A prayer for Brexit Day

A prayer for today...
God of hope,
in these times of change,
unite our nation
and guide our leaders with your wisdom.
Give us courage to overcome our fears,
and help us to build a future
in which all may prosper and share;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Book review - The ruthless elimination of hurry

I have recently read this book and want to recommend it to you. Based on a quotation by Dallas Willard, 'The ruthless elimination of hurry' is a written by John Mark Comer as an assessment of the challenges of modern life and how we can avoid overdoing it with all the competing demands on our time. He writes in an easily accessible way and is well read and thought through. Having explored and evidenced that hurry is a 'sickness' he then moves onto highlight 4 spiritual practices that can help us un-hurry our lives. These are silence and solitude, keeping the Sabbath, simplification and slowing. None of them are new and he gives many practical examples of how they have made a difference to his life. But I would encourage you to try them out and see the difference they can make to your everyday walk with the Lord.

Fun@4 - Daniel

On Sunday we held Fun@4, a messy church style gathering for children and their families. We looked at the story of Daniel in the Lions Den. After crafts, games and songs one of our young people did the talk by interviewing some of the characters from the story. We finished the afternoon with a tea together. Our next Fun@4 is on 15th March, do come and join us!

Michael Ramsey's 5 helps

1. Thank God. Often and always. ‘Thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow.’

2. Take care about confession of your sins. ‘As time passes the habit of being critical about people and things grow more than each of us realize.’

3. Be ready to accept humiliations. ‘They can hurt terribly but they can help to keep you humble.’

4. Don’t worry about status. ‘There is only one status that Our Lord bids us be concerned with, and that is our proximity to Him.’

5. Use your sense of humour. ‘Laugh at things, laugh at the absurdities of life, laugh at yourself.

Roberto Firmino getting Baptised as Allison Becker gets Emotional

Always a joy to see a believer being baptised but I am struck by the joy in peoples response and the emotion shown by Allison at baptising his team mate.

2020 Prayer

Hope Together is encouraging everyone to pray on the 20th of each month at 20:20 in the evening for 20 minutes for people to come to faith in Jesus during 2020.

Everyday Faith - Victoria's story: How being a Christian changed how a h...

I Am… The Bread of Life

This morning the congregation entered the church with the aroma of freshly baked bread in their noses. It has been decided that at All Age Services (held once a month) we will be considering the seven occasions recorded in John’s gospel where Jesus said: “I am…”

This morning we were considering Jesus’ saying: “I am the bread of life.” (John 6.28-35). Our rector, Steve Bailey, who had once been a pastry cook had revisited his former profession and cooked a loaf of bread. He showed us all the constituents (flour, water, milk, sugar salt and yeast) and described why they were needed and drew parallels for our Christian life.

Just as bread is a staple in our diet, so too should be our belief in Jesus and dependence on him for our forgiveness; and prayer and praise to him are essential for our spiritual life.

Farewell John & Helen

On Sunday we said Farewell to long standing members of St Paul's John & Helen. They are moving to be nearer family. Over the years they have involved in numerous areas of church life, always faithfully serving with joy and cheerfulness. From helping to run the Toddler group when it was known as Teddies through to being the St Paul's Churches Together representative Helen & John have always been actively involved. They will be sadly missed. We prayed for them on Sunday and know that they will be a real blessing to their new church family as well as the family they are moving to be with.

Principal Services — January - March

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the start of 2020.

As we enter a new year and a new decade we are going to begin with a spiritual health check. They reckon that gym attendance is really high at the beginning of a new year as people go on a health kick after the excesses of Christmas and try to start with positive resolutions. But then the reality kicks in and after a few weeks the numbers drop off and return to normal as people give up and return to old habits. No matter how long we have been on our journey of faith it can be easy to fall into habits. Much like a car has an annual MOT so it is important for us to take stock of where we are in our Every Day faith. It might be good to try something new or to tweak some of our current practises. Both the New Year and the season of Lent can be helpful in this regard. So can I encourage you to join me in a spiritual health check to develop our holy habits as every day disciples of Jesus Christ.

Every blessing,

Steve.
Details of Services