Adverts

Christmas adverts are upon us! For me this is one of the best I have seen so far from Amazon Prime depicting a friendship between a Vicar and an Imam. Watch it here.

Disturb us, Lord

I was reminded of this great prayer recently which is attributed to Sir Francis Drake...

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves.
When our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little.
When we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we posses
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity,
And in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas,
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes,
And to push into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.

Light Party

On Sunday 30th October Churches Together in Oadby hosted a Light Party at St Peter's.
Here are a few photo's of some of the activites they got up to as they focused on Jesus as the Light of the World.

Confirmation

Lou writes...What an amazing evening celebrating the faith of these 5 young people! It was such a privilege and I’m so proud of them all.

It’s such a blessing to work with our young people and I feel incredibly proud seeing them confirm their faith tonight. They are caring, loving, humble, compassionate, courageous, inspiring and generous followers of Jesus and tonight was a lovely way to celebrate them and thank God for them. Here’s one very proud youth worker

Praise God for all he is doing in and through their lives and how they bring love, light hope and Jesus to others. Please remember them and all of our young people in your prayers

To see a video of their story visit here. 

Friday Night Youth Glow Party

Last night we had a great time at our Glow Party with our pals from the Baptist church joining us

Lots of food, face paint, glow sticks, fun, and creativity later we finished with a Harry Potter clip, a reminder of the power of light in the darkness and Jesus’ help and light and hope in our tough times and of course rounded off with goodie bags!

Thanks to everyone who came and made it a fab evening

“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot extinguish it.” John 1:5

Music choices

This morning I shared with the congregation the challenge I find in choosing songs! In the style of Songs of Praise I had invited 4 members to pick their favourite and introduce it, saying why they had chosen it.
Thank you to Pat, Beryl, Kate & Emmanuel who did just that. It was great to hear the reason why they had chosen the songs and gave extra meaning to them as we sung together.

Youth Weekend Away

This is a video sharing some of St Paul's Youth weekend away. Our theme was Life and Faith survival looking at what Jesus, Bear Grylls and penguins can teach us about how we face life and it's ups and downs, how we prepare, how we keep going, how we need each other, how we share our story and how we face the adventure ahead. We made bread, kites, and bags, we did sports, and games and had a cool campfire with marshmallows and some valuable and precious time with God. Feeling so inspired and amazed by our young people and all that God is doing in their lives and excited for possible baptisms in the new year! :) Here are just a few of the photos from the weekend.

Harvest

Today we held our Harvest Celebrations and collected food for the Welcome Project and for Oadby Food Bank. We focused on the story of Ruth who went over and beyond what was expected of her in caring for Naomi and of Boaz who over and beyond what was expected of him in his care of Ruth. May we be generous with all we have and be willing to go over and beyond in our love and service of those in need.

All Good Gifts around Us!

The Coffee Pot group at St Pauls had a Harvest Lunch today. Unlike most Christian festivals, there is no fixed date, but our Harvest Festival service is this Sunday. Before I lunch, Steve Bailey, our vicar, talked about the meaning of harvest and of how, despite our hard work, we are impotent to bring it to completion. We were further reminded of our dependence on God as we sang the well-known harvest hymn “All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above – so thank the Lord for all his love.”

 

We then tucked into a most delicious home-made mixed vegetable soup, with different crusty rolls and sandwiches. We ended with delicious desserts and tea or coffee (Plus After 8 Mints).

 

There were then donations and raffle tickets to help Riding for disabled children.

 

We have a lot to be thankful for – and our thanks go to the team who had made and provided all the food.

Growing young leaders

Follow this link to watch a short video of our youth worker Lou talking about growing young leaders through her work with our young people.