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.
Friday 26 April
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Matthias Grebe)
Sunday 28 April / Fifth Sunday of Easter
11am - Holy Communion Service
Sermon: ‘The Fruit of the Vine’
Service Sheet: Here
Other news:
APCM & Church Lunch: Our annual meeting of the parish church and church lunch will be held this year after the 11am service on Pentecost Sunday (19 May 2024). If you are able to provide food/drinks for the lunch, please speak to Hosanna Greene or sign-up on the sheet by the west door. Further details to follow.
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 25 April):
John Mark was a Jew and, according to Paul’s letter to the Colossians, cousin to Barnabas. He accompanied Barnabas and Paul on their first missionary journey. Afterwards, he went to Cyprus with Barnabas and to Rome with first Paul and then Peter. Mark’s gospel is generally regarded as the earliest and was most likely written whilst he was in Rome. It was probably based as much on Peter’s preaching of the good news as on Mark’s own memory. Mark’s gospel has a sharpness and an immediacy about it and he does not spare the apostles in noting their weaknesses and lack of understanding that Jesus the Christ would suffer for the world’s redemption. Sharing in the glory of the resurrection means sharing in the giving of self, both in body and spirit, even to death; sharing the gospel was, for all, in essence both excessively generous and ultimately sacrificial.
Almighty God, who enlightened your holy Church through the inspired witness of your evangelist Saint Mark: grant that we, being firmly grounded in the truth of the gospel, may be faithful to its teaching both in word and deed; 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.
