Gift Service

At the end of the gift service, one well loved lady was taken ill at the back. All became quiet and Revd Diana  told us we would wait until the lady had been cared for. Paramedics came after a few minutes. People prayed.

Replacement Interim Moderator

Revd Diana is the new Interim Moderator. While we are waiting to get a new minister we have a guiding moderator. Revd  Martin had to leave us as Interim Moderator for some unexplained reason. Diana is his replacement and she took the healing service this eveing. She spoke about Jesus treating people in lots of different ways, as individuals, there was not just one magic technique, just love findings its own way.

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.