Discipleship News

Discipleship News

Prayers

Loving God,
this life is so short,
and this lockdown is so long.
Grant me health and patience and hope
so that I may serve your purposes,
now, and in the days of freedom that will come.
Amen.

God of all wisdom, we lift to you
all who make decisions that bring life or death.
Let them be driven by the needs of people,
not their own pride.
Let them be guided by the need for justice,
not their own advancement.
Let their heads and hearts be seized
with a desire for a world
in which rich and poor, black and white, male and female
live without fear of any kind.
Amen.

Prayer for Churches

A prayer of the Churches’ Commission for Racial Justice:

Lord, Jesus Christ
who reached across the ethnic boundaries
between Samaritan, Roman and Jew,
who offered fresh sight to the blind and freedom to captives,
help us to break down the barriers in our community,
enable us to see the reality of racism and bigotry,
and free us to challenge and uproot it
from ourselves, our society and our world.
Amen.

A prayer of the Nupa people of Nigeria:

May the whole town have health:
May it have to eat;
May it have to drink;
May the whole town have health.

Using your daily exercise as an act of worship

The Sanctuary Centre has an extensive website of resources for worship that is rooted in everyday life. Their latest addition reimagines the trees, paths, rocks and sky of a walk as if they were prayer stations, with Bible readings, prompts to prayer, and actions. Click on the link half way down this web page, entitled God Revealed in Creation – prayer walk. The rest of the website is also worth exploring by any individual or group for whom creative ideas would help refresh their life of prayer.

http://www.thesanctuarycentre.org/whereworldandworshipmeet-prayerstations.html

Tree

Online retreat

Changing Times is a retreat hosted online by St Augustine’s College of Theology. It offers four weeks of prayer and reflection on the changes taking place in our lives as we respond to the changes taking place in our world. What lasting difference will the time we have spent in lockdown make to the shape of our lives? It begins on Sunday 14 June. Each week there is a podcast and a downloadable leaflet with prayer and reflection exercises. It is led by Chris Chapman and it is free. Register here:

https://staugustinescollege.ac.uk/register

Lockdown pilgrimage to the Holy Land

While international travel is impossible St George’s College, Jerusalem, is creating a series of films which introduce the holy sites as a way of taking a virtual pilgrimage. The films available so far are about Bethlehem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxATteu9tLY&t=20s

and Nazareth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJF0t3t0Lcg

Science and Faith summer school

Telling a Better Story: Why Faith and Science Belong Together is the 2020 Faraday Institute summer course. It takes place online from Monday 29 June to Friday 3 June. Each day there will be lectures by distinguished contributors, and group discussions. It is free and participants can join some or all of the webinars. Details of the programme and registration details are here:

www.faraday.institute/TellingABetterStory

Beatitudes

An extract from 2020 Vision, by Southwark Diocese resident Emma Rowlands:

Blessed are you who are sick and suffering
May you be loved intensively.

Blessed are you who are unable to attend your own relative’s funeral
May you be comforted.

Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for immunity:
Immunity from disease; immunity from despair; immunity from fear.
May you enjoy health, healing and wholeness.

Blessed are you poor and you poorer than ever
The pearl of great price is waiting for you.

Blessed are you health care workers, shop assistants, and loo roll makers
# we will remember.

Blessed are you teachers, educators, home school parents, pupils and students
You are all to be called the rainbow children of God.

Blessed are you who are computer literate,
who show the rest of us how to reach out beyond our separation.
For now we see but through a screen darkly, yet soon we shall meet face to face ...

Blessed are we who can no longer travel to our church, synagogue, temple, mosque, or meeting.
Love is in our midst. Exactly where we are.

Blessed are we who are dazzled by new 2020 vision
For a new way of being, a new heaven, a new earth.

Quotable quotes

Tracey Thorn, writer and singer (Everything But the Girl):

I’ve always been an atheist, or at least I’ve always thought so ... But I’ve backed off a bit now. I find myself most mornings walking around the weathered, leaning gravestones of the churchyard. If the church doors were open I think I’d go inside. Maybe I’d sort of pray.

I find myself having conversations inside my own head and I wonder, is this a prayer? Being in the churchyard encourages the thought. I talk to my mum, who has been dead for nearly ten years. ‘Mum,’ I say/think, ‘you won’t believe what’s happening. There’s a pandemic and we all have to stay indoors. Like, indefinitely. It’s really, really weird. And I’m a bit sad and scared.’ I wait for her answer, but I can’t quite catch it.

A friend tells me her parents have a memorial stone in the churchyard, so I go and find it, and stand in front of their names. After a few minutes I reach out and touch the plaque and say, awkwardly, a kind of ‘bless you’ to them. And is that a prayer?

Stormzy, Croydon-born rapper and grime songwriter, on winning the Sandford St Martin award for contributing to the public’s understanding of religion:

Every award I've ever collected, whatever achievement I've ever had, I’ve always been vocal about the fact that it's not possible without God. He’s the reason why I'm here today. He’s the reason that I'm able to have a career ... A lot of the time I get non-believers saying. ‘Don't thank God. This wasn’t God. This was all you.’ But I know this wasn’t all me. This was God.

Miroslav Volf, Croatian theologian currently teaching at Yale University:

Hope is love stretched into the future.

And a memory of those distant days of Summer 2019 when we used to have church services ...

From the Yoxmere Fisherman parish magazine, which is distributed in East Suffolk:

St Peter’s Church, Westleton. Animal service 11.00am. Everyone welcome, even without a pet. When the service is over there will be a barbecue.

With best wishes
Peter

Peter Graystone
Lay Training Officer
Diocese of Southwark

Deborah Mathews, 18/06/2020

Hello and welcome to our church. If you are a new visitor, we have a page for you to get to know us and learn more about planning a visit.
Click here to see more.

Visitors click here

Planning your Visit

New to Church?

The following information is specifically for those planning a visit, so that you know, beforehand, what to expect on a Sunday morning.

Where and When

We meet at St Margaret’s Church for our Sunday Services . We now have two services of differing styles on offer, Holy Communion will be celebrated at one of these services every week.

The first service starts at 8:45am and this will be BCP (Book of Common Prayer) traditional worship with hymns.

The second service starts at 10:15am and will be more contemporary worship with band led music. Groups for under 18's will be held, starting off in church together. Communion will be held at one service each week.

We will hold a Unified service at 10am celebrating the best of both traditions. This will be for occasions such as Remembrance Sunday, Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and our Patronal Festival. We will also come together as one church family when there is a 5th Sunday in the month.

For your first visit, we recommend arriving 10-15 minutes early to ensure you get a parking space and find somewhere to sit before the service begins. When you arrive, you will be greeted by someone on our Sides Team, please make yourself known, that you are visiting for the first time so that we may give you a welcome pack.

We serve tea, coffee and biscuits after each service. It is a great way to meet people, or simply take time to find your bearings. All refreshments are free.

Accessibility: There is wheelchair access, and a sound loop for anyone who needs it. Please let one of the Sides Team know on your arrival and they will help you to get set up. There is also a disabled toilet and baby changing facilities.

Our Service

Each service begins with a warm welcome from our Rector. We have a mixture of services, comprising of Morning Prayer, Holy Communion, BCP Communion, Morning Worship and All Together. Our music is organ and band. We typically have 3 or 4 songs. We then share news and notices, usually about what’s going on in the life of the church. Our Rector will then give a sermon that is bible based and that we can apply to our everyday life. We then finish with a final worship song. There is always an opportunity to receive private prayer at the end of the service.

What about my children?

We have a great programme lined up for children of all ages:

Bubbles (3-5 years)
Juniors (6-11 years)
Ignite (11-14 years)
Youth (14+ years)

Children stay with their parent or grown-up at the start of the service for the welcome, songs, and notices. We really value worshipping God all together as a family. At the end of the notices someone will announce that it’s time for the younger members to go to their various groups. You will need to go with your children to their groups and register them as part of our child safety policy.

The children’s group activities vary depending on the age but usually there is a friendly welcome, bible stories, testimonies, praying, music, craft, drama, fun games, and free play. Please pick your children up as soon as the service finishes, usually around 11.15am.

Getting Connected

Small Groups
While Sundays are a great way to meet new people, it is often in smaller gatherings that you can really get to know someone. Being part of one of our small groups allows you to make new friends, share together and support each other. We have a variety of groups that meet throughout the week, some afternoons, and some evenings. Check out Small Groups and see if there’s one that you could join, or we can put you in touch with a small group leader who will be more than happy to invite you along to their group.

Serving and Volunteering
If you want to get involved in the life of the church and help us, make Sundays run smoothly, you can sign up to serve on a team.

Get in touch with us to plan your visit If you would like to come and visit the church beforehand you are more than welcome! Get in touch and we can arrange a time that suits you.
Name:
Telephone:
Email Address:
Comments / Questions or anything you would like to say?
Next, we will contact you by email to say hello and help arrange anything necessary for your visit.

We hope that whoever you are, you will feel at home at our church.

Best Wishes