The Magazine, December 2004 (Section 1)

Magazine Production Team
Deadline for February magazine: 15th January

Team News

Wholeness and Healing Service
This will be held at St. Andrew's for Advent on the 5th December at 4pm. All are welcome to join us.

Walsingham Pilgrimage 2005
We have booked 20 places for the weekend of 12th to the 15th August 2005. If you would like to share in this Pilgrimage please contact Brenda Mullins on 302289 or Jeremy on 425229.

Finance
The financial situation of the parish is highlighted elsewhere in the magazine. We have had to take £15,000 out of our reserves to pay our way this year and the hard fact of life is that to survive, every member of the church needs to give £10 per week on average, whether they attend church or not. Some cannot afford this so others will need to give more. It is not very popular to say this and we are open to the accusation that the church is always asking for money. The alternative is to close one of our churches and that is unthinkable as things stand.

Memorial Service
A lot of people came to the Memorial Service last month for families for whom we have taken funerals. The service had an excellent sermon from Catherine and the tea afterwards gave everyone an opportunity to have a chat. We will follow this up with an afternoon every so often which we are going to call 'Tea at 3pm'. The first one is on Sunday afternoon 2nd January at 3pm in the Langley Hall. Rosemary Webb is organising this - many thanks to her.

Wedding Choir
The Wedding Choir is coming together, thanks to Neil Arden. A rehearsal is being arranged. If there are more people interested please call Neil on 425124.

Christingle
Christingle this year is being celebrated on Friday evening 10th December at 6.30pm in Holy Trinity. The service is open to anyone in our three churches and we expect a lot of people to be there. The uniformed organisations from the St Paul's area and Holy Trinity will be sharing in the service.

Parish Administrator
Nigel Bearne is settling into his role of Parish Administrator and he is there every weekday morning. David Fulker was 70 last month so congratulations to him. David has kindly agreed to take on the role of Electoral Roll officer for which we are very grateful.

Buildings
The Buildings Committee has been busy and Graham Dives particularly in sorting out the vandalism damage to Holy Trinity and the Langley Hall. We have been much helped by John Green and Trademark Windows in restoring things.

Bishop of Reading
The Bishop of Reading visited the parish last month. He celebrated Holy Communion in Holy Trinity and then spent the morning with the clergy team in what was a very useful session. We questioned the allocation of time given to funerals and he encouraged us to 'do church' in different ways. We reflected on the different styles of worship that we need to promote in our churches. In the evening he licensed Nick Parish as area dean in St Andrew's

Home Visits
The clergy team are visiting more care homes and would be interested in hearing from people who would like to share in this ministry. It is demanding and needs some patience but is also very rewarding.

David

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News from Holy Trinity

Christmas
The Christmas services are highlighted in a separate box on page 12 and we look forward to our celebrations.

Nativity
The Sunday School Nativity Play is on Sunday 12th December at 10.00am and this begins our Christmas services.

Carol Service
The Carol Service on 19th December at 4.00pm will again be by candlelight. Both the Sunday School and the Bracknell Air Training Corps will take part this year.

Boxing Day
Sunday 26th December will see one service at 10am for the whole parish. It will be a said Holy Communion

All Age Services
The All Age services are involving different people and planning for next year is advanced. Our thanks go to Tracey Williams and Helen Hastings and especially to Kevin Hastings who has constructed a wonderful portable stage to use in Church. It is a real work of art and easy to put up and take down.

Fundraising
Shirley's table is now a feature of Sunday mornings. It is designed to make a contribution to our fund raising and is an opportunity to have a holy boot sale once a week.

Remembrance Sunday
Remembrance Sunday again saw a huge congregation and a lot of young people. Thank you to every one who helped in this service.

DCC
The next meeting of the DCC is on Wednesday 1st December at 8.00pm in the Langley Hall.

Leslie Hollingsworth
Leslie Hollingsworth died last month. Les was a server in Holy Trinity for many years and was much involved in the life of Holy Trinity. He was a great friend of David Elen and David has many tales to tell of former years. We send our sympathy to his widow, Doreen.
We were also sad to know of the death of Nora Kingman. Nora has been a most faithful member of Holy Trinity for over 30 years, including a member of Mothers' Union. We extend our sympathy to Sheila and Brian.
 
David

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News from St Andrew's

Bible Study
Thank you to our friends at Bracknell Methodist church for sharing hospitality and bible study looking at the Lord's Prayer. Once again it has been a worthwhile experience sharing thoughts about our faith over a simple meal in good company.

Heating and a 100 club.
As you will know, we at St. Andrew's are anxious to have a new heating system fitted. We are moving in the right direction and hopefully by Christmas we will have it in place. The problem then will be paying the bill which may be around the £15,000 mark. One of the proposals put forward to raise money is that of a 100 Club. Some of you will have come across this idea before perhaps raising money for a school or a club. The idea is simple in that we will try to gain 100 members who will pay £1 per week for 52 weeks of the year (You could pay a lump sum or monthly if you wish which would obviously help us). Each month we would have a draw where three lucky winners would claim a prize, probably £50 first prize followed by a £25 second prize and a £10 third prize. We hope to begin this scheme with the PCC's backing in the New Year. Please sign up and help us to provide a warm place for the congregation of St. Andrew's to worship in.

Christmas Services
On Friday 17th December at 10am we welcome Meadow Vale Primary School to St. Andrew's for their Christmas Carol Service. The children will share with us the Nativity story and some beautiful carols.

On Saturday 18th December members of Bracknell Methodist Church and St. Andrew's will be singing carols from 10am to 12noon at Safeways/Morrisons supermarket. All are very welcome to join us.

Sunday 19th December is the Carol service at St. Andrew's at 4pm. In my 6 years in Priestwood this service has always been well supported by the local community and the choir have led us beautifully in the singing of the traditional carols. Please encourage your neighbours in Priestwood to come and share in this carol service.

24th December 2pm - 4pm This year our Pram And Toddler group will celebrate their Christmas Party on Christmas Eve. Following the party we will lead into the children’s Crib service at 4pm. At 11.30pm we will celebrate Midnight Mass and then on Christmas morning we celebrate the Eucharist at 10.30am.
 
Fr Jeremy

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News from St Paul's

Remembering
Continuing our busy Autumn, St Paul’s has just had a wonderful Shared Service of Remembrance. The church was absolutely packed with over 200 people and there were about 70 Boys and Girls Brigade children and young people.
We all came together for the 2 minute silence using a live radio link to the service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London and then, as the adults stayed in church for Peter Flint’s sermon, the 70 youngster headed down stairs for songs, prayers and a quiz about the last war.

Sharing
Our next shared event is the Christmas Fayre, one of our main fund raising events. We hope to add to our ‘Raise the Roof Fund’ but we also need to set money aside for disabled access to our toilets and hall.
Our next Shared Service is our ‘Plan for Partnership Anniversary’ Service on the 28th of November. It is now 7 years since the Plan for Partnership was signed by both congregations committing themselves to working closer together in the future. This year’s service will have extra energy because the church is once again looking at closer ministry together and building on what we have already done.
After the service there will be a special lunch of ‘Christmassy Food’! where we can sit and eat together, a tradition St Paul’s does exceedingly well.

Praying
The autumn has also come tinged with sadness because we have lost two people for whom we have been praying for many years. Both Angela Warburg and May Stevens died in November and we remember their families as they mourn their loss

Attending
There is also good news; our Wednesday Communion Service which starts at 10.00am is one of the treasures at St Paul’s Shared Church. Over the last month the attendance figures have more than held steady, in fact on two Wednesday’s in November we saw attendance figures of 19 and 20 people respectively. And it is such a friendly service to attend, there is a warm atmosphere of friendship and after the worship it is all followed by a cup of coffee and a biscuit and a chat.

Celebrating
We are of course turning our thoughts to Christmas and we look forward to our wide range of services and activities and I think when we look back on 2004 we’ll remember it as being a significant year. One of ups and downs but also one of hope for the future

Catherine

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Parish Register

Please remember them all in your prayers

Baptisms

We welcome into the God's family

St Paul's
Archie Dean Musgrove
 

Funerals

We commit to God's care

April Violet Evans ( Tiny)	Aged 64
Maureen Reeves	Aged 64
Leslie (Les) Hollingsworth	Aged 73
George Mason	Aged 79
Hazel Wells	Aged 79
Norman Shaw Cudworth	Aged 84
Leonard Burgess	Aged 87
William Smith	Aged 87
Elsie Reeves	Aged 88
Mary Joan Wells (Joan)	Aged 89
Frederick Woodward	Aged 93
Winifred Boxall	Aged 94

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December Diary

This can be found in For your Diary...

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December Prayer Diary

This can be found in Prayer Diary

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Taizé Meditation

These meditations are meant as a way of seeking God in silence and prayer in the midst of our daily life. During the course of a day, take a moment to read the Bible Passage with this short commentary and reflect on the questions which follow.

Psalm 65
How should the first verse of this psalm be translated? Some versions have understood that even silence is praise for God. In fact, in this psalm, God “calms the turmoil of the seas, the turmoil of their waves and the uproar of the nations.” God silences all that threatens his people. And this psalm, which sings so admirably about forgiveness, could also make us understand that God has the power to silence remorse. Other versions translate that praise rightfully belongs to God, resembling him, and this too is understandable, since the Lord is a God who does wondrous deeds.

This psalm tells how God welcomes human beings in their fragility, beings who bear the burden of their misdeeds. These individuals are sure to be accepted by God, and that is why they can tell him, “All humanity can come to you.”

The power of evil is affirmed in this psalm: “our faults overwhelm us,” but the accent is not there. Another power, greater and more decisive, is celebrated: “You blot out our sins.” This power of God to forgive is at the heart of the hope of God’s people. At times in their history, notably during the exile in Babylon, the awareness of a break became clear. What can we still hope for? Have we not definitively ruined what was given to us? “Blotting out sins” does not mean covering over our past wrongs with a veil, keeping silence about a shameful chapter of our life. It means benefiting from a power able to liberate us from the consequences of evil. It means believing that a new freshness is possible where everything seemed to be lost. Believing that this is possible means trusting in the creative power of God. Creation becomes a parable of this freshness that God makes possible. The frozen ground is made level. What was hard becomes soft, ready to receive life and produce it beyond all measure.

What in this psalm helps me to discover the resources of God’s forgiveness and not to underestimate them?

Where do I see around me the need for freshness, for a new beginning?

Take time at the end to pray, thanking God for his presence, asking for what you need for yourself, and for those things close to your heart.

Further information on Taizé can be obtained from the Community's website.

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