Wednesday 1 May 2024

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Thank you to all of you who attended the AGM last Sunday. It was good to be able to publicly thank Martin Browne who has stepped down as Church Warden after 5 years of faithful and committed service in this role. Please do pray for Sue Higson and Pieter Perrett who are now our current Church Wardens. Please also pray for our 4 new Council members: Emanuel Peter, Vinitha Jacob, Susan Spaelti, and Adiza Babatunde, as well as our 'old' members. I am confident that the new Council will work well together.

Prayers for Healing
At our Eucharist this Sunday, 5th May, there will be opportunity to receive prayers for hope and healing, during or after the service. Such prayer is part of the ministry of the church. During the service those who wish to will be able to come forward for laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and a simple prayer. The prayer is below:

'I anoint you in the name of God who gives you life.
Receive Christ's forgiveness, his healing and his love.
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
grant you the riches of his grace,
his wholeness and his peace.
Amen'

For those who prefer more informal prayer, David and Cecily, Donna and I will be in church during coffee time for anyone who wishes to receive prayer. We will invite you to say briefly what this is for, though this is not a counselling session but a time for prayer.

Ascension Day, 9th May
There will be a Eucharist at 10am on Thursday to celebrate the Ascension of Christ. This is an important festival in the church year, so do come along if you can.

Baptism of Praise Aduba
It will be a joy to baptise Praise on Sunday, 12th May at our All Age Eucharist. Please do pray for her parents Rowland and Goodness, and her older sister, Purity.

Books, Books, Books!
Quite a few of you have borrowed books from David and me from time to time - typically books about the Bible, Christian beliefs, prayer etc. We are delighted to share our books in this way. If there is a topic on which you would like to borrow a book, please let us know. ... Related to this, however, we realise that we have not always been careful about noting to whom we have lent books, and there are now one or two we can't track down! If any of you have any books of ours, perhaps you could let us know. Here are two titles we are particularly hoping to recover: Richard B Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, Matthew Kaemingk, Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear.

LOOKING AHEAD:

Pentecost, Sunday, 19th May
Please do come along to celebrate this joyful Christian festival with us, when we give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
After the service, we will follow the tradition of the last few years, and hold our International Lunch. We invite you all to bring a savoury or sweet dish from your country, region, or culture to share. This is one of our biggest social occasions in the church year and a wonderful way to celebrate our ethnic and cultural diversity and our unity in Christ. So do put this in your diaries now!

Men's Group Retreat, Saturday 15th June, 10am-4pm, near Adelboden
Those on the Men's Group mailing list already know about this event and will get more details soon. If you are not on the mailing list and would like to hear more about this retreat or the regular meetings of this group (every 6 weeks or so for Bible study and fellowship), please let David know: revdem63@yahoo.co.uk

Reflection
This has been a long message, so I leave you with a very short reflection. Below is the final verse of Charles Wesley's hymn Christ Whose Glory Fills The Skies.
It is a prayer that the radiance of Christ will dispel our gloom and darkness, sin and grief, and that we will know more and more of his light and grace.

'Visit, then, this soul of mine,
  pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, radiancy divine,
  scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.'

With love in Christ,
Helen