… and a Happy New Year to you, your family and all your friends.
Your local team of Ministers: Ruth, Brian and Paul (Barton); David, Chris, Catherine and Gladys (Haslingfield); Jennie, Derek, Callie and Peter (Harlton and The Eversdens); and Michael, wish you all a very Blessed and Happy 2012.
All our Churches are open for private and public prayer, worship or just to visit, during daylight hours each and every day.
We now have a stock of handmade cards which we can use when anyone in our congregation is ill and these will be kept in the church vestry. Please let us know when a card is needed and we can ensure that it is delivered.
In our churches from this week we will have the Advent ring of five coloured candles, and will light one each week on our countdown to Christ's coming. Advent candles are purple and rose-coloured. Purple is the historic liturgical colour for three of the four Sundays in Advent: once the colour associated with royalty, it symbolises Christ as the Prince of Peace. Rose is the colour for the third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete Sunday from the Latin word for "rejoice". Gaudete Sunday anticipates the joy of the Christmas celebration, so its colour is a mixture of the Advent purple and Christmas white. Then at midgnight on Christmas Eve we light the central white candle, the "Christ Candle" celebrating the birth day of Jesus.
This year's Deanery Ecumenical Service to celebrate Christ the King is at Comberton Village College on Sunday 20th November at 10.30am. Inspirational worship, withour key guest David Thomson, Bishop of Huntingdon. There will be special children's activities, as together across all denominations we celebrate 'Christ the King'.
Our worship, prayers and reflections today are as an 'Act of Remembrance and Reconciliation'. Our acts of worship embrace the grief and thankfulness which people experience on Remembrance Day, and attempt to link the worshippers in solidarity with all who suffer the effects of war and conflict. We will pray for an enduring and profound reconciliation and a lasting peace in God's World.
If you can spare an hour or two on Saturday 19th November, please come and help us tidy up the churchyard for the winter. There will be plenty of leaves to sweep up! We start at 9.30am with a coffee break mid-morning. Please bring garden tools with you e.g. a rake, shears, secateurs or something similar.
Verse of the day