The Magazine, June 2006 (Section 1)

Magazine Production Team
Deadline for July magazine: 15th June

Team News

Alpha Plus
The Alpha Course is well on its way. Our thanks to the providers of our suppers and to the leaders.

Christian Aid Week
Thank you to Helen Brenchley for organising once again our Christian Aid Week appeal. Her band of helpers, Simon Sellick, Stuart Robinson, Yvonne Nichols, Jairo Chavez and all the collectors have done a sterling job in this important work.

Andrew Frearson
The Bishop of Reading licensed Andrew Frearson last month and we welcome Andrew into the Bracknell Team Ministry. We look forward to getting to know him, Lynn and Emily in due course. Andrew wrote this biography for the licensing service and we thought that it would be a good idea to reprint here.

Andrew Frearson is originally from Smethwick in the Black Country and raised in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham. He is a lifelong long-suffering fan of West Bromwich Albion! He worked for G.K.N. Fastner Tools in Smethwick in Personnel and has a Degree in Business Studies. He was ordained in 1983 after 3 years at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

Following 2 parishes in the Birmingham Diocese and 6 years as Priest-in charge at St. John the Divine, Cliviger, Burnley in the Blackburn Diocese, Andrew spent 9 years on the staff of Christchurch Episcopal Church, Norcross, in the Atlanta Diocese, Georgia, U.S.A. Andrew is married to Lynn from Atlanta, who has a daughter Emily, who has a passion for horseback riding.

He enjoys jamming with secular musicians on Mellotron and Organ especially in the Progressive and Death Metal styles. Favourite current bands are: Opeth; Porcupine Tree; Anekdoten and Dream Theatre. He loves Celtic, English, African and Middle Eastern folk music and soon will be attempting to learn the Northumbrian Bagpipes and Bodhran! Andrew enjoys History and walking in the Highlands of Scotland.

In ministry Andrew has a keen and practical interest in Inter-faith dialogue and the mystical traditions of all the main Faiths. He has experience in Adult Christian Education and over 20 years experience working with teens, which still continue to stretch and inspire him. New to the South of England, he is keen to experience and learn from another new culture!

David

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News from Holy Trinity

The Building
The wardens met with the Archdeacon last month and agreed a strategy of action about the Holy Trinity building. The first thing that we will do is to have the whole building examined by a structural engineer, and then to invite others to look at the developmental possibilities. We shall also look at two alternative sites on the newly developed Bracknell plan. To do all this, we are forming a small group of skilled people who will consider all the options and gain as many facts as possible before we come back to the PCC and congregation with some definite proposals. In the meantime, the hole in the wall will be repaired but accidentally it has given an opportunity to look inside the walls!

Patronal Festival
The Patronal Festival is on June 11th with a festival service at 10am at which the preacher will be the Archdeacon of Berkshire, the Ven Norman Russell.

Garden Party
Tickets are on sale for the Garden Party in the Rectory. We hope that people from St Andrew’s and St Paul’s will come and join in the celebrations. We start at 12.30 with a pig roast and there will be a huge bouncy castle, games and a bar. Tickets are £7.50 for adults and £4.50 for primary school children. The price includes the meal, one drink and the bouncy castle! You will need to bring a chair or rug. The DCC have put a lot of hard work into this and we think that it will be good day. Tickets are on sale either in the Parish Office or at the back of Holy Trinity Church after the morning service each Sunday.


Verger
Since Daphne retired from being our verger the DCC have given thought to replacing her. What we have done is to ask Moira Ponsford to look after the Thursday celebration of Holy Communion and Amelia Balchin, our Sacristan, to verger the weddings and funerals. On Sundays we shall need the sidespeople to open and close doors and we hope that this takes care of the many duties that Daphne has done for us over her 22 years.

Happy Birthday
We were delighted to recognise Geoffrey Knight’s 80th birthday and thank him for his continued contribution to our music. We are getting to know the new David Thorne setting of the Holy Communion and it has added to our repertoire of music.

Silver Wedding
On July 2nd we shall be celebrating 25 years of marriage of Mary and Andrew Cope. They will renew their vows in the morning service and it will be a good opportunity to pray both for them and all those who are married or getting married this year.

Ruby Haynes

We were saddened to learn of the death of Ruby Haynes, John's wife of 52 years no less, on 1st May. The funeral took place in the woodland cemetery at Highclere near Newbury last week. We extend to John and the family our prayers and love.

David

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News from St Andrew's

Wedding
On 6th May Darrel and Leanne were married at St. Andrew's. Darrel used to serve at the altar here, and we are glad that he and Leanne chose St. Andrew's for their wedding. Darrel indicated shortly before the service that he felt more nervous at that moment than he would have done parachuting from 12,000 feet.

Celebration and Thanks
Earlier that week (on 2nd and 3rd May) the funeral services of Thelma Gadsden and Irene Sainsbury were held at St. Andrew's. We know that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord, and we can celebrate and give thanks for the lives and witness of Thelma and Irene, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

Peter and Nick
Peter's last service at St. Andrew's during this "interregnum" was on 30th April and we gave him a picture of the church and a gift of over £200. We pray and hope that Peter's ministry with us will help him in his future work as a priest.
Again we thank Peter for all he has done here and we are also very grateful to Nick for looking after us during the early part of May.

St Andrew's 100 Club
The 100 Club is continuing during the current year April 2006 to March 2007 and it currently has 36 members. We are expecting that more people will either renew their membership or join for the first time.

Father Andrew
We pray for Andrew as he begins his ministry at St. Andrew's within Bracknell Team Ministry. Also, we look forward to his new wife Lynne and her daughter Emily joining us later on this summer.


Simon Sellick
District Warden, St. Andrew's

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News from St Paul's

Easter at St. Paul’s
It is hard to believe it is a month since our wonderful Easter services. We had a great Easter at St Paul's and we had our biggest Easter Day congregation which was very affirming of the work we are doing in Harmans Water.

We all know St Paul’s isn’t the prettiest building but, after the sparse Lent season that only adds to St Paul's plainness, our flower arrangers pushed the boat out for Easter Day. Huge pots of daffodils surround the communion table and pots of plants covered a table at the back and there was a huge display of flowers on the platform.

For once we all walked into St Paul's and went – ‘WOW’

Flower Festival
It looks like flowers are going to be the theme of the season because St Paul's are busy planning a flower festival for the first weekend in July. Watch out for more information but the current theme is going to be ‘Favourite Hymns’ and if you want more information please call Anne Wood. (Also see page 17 In this magazie for further details.)

Baptisms
We are also in the middle of an upsurge in the numbers of baptisms happening at St Paul's. In 2005 we had 3 baptisms but in 2006 we have done 5 already this year. Jenny and Seven Colby are now an essential part of the baptism services. Jenny meets with the families to support them, help them choose hymns and readings and then she co-leads the service on the day. Steven as usual is neck deep in technology, the talk is illustrated by pictures shown on a slide show, the hymn words are also projected and, as St Paul's is still without an organist, Steven also sprints from computer to organ to start the midi player for the hymns.

Wednesday Morning Communion
The Wednesday morning communion service is an important time of worship and fellowship. Some of the congregation are unable to attend the Sunday service as they rely on buses. Jenny is leading this group on a journey through Mark’s gospel. People unable to get to St. Paul’s either on Sunday or Wednesday are able to have Communion in their home, at present on Wednesday afternoons.

Coffee and Cakes
Coffee and cakes continues to be a great place to meet on a Saturday morning (first of the month) but we are in need of more cake bakers – anyone willing?

Full Church Meeting
Looking forward we have our full church meeting with the URC later this month and planning has begun for our shared summer services


Catherine Blundell

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Parish Register

Please remember them all in your prayers

Baptisms

We welcome into the God's family

Holy Trinity
Declan Kames Bennett

St Andrew's
Brooke Adelaide Mason

St Paul's
Molly Rebecca Emily Woodhead
Madison Mary Yvonne Ford

Funerals

We commit to God's care

Holy Trinity

Sydney Sutton (Sid)	Aged 93
Maurice Newman	Aged 82
Emily Reeve (Dora)	Aged 81
Daphne Watson	Aged 80
Jean Norman	Aged 75
Sheila Hunter	Aged 75

St Paul's

Louise Ellis (Lou)	Aged 81
John Johnstone	Aged 81
Janice Richardson (Jan)	Aged 52
Troy Joshua Lockyear	Stillborn 26 weeks

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June Diary

This can be found in For your Diary...

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June 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.

Jeremiah 1: 4-10
Who is the prophet Jeremiah? A man who, one day, when he was very young, discovered a call from God deep in his heart. That call turned his life upside down. In it Jeremiah found the meaning of his life. He constantly returned it to face the trials of his existence and to go forward.

Although God called other prophets through a vision, like Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-3) or Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1), in the case of Jeremiah it was different. God spoke a “word” (v. 4) to him, an inner word set in his heart, in the depths of his being, even before he was aware of it (v. 5). That word was the imprint of the mystery of God in Jeremiah’s life.

In this sense, Jeremiah is very close to us. Most often, we understand what God wants from us not by means of an extraordinary event, but through something like an “inner voice” that gradually rises up from our depths. Will we manage to take the time to listen to it? Will we dare to let it question us?

When confronted with such a call, in us there are often resistances. Jeremiah immediately recognized his limits (v. 6). This resistance is not negative in itself. If Jeremiah resisted, it is because he was touched to the quick. He was not indifferent to the call. For him the challenge was to recognize his frailties but not to get stuck there—to go beyond them.

Often God opens a road through our hesitations; he calls us just as we are. God said to Jeremiah: do not look at your limitations; by calling you I have taken the initiative. As a sign of his love, God entrusted a word to Jeremiah (v. 9). Jeremiah was called to let that word touch him and to make his life a living response to it (v. 10).

- What words of the Bible express a kind of inner call for me?

- How does God’s call reach me (family, friends, important events, words…)?

- What resistances to this call do I discover in me?

- In difficult moments of his life, Jeremiah returned to his initial call. At what important moments did I understand something of the mystery of God’s love in my life?

- When have I discovered that my limits could become a starting-point to go further?

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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