St James The Great
Old Milverton, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
We will be celebrating St James Day with our Patronal Festival Service on 26th July: come and join us for our annual celebration of all-things St James, followed by drinks and nibbles in the churchyard.
Please join us in the Parish Room for Coffee & Chat over the summer and catch up with everyone’s news: we are getting together on July 22nd and August 26th.
Please continue to support the Foodbank over the summer months. This can be a particularly difficult time for families: with children on holiday from school there is often an extra strain on family finances. Remember that you can leave donations in the collection bins at all the local supermarkets as well as bringing them up to church.
Cerys’s final service in the parish is this coming Sunday at St Mary Magdalene’s. Her installation service in Merthyr Tydfil takes place at 4pm on Sunday 26th July and we wish her well as she takes on the challenge of her own parish for the first time. A coach will be going from St Mary Magdalene to that service in Merthyr Tydfil, leaving at around 12.15 – 12.30pm and bringing everyone back for around 9pm. If anyone from St James would like to go on that coach, please let Sue know as soon as possible.
We have some red kneelers to give away: we are reducing the number of kneelers in church, so there are some looking for a new home. If you would like to take one, please help yourself from the back pew in church. They would make good garden kneelers.
You will have seen that the red hearts from our churchyard prayer stations have now been removed from the church windowsills: I will keep them safe and bring them back out for our All Souls service at the end of October. There will be the chance to add a heart at that point if you have not already written one.
Dear Friends
We’ve gone green in church. 30th May was Trinity Sunday and we now enter what the church calls ‘ordinary time’, so our altar frontal, pulpit fall and lectern hangings will be green for all those Sundays after Trinity that take us right through to the autumn.
The church’s choice of green to mark ordinary time feels right. After the glory of white at Easter and the red fire of Pentecost, green represents the continuity of life itself, the colour of nature and a reminder that whatever happens in our own lives, the seasons of the year continue, leaves appear and flowers blossom.
Excitement is great, but exhausting! We need the ordinary to offer us a contrast to the special; the familiar to help us recognise the unusual when it comes along. The older I get, the more I appreciate the ordinary things of life: a still, early morning with the birds singing; the warmth of the sun when I’m out for a walk; time to myself at home just doing the mundane everyday things that have to be done; all those simple patterns and rhythms that make up each day. Life is busy for all of us but we also still need those quiet, still moments if we are not to find ourselves totally taken over with busy-ness and lose the opportunity to simply enjoy God’s company.
It can be easy to forget that whilst God is the God of those big, powerful moments such as Easter and Pentecost, he is also the God of the ordinary. He is always waiting to surprise us around every corner, but sometimes we’re so busy looking for him in the big events of life, we miss him in the little things. God doesn’t always bless us in huge dynamic ways, sometimes his blessings come in quiet, ordinary situations, when there is no “hill to climb,” no vision given, no miracle performed, nothing wonderful or beautiful – just the commonplace things of everyday.
The Canadian theologian Eugene Peterson says:
“Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your life—children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships— and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives.”
As we embrace the ordinary time of this Trinity season, let’s remember that God is the Creator of those very ordinary things that we encounter every day and include him in everything we do.
With love, Sue
Clergy
Revd. William Smith 316475 wms.smith@btinternet.com
Revd. Sue Fairhurst 735254 suefairhurst0@gmail.com
Reader
Geoff Wiggin 07585 336471 geogeoff@live.co.uk
Safeguarding Officer
Penny Hawkins 07833 978522
Churchwardens
Michael Rayner 831522
Jane Marshall 831680
Website & email
www.stjamesoldmilverton.co.uk churchwardenstjames@outlook.com
Father, thank you that you never leave us,
even when life seems ordinary and commonplace.
Come and meet me today in the ordinary rhythms of my life
so that your love and hope may fill my heart
and overflow into the lives of others
August Dates
1st August (Saturday) 10.00am Prayer Space
2nd August 10.30am Holy Communion
6.00pm Evening Prayer
9th August 10.30am Matins
16th August 10.30am Holy Communion
22nd August (Saturday) Churchyard Clearing morning
23rd August 10.30am Morning Worship
26th August (Wednesday) 10.30am Coffee & Chat in the Parish Room
27th August (Thursday) 11.00am Holy Communion at Helen Ley Care Centre
28th August (Friday) 2.30pm Holy Communion at Priors House
29th August (Saturday) Dog Walkers Coffee morning in the churchyard
30th August 10.30am Morning Worship
The next churchyard clearing morning will be on Saturday 22nd August – come along and help if you are free.
- Please bring your own tools with you. Dates for the rest of the year are:
- 22nd August
- 17th October
- 12th December
Spirit of God
Lord and Giver of Life,
moving between us and around.
Breathe into us your freshness that we may awake;
Cleanse our vision that we may see more clearly;
Kindle our senses that we may feel more sharply;
and give us the courage
to live as you would have us live.
Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
Collect for Easter Sunday
Parish News
Ali Foster © 2013