The Magazine, February/March 2007 (Section 1)

Magazine Production Team
Deadline for April/May magazine: 15th March

News from Holy Trinity

The Licensing and Installation of The Revd Nicholas Parish
as Priest in Charge by the Bishop of Reading and the Archdeacon of Berkshire will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 20t March at Holy Trinity Church.. Refreshments will follow in Langley hall immediately after the service.

Youth Confirmation Class
Sunday Evenings 5-7 starting 4th March meeting at St Andrew’s Church.

Lenten Prayer Group
Thursday Mornings 10:45 throughout Lent meeting at Holy Trinity

Holy Dusters
Volunteers are needed. If you can spare a couple of hours once every 4 weeks to help, please contact the Parish Office.

Women's World Day of Prayer.
This year's service will take place at St. Andrews Church at 8pm on Friday 2nd March. All Welcome

Adult Enquirers Class
Saturday Mornings 9-10 meeting at St Andrew’s Vicarage. If Interested please call Fr. Andrew Frearson 425 229. and Monday mornings during the Mothers and Toddlers group at St. Andrew’s Church. Please call Fr Andrew Frearson for details.

Next 11+ Meeting
9.00am on Sunday 4th March at the Tea House. We will be looking at forgiveness and reconciliation as we continue exploring the Sermon on the Mount. So do join us for breakfast, worship, discussion and more. For more details contact Steven or Jenny Colby (411833).

Parish Administrator
Nigel Bearne retired in February and we wish him a very happy retirement.

We Welcome Linda Edwards as our new parish administrator.

Parish Magazine Editor Vacancy
Anyone interested in undertaking this role please talk to a member of clergy or a warden.

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News from St Andrew's

First Communion
We congratulate Katy, Rebecca, Jade and her mother Christine, who received their first communion at our Sunday morning service on 2 February. They all prepared themselves prayerfully and carefully for this very special and important step on their journey of faith. We pray that they will all continue to grow in the knowledge and love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and we rejoice in our fellowship with them.

Meeting and Learning
We are starting an informal confirmation/study group on Monday mornings for the adults who come to the Pram and Toddler sessions. This group will meet in another part of the church while the children’s activities are going on, and we hope that the arrangement will work well and for the benefit of all who take part.
Also, Andrew will be hosting a group at St Andrew’s Vicarage on Saturday mornings. This group will include people who are preparing for confirmation. However, anyone who is interested in learning more about the Christian faith will be most welcome to come along as well.

Lent
Lent is often thought of as a time when we give up something that we normally find enjoyable or pleasurable. This may make us feel virtuous but by itself it does not do either ourselves or anyone else any lasting good. Our Lord calls us not only to deny ourselves but also to take up our cross each day and follow Him. If we succeed in taking something up this Lent, then we will probably want to continue with it even after Lent is over; and what began as self-discipline will become natural, and maybe even enjoyable.

Prayers
We pray for Mary Townsend, recovering after a fall at home. And we give thanks for all her wonderful flower arrangements which add so much to the beauty of the church. Also we pray for Nick as he prepares to take up the position of Priest in Charge of Bracknell Team Ministry. As well as having the day to day pastoral care of the congregation of Holy trinity, he will continue to be very involved in the shaping of Bracknell at a very critical time in the development of the town.

Simon Sellick

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News from St Paul's

Christmas
So December has come and gone again and we had a lovely Christmas at St Paul's.

Memorable was the crib service which took place at 4.00pm on Christmas Eve. The Children’s Club leaders spent the afternoon with the children preparing the service and their theme, ‘Countdown to Christmas’ then shaped the whole of the Crib Service. Come 4.00pm nearly 90 people turned up to join in the service and a huge thank you goes to all who took part.

Another memorable service was the morning service on Christmas Eve. As the last Sunday in advent was also Christmas Eve we wanted to do both advent and start Christmas on Christmas Eve. So, we had a quiet start to the service and shared bread and wine together and then we declared Christmas ‘open’ and, during the service, we brought out the flowers and fired up our midi player and sang along to our favourite carols.

Someone dubbed it…(don’t groan)…a ‘carol-oke’. Whatever you call it (probably not choral communion) it was such a fun service. People called out requests for carols and Joan Knight served us all with tea, coffee and mince pies.

A special mention needs to be made of Charlotte Mason who came to the front and, in front of everybody, sang solo a song she had learnt for her school play. Well done Charlotte – you were fantastic.

New Year
2007 has brought us our first full church meeting of the year. Here both the Anglican and URC congregations meet together for a shared service followed by a meeting.

At the meeting we agreed our new logo and title – St Paul's, the United Reformed Church and Church of England in Partnership – and we also discussed perennial subjects such as buildings, finance and who is responsible for tidying up.
The New Year also saw the vicar on sick leave while recuperating from surgery on my hand. I am well recovered now and can I send all my thanks to those who supported me during my sick leave, especially Andrew Frearson and Mark Ackford who covered the services, and all those who sent cards and greetings.

Before Christmas we also got our monthly prayer meeting going and on the first Saturday of a month you are welcome to join us to pray for our church, our world, our mission and community in Bracknell. In December we spent two hours praying for the appointment of the new priest-in-Charge, in January we prayed with the theme of ‘New Start’ in February we prayed for ‘Light to our World, our Land and our Lives’ and in March the prayers will be for the ‘Big Brew’ Fairtrade initiative. Please do come and join us

Prayers are then followed by Coffee and Cakes – so you pray and then you get fed – good hey!

The URC are in the process of interviewing a new minister to see if he is called to St Paul's and we will continue to hold them in our prayers.

St Paul's is in good heart, we have new families in the church who are bringing life and vitality and our Wednesday Communion is going from strength to strength. The only real hiccup recently was when the vicar got over enthusiastic with the candles at Candlemas and we ended up with a river of molten wax running down the table cloth…oops…sorry Joan

Catherine Blundell

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Parish Register

Please remember them all in your prayers

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February/March Diary

This can be found in For your Diary...

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February/March 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 137
Israel’s love for its God gave it the honesty to express everything, even the most impassioned reactions at the situations of injustice often experienced by that tiny nation surrounded by powerful neighbours. Has any other people ever gone to such an extreme in its intimacy with God, to the point of daring to express rebellion in the very midst of praise? Psalm 137 weaves these two sentiments together with impressive intensity.

For us today, placidly seated in our comfortable societies, the violence that springs from the cry of the psalmist leaves us ill-at-ease. How could we wish for the little children of another nation, even that of an oppressor, to be massacred?

We should not make too rapid judgments, however, especially from so far away. Our faith must also teach us to sit down and sing “beside the waters of Babylon” alongside those who were deprived of their dignity as free women and men. The fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC and the deportation of part of the population was more than a military defeat: it involved the risk of seeing one’s own people lose their identity as a result of the humiliations imposed by the victor.

Psalm 137 was most likely composed by musicians exiled from the temple in Jerusalem who, as a sign of mourning, decided to “hang their harps on the willows there.” Although their captors forced them to play, these musicians refused to use their songs of worship to entertain those who were keeping them captive.

Compelled to sing nonetheless, they sang that they will never be able to sing in a foreign land. When they were obliged to do what they did not want to do, their prayer, even when forced from their lips, remained that final space of freedom where an inexorable fate was overturned and where, to make the victors happy, they even succeeded in singing threats to them! Their captors fell into a trap of their own making. History will often attest to the subversive power of song.

How many peoples have begun to shake off their chains while singing?

How can praise arise out of distress?

How can prayer become a form of resistance in the face of what seems an inexorable fate?

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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