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

Are You Part of the Story?

On the Sunday after Christmas a lot of people, including many clergy are away. St Paul's and St Peter's therefore joined together at St Peters to celebrate Communion. The service was led by Canon Chris Oxley who also preached. He spoke about the importance of Christianity being rooted in real events, rather than myths, teaching or philosophy. Were we part of the story? Did Christ's birth and death impact on our lives?


Chris told us that during the vacancy at St Peters he would be back on other occasions. We look forward to welcoming him.

Christmas Family Communion Service

An excited congregation met at 10.00 Christmas day for the family Christmas Communion service. Bright Christmas sweaters were much in evidence. And many had brought Christmas presents they had already opened. Steve (our rector) asked people what experience they had had of celebrating Christmas in the different corners of the world. There were a variety of answers. In his sermon he highlighted the joy of being part of the worldwide church – all worshipping the one who came to the earth at Bethlehem – the one who called for our worship – and our hearts, today.

The celebrations concluded with Sherry and biscuits after the service

Happy Christmas!

It Came upon the Midnight Clear

At 11:30 PM just over 30 people met at St Pauls to celebrate the birthday of Christ, Christmas. With Christmas readings and carols we celebrated that first event, concluding with a celebration of Holy Communion at which we remembered the purpose of Christ’s coming at Bethlehem – to die 30 years later in Jerusalem, as a sacrifice for the  sins of humanity – and to offer eternal life.

Carols by Candlelight

We had a full church this evening (Sunday 22 December) for our service of carols by candlelight. In it we remembered the Christmas story – of how the God of creation became a baby in Bethlehem to share in our experience and then to die for us. We used carols, readings from the Bible and poems. A particular innovation this year was a group with a Tamil background who not only sang the beginning of a traditional Carol in Tamil, but also a Tamil lullaby to the Virgin Mary with her child. It reminded us that Christians all around the world are celebrating the birth of the Christ child at this time.

OUTSIDE/IN – Welcome into the Christmas story

Intercultural Worship

As we continue to explore what it means to be an intercultural worshiping community I am looking forward to our Carols by Candlelight this Sunday evening. During the service we will sing O Come all ye Faithful with the first verse and chorus sung in Tamil. Also in the service a small group will sing a lullaby in Tamil. 

As well as the usual Mince Pies and Mulled Wine after the service there will also be Samosas! 

Do come and join us!

Supertroopers Crafts

One of our leaders of Supertroopers (our primary school aged Sunday morning group) enjoys making things out of wood. Each time the children come back into church we are amazed at the creation he has come up with to help illustrate the Bible story.
A couple of weeks ago as they were exploring the Christmas story we were presented with this balancing machine and we had to guess if the statements were True or False. Once on the scales the correct answer was revealed!
The children thoroughly enjoyed it and everyone in church was impressed.
Thank you Derek for your faithful service in Supertroopers and for all your excellent woodwork crafts and games.

Bishops' Christmas Message

Bishops' Christmas Message