Services This Week
Dear All,
Services this week are taking place in person or via livestream through our YouTube Channel. Please find gathering times and service sheet links below. Also, please note that this Sunday there will not be a 9am BCP service, due to clergy holidays.
Friday 1 November
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Jeremy Morris)
Sunday 3 November / All Saints’ Sunday
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘The Feast of All Saints’
Service Sheet: Here
Other notices:
Volunteer Rota: In addition to the sign-up sheet in church, we are making it easier to volunteer by attaching an online rota with the weekly email here. (N.B. There will be an initial delay before access is granted to the form, in order that only church members can see and edit it.) Please do consider if you are able to help out in any of the ways listed – we are particularly in need of regular volunteers to set-up tea and coffee and stay a little longer after each service to wash-up/leave away. Many thanks!
Giving: As always we are grateful for all of your gifts! Offerings may still be given during this time via a basket collection during live services, Standing Orders, or one time bank transfer, via BACS (Sort Code: 20-17-19 / Account Number: 30851477 / Account Name: St Edwards Church). There is now also a SumUp machine by the door of the church, for those of you who wish to give contactlessly: Simply power on, enter the amount you wish to give on the screen, and then tap your card.
Exciting Holiness (Thursday 31 October):
Martin Luther was born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony and educated at the cathedral school in Magdeburg and the university in Erfurt. He joined an order of Augustinian Hermits there and was ordained priest in 1507, becoming a lecturer in the university at Wittenberg. He became vicar of his Order in 1515, having charge of a dozen monasteries. His Christian faith began to take on a new shape, with his increasing dissatisfaction with the worship and order of the Church. He became convinced that the gospels taught that humanity is saved by faith and not by works, finding support in the writings of Augustine of Hippo. Luther sought to debate the whole matter by posting ninety-five theses or propositions on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on this day in the year 1517. The hierarchy of his day chose to see this act as a direct attack on the Church, forcing Luther into open rebellion. The Protestant Reformation spread throughout Germany, and then Europe, with many seeing it as liberation from a Church that held them in fear rather than love. Luther died in 1546, having catalysed reform throughout the whole Church, in both giving rise to Protestantism and also provoking the Catholic response to it in the form of the Counter-Reformation.
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
