Vicar's update - March 2020

I’m delighted that we’ll be having a church lunch after our 10.30am service on 1st March – I hope it will be the first of many. We know that many from the 10.30am congregation struggle to come for drinks before the service – limiting our time to build up cross-generational fellowship. Let’s pray that these lunches help to deepen that sense of being one family together. Everyone is welcome – younger and older, newcomers and long-termers, singles, couples and families.  

Our plans for putting St John’s on the market have been delayed by a few months due to the need to get bat surveys done before we can get outline planning permission. We now hope to market it in the Autumn. 

Lent is still a big ‘thing’ in our culture – with lots of people ‘giving things up’ – even if their motivations aren’t specifically Christ-centred. This Lent, we’re encouraging everyone to use the Church of England’s ‘Live Lent’ booklets which help us to focus biblically and prayerfully on caring for God’s creation (which is one of our mission focus areas, of course). The adults’ booklet has a simple page a day with a reading, reflection and prayerful action. The children’s booklet has some family actions to be done each week. 

For those who want to dig deeper, there’s a companion book by the excellent Ruth Valerio, available for £8. Drawing from stories all over the world and looking deeply at Genesis 1, it helps us think through in more detail about the goodness of God’s creation, and our role in caring for it.