VICAR OF BAGHDAD AT ST. MARY'S PETWORTH THURSDAY 27th OCT. @7.30pm

Dear Local Friends

• The evening next Thursday 27th October starts at 7.30 at St. Mary's , Church Street, Petwoth ( GU28 0AE ), with best parking in the Car Park off Market Square in the free Car Park ( GU28 0BF). Doors open from 6.30.
• The evening should be over by 9pm , after refreshments donated by local churches.
  

Canon Andrew, aka THE VICAR OF BAGHDAD, is a larger than life character and has a no-holds barred ( at times controversial ) approach to public speaking . It will be a most interesting evening for sure.

Kids Church again this Sunday. Yay!

Throughout the Autumn on the second Sunday of every month, our Sunday morning get-together will be a little different.The aim is to create a relaxed and welcoming environment for us and our friends whilst giving the kids an hour of crazy games, raucous songs, bible stories, quizzes and more.

The details are on the flyers which can be downloaded and printed from the links below. And please do download, print and pass to to friends who you feel would enjoy such a morning.

Update...

It was great to see the start of something new over at Tillington on Sunday with a good crowd joining together to Worship and pray at the village hall.

Tony's notes from our gathering that morning are available if you click here and we meet next on Sunday 9th Ocotober for our 2nd Kids Church/Coffee morning.

See you then :-)

Coming up soon...

 
On Sunday -  25th Sept at 4pm in Tillington Village hall there will be a time of exploring a slightly more informal style of worship. Members of both the Anglican church and the Community Church will be getting together to share in worship with an acoustic band, exploring some different styles of expressing our reverence and praise for Almighty God. It will be a very gentle introduction to the informal style and the invitation is open to absolutely everyone - it would be a pleasure if you could join us.

Another date for your Diary is October 27th when the Vicar of Baghdad will be coming to speak at St Mary's Church, Petworth.


Click here for more details


Click here for a more detailed background on Canon Andrew White and his work

Kids Church...

Throughout the Autumn on the second Sunday of every month, our Sunday morning get-together will be a little different.The aim is to create a relaxed and welcoming environment for us and our friends whilst giving the kids an hour of crazy games, raucous songs, bible stories, quizzes and more.

The details are on the flyers which can be downloaded and printed from the links below. And please do download, print and pass to to friends who you feel would enjoy such a morning.

A5 Flyer

2 A5 Flyers on one A4 page

Please contact me if you have trouble  with these links. Jonny

Response...

Inspiration!



Don't forget to let us know if you're 'brunching' on Sunday. Details in last blog post

Brunch...

Hope you’re enjoying summer!  Big congratulations to the amazing team who gave more than 60 Petworth children – and their families, an amazing Holiday Club in the first week of the hols. 

 

For your information, we don’t have our “usual” Sunday gatherings at the Herbert Shiner during August.  But please note these dates –

 

NEXT Sunday (13^th August) we are invited to a “bacon buttie/croissant brunch” – at Jonny & Naomi’s, 16 Littlecote.  Hopefully it’ll be a fine day and we can spill out in their garden!  2 important points to note:  PLEASE bring a contribution of £2 per person, or £5 per family.  Also – PLEASE let J & Naomi if you’ll be coming – they need to know how much food to buy!  Phone 343440 or email:  welchs@btinternet.com

 

On Sunday 27^th, the suggestion is to go for a walk together – plenty of places to choose from in this lovely part of the world!

 

Blessings,

Sue

Everyday evangelism

Dear all, we were unable to record this last Sunday's talk from Kate but you can click on the links below to look back at her notes on everyday evangelism,

Notes
Presentation

Chris on Evangelism

A very belated entry to our latest teaching recordings is now downloadable. Chris's thought-provoking perspectives on Evangelism as a "Root, Foundation & Pillar" of our life and identity within the Petworth and South Downs area. This is worthy of a 2nd hearing and further consideration and dialogue.

A Question of Worship

This morning Eunice asked for our thoughts on Worship ahead of her talk on Septemer 11th. She has asked us to email her with any answers to these questions and any other thoughts we may have on the topic.

1. How do you worship in private?
2. How can you contribute to public worship?
3. Do angels play any part in our worship?
4. Why do we worship God?
5. Does any biblical figure stand out as one who worshipped God?
6. Can we learn from other denominations? If so what?

You may have answers or more questions. Please email with your thoughts

Many thanks, Eunice

eunianddavid@googlemail.com

Something to think about

The Holy Spirit

It's as easy and as essential to our lives as breathing! Receiving the Holy Spirit. Another Root, Foundation, Pillar within all that we believe, unwrapped for us by Sue. The notes (under Links) and recording (under Recordings of Teaching) our available to download now.

Sunday's intro to Roots, Foundations and Pillars is downloadable in note form from "Links" and an MP3 in "Recordings"... Do grab a few moments to start to explore this in your own time or with a friend or two. Listening to a talk every couple of weeks won't be enough to graple this through into our lives, so let's get creative!

Greetings from Hannah

Hi everyone,It was great to see some of you when I was recently home for an unexpected weekend visit to celebrate my mum's graduation – I'm so grateful to be able to work among the people who are so close to my heart yet be able to 'pop' home on the train for the weekend. It was also great to have a visit from John, Sue and Kate. We had a great time visiting the W African parts of Paris and meeting lots of people out and about on the streets. Their visit was a real encouragement for me.

A few weeks ago I had a moment of radio fame in Paris, when I agreed to go on a weekly radio show for the S community! It was a tiring experience – the show lasted for over three hours, and even though I wasn't talking all that time, I had to concentrate hard as I could be asked a question at any moment, on a wide variety of topics. I came away slightly frustrated at the language mistakes I made and the things I thought afterwards that I 'could' have said, but lots of people have since commented on the fact that they heard me and stories of the tubab (white person) who speaks S are spreading!

I have also been teaching twice a week (covering for someone who was away) at the women's literacy classes that I was helping out at, even though as a foreigner I don't feel that qualified to teach French! Most of the women are immigrants who have already learnt French orally, so the focus of the class is to help them learn the alphabet and how to read and write, equipping them with skills to help with daily life here in France.

Another thing I have been occupied with is converting all the 54 Bible stories that we recorded in Gambia into dvd format (nothing fancy, just a plain screen with the sound files in the background), because dvds are really popular among the community in France and much more widely used than cds or tapes. The big advantage is that I found a way to fit all four hours of stories onto one dvd, whereas they were taking up four audio cds. I have been giving these to different contacts as appropriate.

Right now I am back in Gambia to spend time in the village and to attend a conference for workers from across W Africa. We're busy setting up things for this right now and excited to be welcoming special Petworth guest Reuben who will be coming to look after the children. Thanks to those who have helped make his trip possible – we are looking forward to having him here and his presence will be a great blessing to lots of families!

There's lots more I could write but I'll save it for another time... thanks as always for your support, encouragement and prayers.Love

Hannah

Joseph - Step Father of Jesus

Hi Church Family. Eunice's very clear portrayal of Jesus humanity highlighted through the role of His "step father" Joseph, makes for good listening. Click on the link in the recordings section on the right.

As promised...

Click here

As promised on Sunday I have put the list of dates for our Sunday gatherings from May through to September. As you will notice it is very empty! Please click on the image above or on 'PCC Summer Sundays' in 'Links' on the right. From there you should be able to add your name in the boxes. Don't forget to click 'File' and 'Save' before you finish. Give it a try and if you get stuck just email me with what you can do and when.

This from our Blog post on 27th March explains what we'll be looking at. Scroll down to that post for more.

Our next theme for Sundays and beyond...

Where are our Roots?  What do we tap in to for daily life and when times are hard, personally and as Church?

What are our Foundations?  What is essential to the outworking of our faith, without which, we crumble? 

What are the Pillars of our faith – those things which we are building around as a community of believers?

The topics for this season are:

• Worship
• Prayer, fasting and intercession*
• Breaking bread
• Fellowship and community living
• Teaching
• Sharing the Good News, Making Disciples and Evangelism*
• Receiving and Living in the Holy Spirit (Including healing and miracles)*
• Baptism of New believers
• Social action, Justice and Giving*
• Leadership

Thanks. Jonny

Sunday 10th April

Just a quick reminder that as part of our Church Family Gathering tomorrow we will be spending some time dedicating Reuben to God. This will entail praying for him, reading scriptures and writing our prayers thoughts and prophecies down for him.

Please feel free to come having prepared something for him or just go with the flow of the morning.

Roots, Foundations and Pillars

Our next theme for Sundays and beyond...

Where are our Roots?  What do we tap in to for daily life and when times are hard, personally and as Church?

What are our Foundations?  What is essential to the outworking of our faith, without which, we crumble? 

What are the Pillars of our faith – those things which we are building around as a community of believers?

The topics for this season are:

• Worship
• Prayer, fasting and intercession*
• Breaking bread
• Fellowship and community living
• Teaching
• Sharing the Good News, Making Disciples and Evangelism*
• Receiving and Living in the Holy Spirit (Including healing and miracles)*
• Baptism of New believers
• Social action, Justice and Giving*
• Leadership

This list is drawn from both the list we all contributed to when Kev spoke to us and a list compiled by Chris a while ago.  It’s not exhaustive and as we discovered when trying to divide the different topics, they all relate and overlap.  The aim is for us to look at some of the things which are most important to the life of the Church, or in Kev’s words, the things we give most “weight” to.

It would be especially helpful if speakers could refer to Kev’s teaching, Naomi’s discussion starter document and the questions it raises, and Chris’s thoughts, all of which are available on the blog.  We hope that through looking at these topics, we will begin to discuss together the questions raised and be changed by what we learn together, growing closer to God’s best.

It may happen that more than one person wants to take a particular topic, which would be great, because it will give us different perspectives!  Some of the topics, marked * cover large areas, especially “Sharing the Good News, Making Disciples and Evangelism” and may need to be looked at more than once form different angles.

Remember, “The Word” doesn’t have to be standing up in front of everyone and talking – you can bring the teaching in your own way and the role of the overseer is to help you make this happen.  It is a good idea to talk through your ideas with the overseer for your morning; he or she may also have ideas about how to deliver the Word, make it come alive to us and help us apply it to our lives.  It is also always good to think about how we can minister to one another in simple ways and help seal in what God has brought.  This may be praying for one another on the morning, but it could also be asking everyone to do something in the weeks between Sundays we meet.

You are Beloved - for such a time as this... Downloads of Sue's talk are now available, one to listen to (see Recordings index) and the other to follow her notes (see Links).

PCC at Home

Hello dear All,

 

As you may remember from our “Chat ‘n Chew”, we’re running with mid-week gatherings, twice-monthly, for the next while.  The pattern will follow (with a few exceptions) the 2^nd Tuesday and the 4^th or 5^th Thursday each month.  So we had the first in the series last Tuesday. 

 

Our next get-together – of “PCC at Home” will be at John & Pat’s, Thursday March 31^st, and they’ve very kindly invited us to share a meal with them that evening.  So -  PLEASE let John & Pat know if you can come,(343329) and also offer food contributions!

 

Plus – offers, please, to host the upcoming dates for “PCC at Home”!  There’s no pressure on anyone to come up with a particular focus for the evening you host – you may prefer to simply enjoy having us in your home for chat and coffee!  But obviously if there’s something to share, or highlight, or pray into – well and good.  The main thing is to be together as family.

 

Dates coming up – please let me know when you can host (I’ll also be asking peeps directly if I don’t get any responses!?!)

Sue

Hello everyone, its Marianna here...

Children on the Edge.

Hello everyone, its Marianna here. As you may know me and my mummy are giving up chocolate for lent and it is sponsored for a charity called Children on the Edge. Thank you if you have already donated some money. 14 people have sponsored us, so soon we will have £77. If you haven’t sponsored us and you would like to Email us:

manismitheram@googlemail.com

or

gin_ger76@hotmail.com

If you’d like to find out more about Children on the Edge go to www.childrenontheedge.org

Thank you!

A Journey of Hope - Sunday 13th March 2011

Here's Naomi's fantastic artisitic impression of institutional mountains which influence our culture... part of this mornings talk... My Life - A Journey of Hope, which is now available to download with both the recording and the notes.

Chat 'n' Chew & latest YAK

CHAT 'N' CHEW THIS SUNDAY
This coming Sunday (13th March) we have our church business meeting (that's the chat) whilst we share lunch together (that'll be the chew!). As always the meeting will be after our usual time together and please bring something to share food-wise.

YAK
In other news... the latest copy of our newsletter YAK is available to download in the links section on the right hand side. Thanks as always to those involved in putting it together.

For this we have Jesus

The recording of Bob's excellent contribution to our series "For Such a Time as This" from this morning's gathering is available for you to download and listen to.

Also, a last minute call for anyone who may like to attend the Pioneer Conference at the end of the week - 4th-5th March. www.pioneer.org.uk - Let me know so we can coordinate bookings and lifts etc.

Also a last call for anyone who wanted to be part of the team popping over to Paris to visit Hannah... 1st-3rd April. Kate, Sue and JR are booking up now, so please let me know if you would like to join us.

"Don't limit God... He will use the most unlikely characters to achieve his purpose - even us!" Some really helpful teaching from Tony this morning to add to our series ... For Such a Time as This. The notes are available in the "Links" list and the recording is available for download over the next 2 weeks. Apologies... the first couple of minutes is missing, so you'll need to pick up the introduction from the notes.

From this morning...

Notes from this morning in the Links section and the recording on the right hand side. Also Something from the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which Bob read out at one of our recent meetings.

To contradict lonliness costs.
Relationships comes at a price.
Solo living is free but raw:
investing in togetherness
a charge worth paying.
All are changed in the process:
the lonely - to find life less so;
the already-connected -
to feel the fragility
we all face at some time:
When the future is feared
and the present too painful.
That broken openess
is a welcome wound:
letting others come close,
letting God be there.

Table from Sunday

Another link in the section on the right! This time it's the table from Kev's talk on Sunday. It was attempt at putting a few of the things we do as Church into categories of New Testament command, Apostolic precedent and Human tradition. A work in progress I think!

Click here for the link or in the link on the right hand side

PCC Spring Sundays...

Firstly thank you to everyone who brought food to share at our Chat 'n' Chew meeting today. It was a valuable opportunity to share information and updates on various aspects of our Church life. Notes are in the Links section on the right along with the plan for our gatherings for this next season. There are some gaps still so please fill them if you can.

Thanks also to Kev who led discussions and shared his thoughts on some fundermental questions regarding what we do as church and how we live as Christians. The recording is ready to download and his notes are also in the Links section and as was annouced there will be an evening of more discussion and chat on Tuesday at Keyfox from 8pm.

And Finally... Some great news that we forgot to annouced this morning was that Tim & Jo Etheridge have had Baby Boy! Jacob James Chalmers Etheridge was born on Tuesday at 11.40pm, weighing 7lb 9oz. Eunice now has 8 Grandsons!

Some info for you...

Hi all,

You'll find the latest YAK in the links section on the right with all the usual news and information. Thanks to Linda again for her hard work on this.

We did however forget a couple of things. Firstly that we've got Chat & Chew tomorrow straight after our usual meeting - if you're around please bring something (edible!) to share and we'll all muck in. See you then!

Also Annie has emailed with some crusual info regarding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The Week of Prayer runs from January 17th to 23rd and concludes with a service at 3pm on 23rd at St Laurance, Lurgashall, followed by tea. There will be daily prayer at 1pm from Monday to Friday of the week led by various church leaders from the area and a 'Wave of prayer' spreading across the area on Wednesday 19th. For more information on any of this please see Annie or Jonny and we can forward you the posters.

Happy New Year and an invite from Hannah...

Happy New Year! I hope you all had good times this Christmas.

After four weeks in Gambia I was grateful to arrive back in England just hours before the snow disrupted travel – I enjoyed being able to go sledging in Petworth Park for the first time in years! My stay in Gambia went well and it was great to spend time with the team and with friends in the village. I am now making preparations to head back to France mid-January as I explore what life there working with the S immigrant population will look like. Whilst in Gambia I was told about lots more contacts of family members and friends who live in Paris (almost everyone in the village knows of a brother or uncle or grandson or wife's brother or some other relation who is in France!) so I'm looking forward to meeting new people over there, and seeing old faces too.

Before that I am planning on having an evening event here in Tillington to update people on my journey so far and future ideas for work. It's on 7 January at 7pm at Tillington Village Hall. All of you are really welcome. If you are able to come it would be great if you can let me know (if you haven't done so already) so that we have some idea of numbers.

Much love to you all,

Hannah