Tuesday 14 May 2024

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

It was a great joy to baptise Praise Aduba last Sunday. Welcoming Praise into our church reminds us that we are an international community, who are one in Christ, drawn together by the Spirit.

This coming Sunday, 19th May, is Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first disciples, and pray for the Spirit's work among us today. Please do join us for this important Christian festival.

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. Please do label the dish, saying what it is, whether it is vegetarian or contains meat, and whether it is spicy or not!
This is one of our biggest social occasions in the church year and a wonderful way to celebrate our ethnic and cultural diversity, yet our unity in Christ. So don't miss out!

Thy Kingdom Come
In this period coming up to Pentecost, we are encouraged to participate in the prayer movement called Thy Kingdom Come. This started in 2016, when the Archbishop Justin Welby invited Christians in the Church of England to pray between Ascension Day and Pentecost for people to come to know the love of Jesus Christ. This movement now involves different churches of different denominations all round the world. It is suggested that each one of us prays daily during this period for 5 people who do not yet know Jesus and his love for them.
There are many resources we can use to help us to pray. I sent these out in an email last week. If you have mislaid these resources, please do ask me and I can send them to you again.

Summer Fête, Saturday 1st June, 10:00 - 15:00 This is one of our big annual fundraising and community events, so please do get involved! We will have our usual extensive book stall, food stall, cake stall, tombola, games for children outside, and restaurant. This year we will also be serving some African specialities amongst other things.

We need HELP in various ways:

• donations for our TOMBOLA stall (please put in the red box in the Upper Hall
• making cakes for our cake stall
• help in running our restaurant
• help clearing up at the end

If you can help in any way, please let Maria in the office know: office@stursula.ch
But the main thing is to come along and bring your friends.

Confirmation
We are hoping there will be another confirmation service in the Autumn. If you would like to be confirmed (or baptized and confirmed) please let me know as soon as possible so that we can organize some preparatory meetings to think further about the faith. This is for adults and for young people (usually over 15, as we prepare children to receive communion earlier, therefore encouraging confirmation at a later age).

Reflections on the Spirit
As we approach Pentecost, let us pray for a deeper openness to the Spirit in our own personal life, prayer and relationship with God, and in our life and worship together. The quotations below may help us reflect and pray.

'Hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.' (Romans 5:5)

'Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness: for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.' (Romans 8:26)

'For in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit' (1 Corinthians 12:13)

'The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of relationship: as he opens up to the Father and the Son, he opens us up to one another as well.' (Tom Smail)

With love in Christ,
Helen