Today/We are pleased to welcome Isabella Nuojia, Abigail Nuolan and Shao Ping, who will be baptised at the 10.00am Eucharist. Please pray for them on this very special day.
Crèche at St Martin’s. We have ended our agreement with the workers providing crèche provision for the Sunday 10am Parish Eucharist. Thank you for bearing with us in welcoming our youngest congregation members into our Parish Eucharist until we have re-recruited in the New Year.
Today/Children’s C-Club Programme, 11.30am, Dick Sheppard Chapel. Join us to learn some more about today’s readings and colour with your friends.
Today/Theology Group, 12-1pm, Austen Williams Room. Lee Gibbs will be chairing the discussion on the topic of experimentation on animals. All are welcome to join us to reflect theologically on this issue. Future dates: 17 November and 8 December.
Today/Welcome Course. If you are new to St Martin’s over the past 12 months and would like to find out what we are about and have a chance to make some friends who are also new, you are very welcome to join a five-week Welcome Course. Our next course will be in February – speak to Revd Sally Hitchiner to reserve a place.
This Week/Great Sacred Choral Classics/Monday 28 October, 6.30pm. An hour of Royal music from the Choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields introduced by Revd Dr Sam Wells, including the first performance of I Was Glad by David Bednall alongside Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens and Handel’s Zadok the Priest. Free admission.
This week/JPIC Meeting. The next meeting of the Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation group will take place on Tuesday 29 October from 7-8.30pm in the Desmond Tutu Room. All interested in current issues of Social Justice and how we might respond as a community are welcome.
This Week/Bread for the World, Wednesday 30 October, 6.30pm. Everyone is welcome at our informal Eucharist, a service with prayer, music, word and reflection followed by food and discussion groups. This week’s service will be a celebration of Black History Month with a reflection by Rev Sandra McCalla of St Leonard’s Heston.
Autumn Lecture Series 2019: The Quality of Mercy in Drama/Sunday 3 November, 7pm. Our speakers are Simon Russell Beale, Juliet Stevenson and Revd Richard Carter. To ensure a place please book a ticket at stmartininthefields.eventbrite.com.
All Saints & All Souls, Sunday 3 November; All Saints at 10am and All Souls Requiem at 5.00pm. At these services we will be remembering all those who have died in the last year who have been members of St Martin’s or connected with our church. If there is someone you would like to be remembered please give their name to Harriet Merz by emailing harriet.merz@smitf.org or via the vergers by 28 October.
Theology Reading Group/Wednesday 27 November, 8-9.30pm. We will be meeting in the Desmond Tutu Room to read Resident Aliens, by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. Copies are available at the Shop at St Martin’s for £16.99 (Abingdon Press; 1st Edition 1989).
Save the Date/Sunday 10 November 5pm marks our Patronal Festival, sometimes known as our Birthday Party. It’s the day we celebrate St Martin of Tours, the patron saint of our church. Because it always falls on Remembrance Sunday, we celebrate on the Sunday evening. This year the service focuses on the story of now St Martin gave half his cloak to a beggar, and in a dream that night discovered the beggar was Jesus. Six people representing different parts of our community – congregation, business, Chinese, Trust, Connection and Charity – will speak about what the cloak story means to them, and Sam Wells will introduce the congregation’s new vision statement, agreed at the most recent PCC meeting. Afterwards there will be dinner and a quiz in the hall and lightwell. Tickets for the latter event will be available from the beginning of November. All members of the St Martin’s community are invited, and all visitors are welcome.
Global Neighbours: Pray for Community Support Nepal, providing a home for children in Kathmandu following the 2015 earthquake: O Lord who inspires us to be compassionate, we pray for the people of Nepal, for improved educational and economic opportunity, for families and communities to become more resilient and less vulnerable.
Richard Carter is away in The Solomon Islands until 31 October, ministering to the church. Please keep him and the Church of Melanesia in your prayers.
Christmas Gala Evening/Wednesday 4 December. The evening will see a glittering revival of Vaughan Williams The First Nowell. This nativity was written specially for St Martin’s in 1958 and will be followed by a Christmas party with celebrity entertainment and a silent auction. All money raised on this spectacular evening will help St Martin’s continue its work. Please buy your tickets now here: https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/support-us/gala/book-tickets/
St Mary’s Cathedral Johannesburg Visit – A group of young people and adult leaders from St Mary’s Cathedral Johannesburg will visit St Martin’s from 6 – 22 April 2020 and we need people to help host this group by offering accommodation or evening meals. If you think you may be able to help please talk to or email Revd Jonathan Evens or Jess White.
The changing monthly display by St Martin’s artists’ and craftspeople’s group in the Foyer of the Crypt for October is by Alice Bree. Each month a different member of the group or artists linked to it will show examples of their work, so do look regularly to see the changing display.
Stewards’ Advent and Christmas Briefing/Sunday 24 November, 11.30am-12.30pm. This will take place in church directly after the 10am service. Regular and occasional stewards are welcome. If you would like to volunteer at one of these services and have to yet done so, please contact Helen Riley (hm.riley@gmail.com) or Kristine Wellington (kristinewellington@gmail.com; 07535 028144).
Meditation Group meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 6.30pm in the Dick Sheppard Chapel. All are welcome.
