Thanks and reflection

The service of thanksgiving and prayer for the NHS and other frontline workers has been hugely welcomed and reflected the gratitude and creativity of our community as well as the importance of prayer for many of us (online searches for information about prayer have skyrocketed since the outbreak of Coronavirus began).

Our thanks to the masses of people who were involved in the service which Alan and Lesley put together: Farnham Heath End School; the Scouts; people across the community who sent in beautiful rainbows and other works; keyworkers who allowed themselves to be photographed and the pictures shown as Olivia Jasper sang Amazing Grace; church members; the Mayor of Farnham, Pat Evans; and local MP, Jeremy Hunt.

Lesley Crawley reflected on the service: “I have been bowled over by the gratitude of others for this service and I hope it is enabling others to take their thoughts and anxieties and feelings of gratitude and turn them into prayers. For me, I find prayer always helps; it always makes me feel more peaceful and bit by bit it makes me a better version of myself. In the case of a nation praying it gives us a helpful and even hopeful way of expressing our concerns and worries and also a way of focussing on the good and being grateful for that.”

Sunday Worship – 3rd May

Below are the services for this week. In addition there are two sermons at the bottom – one from Craig and one from the bishop.

We are learning all the time – one of the challenges has been technology – we have needed to buy software licenses to create the videos, an upgrade to our copyright license to enable us to play hymns and an upgrade to our website to allow us to put videos on it. At the same time we have lost all the income from our hall hire and the plate giving. If you find you are better off due to the lockdown (perhaps less expenditure on going out) then please can you help? The details for the Treasurer are on the Who’s Who page. We are looking at how to get online giving working.

We have also been learning about copyright – we wanted to re-start our Open the Book ministry. However, both the Bible that we use and the prayers would breach copyright if we streamed them on video. Fortunately, the Open the Book team are streaming them and so I have added that to the children’s page, along with the largest school assembly including a message from Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

If you missed any of the plethora of sermons last week you can find them on this page. Next week Wendy Edwards is creating a special service for us – one for the VE Day celebrations, including music from the Sea Cadets and a reading from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment. This will replace the St John’s service, but there will be regular St Mark’s and St George’s Services.

Services

St Marks:

St George’s:

St John’s:

Sermons

A sermon from Craig

A sermon from the Bishop for Vocations Sunday

Thanksgiving and Prayer for our NHS and key workers

Welcome to this service to say thank-you to all NHS staff and key workers and to pray for them and for our nation. Includes rainbows, clapping, singing and prayers from our whole community.

 

Special thanks to:

Farnham Heath End School

Hale Scouts

Keyworkers who sent in their photos

Artists young and old

Olivia and June Jasper for the singing

Members of the congregation for praying

Pat Evans, our Mayor

Jeremy Hunt, our MP

Worship for 3rd Sunday of Easter, St George’s Day and St Mark’s Day

Hello, today we have a veritable smorgasbord of services for you, a completely different one for each of our churches including different sermons. Perhaps you can enjoy them all through the week.

At St John’s we have an Easter 3 service looking at the story of Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, St George’s are celebrating St George’s Day with an All Age service and St Mark’s are celebrating St Mark’s Day.

In the bonus pieces below is video showing a way of reflecting on the Emmaus Road – especially good for younger people, with lots of wondering questions. There is also a piece asking the question “Isn’t the Bible sexist” with a lovely quote from Dorothy Sayers – this relates to Lesley’s St John’s sermon. Also, a play and Allelu, Allelu – a couple of highlights from the St George’s service! St Mark’s discussed what they miss about going to church, you can see the answers here. Also I have added the sermons (6 of them!) at the bottom, including one from Bishop Jo.

St John’s

St George’s – St George’s Day

St Mark’s – St Mark’s Day

Happy Birthday

to Tricia & Christine C.

Bonus Pieces

The Gospel Reading, Godly Play version – The Emmaus Road.

Relating to Lesley’s Easter 3 sermon:

Feel free to do the actions:

Sermons

Serving the Villages North of Farnham: Badshot Lea, Hale, Heath End & Weybourne