
In Church, at the entrance to the Chapel, we have prayer cards and lights for anyone to bring their requests to our Lord, at this time when we can all experience sadness and worry as well as joy. We offer our thanks for the gift of Jesus, and for answered prayer. We also remember loved ones no longer with us on earth, and pray for their eternal rest in God’s Kingdom; and for the tender mercies of our God to touch and heal all those who struggle at this time.
If anyone has prayer requests or would like to talk, please ask our Vicar or a member of the ministry team.
May the Lord Jesus, Wonderful Counsellor and Prince of Peace, bless and us and keep us, and those we love and pray for, over the coming weeks. Amen.
The cinema has now finished for this, its opening year. Many thanks to everyone who has come to support this monthly fund raiser you have been brilliant.
The effort involved converting the church into a cinema on a Saturday and back ready for 8am Sunday cannot be overstated, the team invloved have been brilliant – thank you very much.
We will be back very early in the new year, January the 4th so please get the date in your diaries now and come to see us.
All the details are on the cinema page but the January films are
The doors will be open, Bar, Hot dogs and sweet shop waiting.
