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Dates for your diary:
Wednesday 8th September - 7:30pm - The Bible Study Group begins the autumn programme. See below for details
Sunday 12th September - 5:00pm - Patronal Festival at St. Mary's, Marston
Magna
Thursday 30th September - 10:00am - 12 noon - Grand re-opening of Mudford Village Cafe and Market in the newly refurbished Village Hall!
Sunday 3rd October - Harvest Festival and Lunch
Lunch in the Village Hall will be at 12:30 for 1:00pm and will follow the church service which begins at 11:00am. This has now become a regular event and is very popular - an opportunity for the parishes of Mudford, Ashington and Chilton Cantelo to get together.
There will be a ploughman's lunch, followed by delicious puddings and ticket prices will remain the same as last year at £5 per head. These will be available shortly but please see your churchwardens to put your name down!
Saturday 20th November - St. Mary's Christmas Bazaar.
Please note the date in your diaries - details to follow
News:
Confirmation Preparation
Michael will be leading a confirmation preparation course to prepare for the next confirmation service on Sunday 17th October at St. John's Church, Yeovil.
The course will cover a short summary of Christian faith and spirituality; it will look at the Christian belief about God, and then what it is to follow Jesus and, finally, how to function as a member of the church.
If you are interested - whether 'fairly definite' about being confirmed or 'just looking' - please contact Michael on 01935 850536
Gifts for St. Mary's
We are very grateful to Yvonne Rowlands and Rachael Flagg for their skilful and careful work which has produced a beautiful new burse and veil for the communion plate on the holy table and a pulpit fall. The work is very delicate and obviously took a great deal of time. The pulpit fall can be seen at any time and the burse and veil is already in use during communion services.
Thank you both!
St. Mary's is also grateful to the Friends of St. Mary's who have commisioned a carved oak cover for the font. Made with care by Richard Whitehead, this is now in place and is being much admired.
Regular Activities
Friends of St Mary's
Meets on the second Thursday of each month with a wide variety of talks and outings.
Further details from:
Patricia Parsons (Chairman)
Marguerite Batchelor (Secretary) - 01935 850812
At the end of 2009, the Friends of St. Mary's
generously donated to the church a wheelchair for occasional use by the more frail members of the congregation. They
have also commissioned a carved oak font cover which is now in place.
Mudford Church Study Group
The centre of the home group is about the application of the Bible - How does this apply to me? What change does it require of me? To what incidents or situations in my life is this relevant? Home groups can encourage honesty and make space for questions and doubts. Christian faith throws up paradoxes; events in our lives can make particular verses hard to understand. The home group can be a safe place to express these concerns. Home groups can give opportunities for friendships to develop. As we talk about our experiences, feelings, questions, hopes and fears, we are able to offer support to each other. In a good group we can bounce ideas off each other, spark inspiration and creativity, pool talents and resources: the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts!
The group meets fortnightly on Wednesdays at 1 Forge Cottages, Mudford from 7:30pm.
The autumn session begins on Wednesday 8th September and will be led by the Reverend Michael Hayes.We will be studying 'St. Mark's Gospel - the way of the servant'
For further information please contact Bill Watkins on 01935 850859.New friends are always welcome.
The work on the Village Hall is almost complete and the cafe will re-open on Thursday 30th September from 10:00am until 12 noon.
The cafe will then be open each Thursday morning, together with stalls selling a wide variety of goods. The 'Church Stall' will be there with second hand books - proceeds from this stall will go towards maintenance of the Church.
Do come along and meet your friends (and make new ones) and enjoy the morning in a happy and relaxed atmosphere!
Yeovil Street Pastors
Street Pastors are now out on the streets every Saturday night from 10 pm (yes, they start at 10 pm) till roughly 3.30 am, having begun on 11th April 2009. Here is what one of the team says: ‘A shared emotion I have experienced with other Street Pastors is the buzz you get from just being out in the night-time economy. Spiced with the interaction and rapport with both the public and other professionals out at that time of night, by and large I have felt most welcomed. The positive encouragement and admiration expressed by many underline the need for our presence in Yeovil. Another dynamic that has astounded me is the synchronisation of our involvement on the streets with the directions brought about by the Prayer Team’s intercessions – this combination awakens the sense that we are a real and active channel for God to make changes in our town’.
Contact Street Pastors on 07961 528704 or
email yeovil@streetpastors.org.uk for more details and if you’d like to join them. More prayer partners are needed too,
and you can support through a £15 yearly donation. For more information ask Alison Parris at Mudford Church.
News update:
Another 17 new Street Pastors have been trained and were commissioned in February 2010.This means the street pastors have been on the streets of Yeovil on both a Friday and Saturday night from the beginning of March. Further funding has come in and so more Prayer Partners are being sought to support the street teams. Indeed, more prayer partners are urgently needed – please contact Ian & Teresa on 01935 471009 for more details. It is exciting to see God’s hand in the rapid growth and positive reaction to this initiative.
School of Formation
The School of Formation is an exciting new project in the Diocese to support "Changing Lives" - further details can be found on www.bathandwells.org.uk
Changes in the Church mean that more and more parishes are relying on Local Ministry Teams(LMT) to lead Worship, Intercessory Prayers etc., not only during interregnums, but as a support to the incumbent. Our LMT, initially Bill and Helen Watkins, Clive Jones and Marguerite Batchelor, approached the diocese for guidance and training and were pleased to discover this new project just being set up. They are delighted to be one of the first teams to have the opportunity to learn from the School of Formation. The SoF will in turn be able to use our team for feedback.
The project is still at the discussion stage, but courses are being devised and, it is hoped, can soon go ahead. Details will be confirmed so that anyone interested can join in.
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