Wednesday 22 September 2021

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This Sunday, 26th September, we are delighted to welcome the family and friends of Leonel Chandra, who will be baptised during the service. Please do keep Leonel and his parents, Elsie and Roberto, in your prayers. If you are unable to be in church with us you can follow the service online at: Service Resources at St Ursula's Church, Berne. We are all very thankful to Hector, Martin and Art for making this possible.

Without checking COVID certificates, we cannot admit more than 50 to church, and we are now fully booked for this Sunday. As it is likely that more than 50 will wish to attend services on coming Sundays, we are looking into the practicalities of checking COVID certificates from the following Sunday, 3 October. I will give you more details in due course.

Creation Season Challenge
Make little changes to your lifestyle, make an environmental impact, and generate some funds for Tearfund. Tearfund is a Christian charity which works in some of the poorest countries in the world to tackle poverty through sustainable development.

We will collect the money at our Harvest Festival and Pledge Service, 3rd October. Hopefully, if we all join in, we will raise a good amount of money for Tearfund. Here is the challenge. Please do join us!

For those of you who missed the recent talk on climate change by Dominic Roser, the handout is here.

Other activities in Bern in coming weeks encourage us to care for our environment and not to waste resources. You may be interested in the Foodsave Banquet and the Trash Heroes day.

Foodsave Banquet, Bern, Friday 24th September
More details can be found here: www.kulinata.ch/programm/wochenprogramm

Trash Heroes
The next clean up day is 25th September, starting at 2pm. You can find more information about Trash Heroes on their Facebook page or their website, or via email.

Harvest and Pledge Sunday, 3rd October
Looking ahead...we hope you will join us for our Harvest Festival. Alongside celebrating the gifts of creation and decorating the church with fruits and vegetables and flowers, we also invite you to make a commitment to give to the work of the church in the form of a pledge. You should already have received information about this via email. Printed copies of the information and the pledge forms will also be sent out with the magazine.

Prayers

As we remember Leonel Chandra, to be baptised this Sunday, and Joanna Babatunde, to be baptised the following Sunday, let us pray for them and their families and also pray that we will be faithful to our own baptism.

Faithful and loving God,
bless those who care for Leonel, and those who care for Joanna,
and grant them your gifts of love, wisdom, and faith.
Pour upon them your healing and reconciling love,
and protect their homes from evil.
Fill them with the light of your presence
and establish them in the joy of your kingdom,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

God of grace and life,
in your love you have given us
a place among your people;
keep us faithful to our baptism,
and prepare us for that glorious day
when the whole creation will be made perfect
in your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

With love in Christ,
Helen