Today/All Saints & All Souls; All Saints at 10am and All Souls Requiem at 5pm. 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.
Today/ The sermon this morning will be starting a season of exploring Congregational Giving and the community we can build together.
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/Drawing Group, 12 – 2.00pm, George Richards & Austen Williams rooms. Each month for two hours the drawing club meets to draw together. The aim of the group is to encourage and practice together. Materials, objects to draw and step-by-step help for those who would like it are all provided. No previous experience is necessary and all are welcome.
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.
Today/Autumn Lecture Series 2019: The Quality of Mercy in Drama, 7pm. Our speakers tonight are Simon Russell Beale, Juliet Stevenson and Revd Richard Carter. All welcome.
This Week/Club Wednesday/Wednesday 6 November. Following the 1pm Midday Prayer service, we will meet at 6 St Martin’s Place for a sandwich lunch. At 2.30pm we shall share a presentation ‘Remembrance: 75 yrs on’. The Club will host a group of alumni from Framlingham College, Suffolk, who, in 1944, lost one of their colleagues in WW2 and whose memorial service was held at St Martin’s. We shall hear the story of that pilot and his colleagues and how our two institutions have been brought together by their deaths. Through this we shall share views about Remembrance at a personal, institutional & national level, now that former enemies have become friends.
This Week/Bread for the World, Wednesday 6 November, 6.30pm. This week’s Bread for the World is ‘Light of Remembrance: A Service of the Word’ led by our Sheppard Scholars with prayer, music, word and reflection. Everyone is welcome; the service will be followed, as usual, by supper and discussion groups.
Next week/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 are available from Bronwyn Sanders or the Vergers for a suggested donation of £5 towards the food and drink. All members of the St Martin’s community are invited, and all visitors are welcome.
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).
The changing monthly display by St Martin’s artists’ and craftspeople’s group in the Foyer of the Crypt for November is by Jenny Cox. 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.
Global Neighbours: Pray for Tariro, providing hope for vulnerable young people in Zimbabwe: Dear Lord, remember in your gracious bounty, the young people of Tariro, as we pray for their success. Encourage their leaders and all who support them, to create communities of love and hope where every child is included.
Autumn Lecture Series 2019: The Quality of Mercy in Poetry/Monday 18 November, 7pm. Our speakers are Malcolm Guite and Mark Oakley. To ensure a place please book a ticket at stmartininthefields.eventbrite.com.
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/
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)
JPIC Meeting. The next meeting of the Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation group will take place on Sunday 24 November from 12-1.30pm in the Desmond Tutu Room. All interested in current issues of Social Justice and how we might respond as a community are welcome.
