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. Congregants are warmly invited to bring any candles that they wish to have blessed to this Sunday’s 11am Candlemas service.
Friday 7 February
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Matthias Grebe)
Sunday 9 February / Fourth Sunday Before Lent
11am - BCP Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘Christ Died for our Sins in Accordance with the Scriptures’
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 6 February):
The Martyrs of Japan – Almost fifty years after Francis Xavier had arrived in Japan as its first Christian apostle, the presence of several thousand baptized Christians in the land became a subject of suspicion to the ruler Hideyoshi, who soon began a period of persecution. Twenty-six men and women, religious and lay, were first mutilated then crucified near Nagasaki in 1597, the most famous of whom was Paul Miki. After their martyrdom, their blooded clothes were kept and held in reverence by their fellow Christians. The period of persecution continued for another thirty-five years, many new witness-martyrs being added to their number.
Almighty God, by whose grace alone we are accepted and called to your service: as we remember your servants in 16th-century Japan who, strengthened by your Holy Spirit, bore faithful witness to Christ in the midst of great persecution, so strengthen us by your Spirit and make us worthy of our calling; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
