Mick Wall

Patronal Day

by

On the 7th July please join us in the Vicarage Garden

Please sign up if you can offer help and what food you are able to bring and share.

Sign-up sheets at the back of church.

Looking forward to sharing a great afternoon with the extended family.

First Aid training

by

So everyone that visits us can feel safe we had some first aid training. Not only was it very informative it was made fun.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Many thanks to Jennifer for giving up her evening to run the training.

More information and even some online training can be found on the red cross website https://www.redcross.org.uk/first-aid

Evensong

by

Looking for a different service? Why not try evensong, available at St John’s this Sunday.

South Norwood Community Festival (SNCF)

by

John – one of our church members is organising this fantastic local event, so if you are looking for things to do please add this to your diaries.

Click the picture for a detailed list of events.

Hannah leaves us today

by

Well after 3 years today is Hannah’s last official day with us.

Please stay on after the 10am service to say goodbye to Hannah, James, Molly and Tabitha.

We thank God for blessing us with your presence.

Informal Worship

by

This Sunday see’s informal worship return to St Johns

As the name suggests this is a much more relaxed service You can help yourself to coffee and cake during the service and the music is has a more modern slant.

Here is a selection from this weeks service

There is also no “sermon”, but the teaching section is much more interactive – you can be as involved in this as you wish.

If you have never tried this before it would be great to see you – everyone is welcome.

TT4G – 28 May

by

The church will be open from 08:00 to 09:30 tomorrow, 28th May. Why not take the opportunity to make space in your day to pray for the things that are important to you.

Inclusive church

by

I realise the website tends to have lots of information about what happening at our church, events, services etc. This post is a little different

At our recent APCM our vicar (Lu Gale) asked us to think about joining the inclusive church so I’ve been doing a little reading in preparation for an upcoming PCC meeting.

There is a lot of information on there and I hate to take a snippet out of context but I saw this and thought I should share it. It was a briefing paper on the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Guidance on using the Affirmation of Baptismal Faith with transgender people. In that paper there are some questions and answers, the last one struck a chord, here it is

Q. What might transgender people be looking for from their church?

A. For the Church to

  • signal that trans people are welcome
  • be a safe space for them, and for family and friends journeying with them
  • listen and learn from their experience
  • be a place where they are not required to hide who they are
  • recognise the honesty and integrity of their particular journey within the love of Christ
  • understand that their experience is about being true to their own sense of self
  • have their loved ones supported and their relationships affirmed
  • be open to their requests for prayer & offer resources to mark significant life events
  • treat them equally with everyone else in the ministry and mission of the church
  • not presume that they have automatically fallen from grace just for being who they are

I read the above thinking that sounds pretty much the same list that anyone would have.

The whole article can be found here.

Please continue to pray and think about what your response will be when asked about this topic.