Revd John

Sixteen of us there in the evening including the preacher, the Rev John. He took as his text the passage from Luke where the disciples ask Jesus to tell them how to pray. Rev John emphasized the bit where it says 'You that are evil know how to give good things to those who ask... how much more will your Father give you. He will give you the Holy Spirit if you ask.' Most of the talk was given up to the conflict between us trying to be good and ending up often falling.

Alan and Margaret VSO

Alan Rickman is off to The Gambia with Margaret his wife to do 2 years VSO. This was their last Sunday with us. In countries like the Gambia people often need to spend much of their time just to get the basic necessities of life like water, walking long distances, and often it is not clean. We were encouraged to put money aside for a Unicef appeal whenever we feel grateful for our easy access to water.

Malcolm's last Service

Revd Malcolm led his last Sunday Service. (On the Good Samaritan and who is your neigbour). It was fairly low key which was good. We sang his favourite hymn 'Oh Lord all the World belongs to you'. He also spoke about a girl called Helen who the NCH helped. She had started to self harm whenever her parents fought. The external pain which she inflicted on herself she could control. It was better than the internal pain... Anyway...

After the service, there was a Bar-B-Q and games on the church lawn.

URC Synod

Today the URC Synod for Wessex met at our church. Approximately 200 delegates from all over Wessex came to the church. Revd Malcolm got a group of us to do some Taize singing as a sort of warm up. I spoke to our violinist afterwards, she said it was wonderful worshipping God like that. We left the delegates to their serious business - after our quite rousing session culminating in 'Magnificat'.

They shall not grow old

St Helen's Church is closed this year, and so the annual remembrance service moved to our church this year. The church was packed. Revd Malcolm Atherton spoke rather of peace. He wore a red and a white poppy (something I heard some grumbles about).

After the half hour service, all the uniformed groups, and the band, and town council marched to the war memorial - newly cleaned - for the reading of those lines by Lawrence Binyon

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them......we will remember them.

Fairtrade Harvest

Revd Malcolm, with the help of some children enacting the parts, told us of the life of a tea picker in Sri Lanka. Her standard of living had not gone up in the last 40 years. We all found out thats ours had, but the price we pay for her part in the tea picking had not gone up 'in real terms.' But by us buying Fair Trade tea, she got a little more,and we payed a little more. A just price.

Lord of the Dance

Sarah gave birth to a little boy yesterday. He is to be called Daniel Oliver, This news got a great round of applause in church .... Another baby was baptised during the service this morning. We sang 'Lord of the Dance' and 'All things bright and beautiful.' two songs which are often chosen by the parents of baptised parents ...