Dear Friends,

Dear friends,

Our Lent course this year has been following short video reflections from Richard Sewell, Dean of St George’s College Jerusalem (you can find them on YouTube if you type in “Richard Sewell”, “Lent course”), and this week his reflection was from beside the beautiful Sea of Galilee.

And in his reflection, Sewell described an experience he had “by the Sea of Galilee where I had a sort of a waking dream in which I imagined Jesus stood before me and invited me to follow Him, and asked: ‘Will you live as a disciple in the way that you have done in the past? Will you stay faithful?’

“Renewed and refreshed commitments… In a way that’s the heart of Lent, going deeply into our faith and trying to go deeper in our commitments to find that heart of the gospel, to understand ourselves as called by Jesus. All of us are invited to do that, for we seek to be faithful disciples who will stay true to Jesus right to the end.” May this Lent time be a time of blessing for you, a place of calm beside the waters of Galilee in preparation for whatever challenges lie ahead.

With love and my prayers,

Michael

Sunday and weekday Services

Our weekly service times are:
Sunday 10:00am Eucharist
Tuesday 10:00am Morning Prayer (BCP)
Thursday 10:30am Holy Communion (BCP)
Friday 5:00pm Prayer in the Choir Stalls

Additional, Regular Services:
2nd Sunday of the month 6:30pm Choral Evensong
4th Sunday of the month 6:30pm Evening Praise – an informal service

We also provide a livestream of our Sunday Morning Eucharist Service. The link for the livestream page is
https://stmarymagdalene.church/livestream-service/

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Lent Course

Tuesdays during Lent immediately after Morning Prayer. A series of short videos from Jerusalem followed by reflections on a passage of scripture.
Beginning on Tuesday 11th March.

Community Café & Informal Singing

Lots of activities are planned for the Community Café, please see below.

Rekindling, Tuesdays from 3:30-4:30pm

Due to the Lent Course being run on a Tuesday Morning we will be pausing Rekindling until the Tuesday after Easter – Tuesday April 22nd.

Lunchtime Concerts

The coffee and cake organisers need help serving tea and coffee and washing up. The job is just for about 2 and a half hours once a month on the second Wednesday in the month. If you think you can help please speak to Lilian Gibbons or me. Thank you.
Eleanor Pritchard.

Christian Aid Week 2025 – 11th-17th May

Volunteers needed!

We are now beginning to prepare for Christian Aid Week which this year is the week of 12th – 18th May.
A huge thank you to all those who are on the team of envelope deliverers already.

If you are not involved yet, maybe this is the year to do so. It is not too late to join us and there are a lot of roads in our area that are not yet covered.

Why get involved with Christian Aid?

Christian Aid Week is the single biggest act of Christian witness in Britain and Ireland.

For thousands of people throughout the country it is a way of answering Jesus’s call to help people in need and showing the community just how much good the Church is doing in the world.

Maybe you feel you could just deliver envelopes but not collect. Maybe you feel you could not cover complete roads but just a few houses near where you live. Any additional collecting to what is already done could make a big difference.

If you have any concerns or queries or want to talk about how you can help do ask me.
Thank you, Alison Reeve

The Spring Fair

This will take place on
Saturday 10th May
10.00 – 12.00am

Please contact Alison Reeve if you can volunteer to help on any of the stalls, or to donate raffle prizes.

Growing Good

The Church Urban Fund (CUF) has developed the Growing Good course to help churches flourish and explore the connection between social action, discipleship and growth. The Growing Good Toolkit is a free six-session interactive course, exploring how we can be faithful and fruitful in our local community.

It is helping churches grow in three key ways:
• knowledge about their local community
• confidence in their local mission
• hospitality and relationships

Clay Hill and St Mary Magdalene are jointly running the course, and the six sessions are on Monday evenings at 7.30pm, alternating between St Luke’s and St Mary Magdalene’s churches:

• Session 1 Presence – 28 April (St Luke)
• Session 2 Perseverance – 12 May (St Mary Magdalene)
• Session 3 Hospitality – 9 June (St Luke)
• Session 4 Adaptability – 23 June (St Mary Magdalene)
• Session 5 Participation – 7 July (St Luke)
• Session 6 Next Steps – 14 July (St Mary Magdalene)

Bishop Rob Wickam (CUF’s Chief Executive) is coming to the first session
There’s much already happening in Clay Hill and St Mary Magdalene to develop our mission in the parishes, and the Growing Good course is an excellent opportunity to take this further.
Everyone is encouraged to be involved and be part of the journey

Opening the Church on Saturdays

Our church is a valuable resource for people in our community to take some time out of their daily lives to reflect and connect with God. Not everyone is available on Sunday mornings and some just want a few minutes to pause and be still. We are hoping to make our church available for private prayer on Saturdays and are looking for volunteers who can give a couple of hours of their time. A minimum of two people will need to be always present. Names will be added to a rota, so the more people who are available to help us, the less often you will be called upon. If you are able to help with this, please see Alison Reeve.

Prayer…

What exactly is it? How do we pray? Why pray?

If these questions echo your thoughts in any way and you would like to find our more, there is a really good website to visit that will begin to answer these, and more questions. Born out of an event that went viral during Lent 1999 (over 25 years ago!), 24-7 Prayer has become an international organisation that has encouraged people to pray.

Their website https://www.24-7prayer.com/ has teaching and resources available to aid understanding and help in building a prayer life centred upon teaching handed down throughout the ages. There is even a free app that can be downloaded for the iPhone or for Android called Lectio 365. This provides a series of up to three daily prayer times, morning, midday, and evening (you don’t have to do all three) that last no more than 10 minutes each if you listen to the audio recordings.

I encourage you to have a look – and be encouraged to join in!

Visit to St Luke’s Church to see
Bubble Church in action:

Sunday 2nd March 2025

Michael and I went along to the half hour service, which starts at 9am. We arrived at 8.15am and everything was set up ready. Most of the preparation is done on Saturday, including a rehearsal to ensure the puppets appear at the right moments of the script! All present join in a prayer circle before the children arrive.

When Mthr Mitzi joined St Luke’s there were 4 children in the congregation: one family and the 2 grandchildren of the church warden; there were over 20 children present today.

There were 13 helpers today of all ages. Each has a role and these are rotated (apart from the tech…!): welcomers at the back of the Church, hospitality, 2 leaders, puppeteers and general helpers. The literature states a minimum of 5 helpers – which is how many St Luke’s started with.

The atmosphere was very lively and fast moving, therefore everyone, children and adults, were engaged:
A warm up activity, worship songs with actions, simple prayers, a simplified version – with puppets- of the Good Samaritan (perhaps too simplified), although it necessarily should be short and fairly simple as many children are about 2 years old. There followed a related activity: today children were helping make the sick people (us) better. There is a final song, prayer and message to take away (kindness to others).
There is no charge, but people are encouraged to give to support the cost of the service and I noticed most people did.

At the end, 2 people sit at the Prayer Tree, where children (or adults) can write a prayer and hang it on the tree.

Advance Preparation:

• Urns of coffee and tea, cups and saucers, pain au chocolat laid out on a table. I don’t remember seeing them but there must have been soft drinks for the children. We may also need to think about possible allergies in any risk assessment, although parents are with children at all times.
• The puppet screen, scripts, lecterns, carpet bubbles and filled bubble bags were laid out in the space at the front of the Church. There is a definite advantage to holding this service in Church as it reinforces that it is a service in its own right (and recorded as one) rather than an activity or club. It also gets children used to being in Church. I’m not sure if this is possible without pushing back the front pews.
• As previously stated, most of this is done on the Saturday, including the rehearsal. Somebody would need to ensure the right resources are available to put in the bags and pain au chocolats (or similar) are purchased beforehand.

Ann Rolland
For further information or to add your name as a potential helper please see Ann Rolland or Michael.

Donate

Would you like to donate towards the work of St Mary Magdalene? If so, this QR code will take you to our donations page where you can choose the amount you wish to donate.

Pilgrimage to Greece 2025

Join us on a pilgrimage to Greece for 2025 which includes St Paul’s time in Greece as well as some sightseeing of the ancient wonders of Greece, including Athens and Delphi. It will cost around £3,100. If you think you would like to come, please speak to me for more details.

If you have not been on a pilgrimage with us before they are great fun, and serious too, help us all to get to know each other better and make us the family we are. Do give it a thought.

A PDF of the Pilgrimage schedule is available on our website here.

Michael Smith

Ladychapel Memorial book

Every week we remember the anniversaries of death for different people. Their names are taken from two Memorial Books we keep. One for those whose ashes are interred in the Memorial Garden and a second, in the Lady Chapel, for people we wish to be remembered on a certain date (usually their death).

If you would like the name of someone to be remembered in the Ladychapel Memorial Book please speak to Ken Cope, the cost is £25.

YouTube Video Playlist

Something to dip in and out of or play while ironing or relaxing! Instead of a single video, this week we have a playlist on our YouTube channel containing twenty videos with lyrics. Four have been shared in the emails before, a few of the others at Rekindling, while others you may have heard elsewhere. Hopefully there will be one, two, or more(!) that strike a chord with you, the words, the tune, or a combination of the two. There’s a variety of styles included so perhaps one day something upbeat works, another something quieter, more reflective resonates with you. Any feedback is welcome. Here’s a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOS511gUMPpV2F1Lk-vDW5x9_UE_t_bVG

Dates for your diary

April 2025
Weds 9th 11:30am Coffee & Cake followed by Lunchtime Concert
Sun 13th 10:00am Palm Sunday Service
Sun 13th 6:30pm Choral Evensong
Mon 14th 7:00pm Stations of the Cross
Tues 15th 4:00pm Stations of the Cross
Tues 15th 7:00pm Agape Meal
Weds 16th 7:00pm Stations of the Cross
Thurs 17th 8:00pm Maundy Thursday followed by The Watch
Fri 18th 12:00noon Good Friday Service
Sat 19th 9:00pm Easter Vigil
Sun 20th 10:00am Easter Morning Communion
Tues 22nd 3:30pm Rekindling resumes
Sun 27th 6:30pm Evening Praise!

May 2025
Sat 10th 10:00am Spring Fair
Sun 11th 6:30pm Choral Evensong
Weds 14th 11:30am Coffee & Cake followed by Lunchtime Concert
Sun 18th 11:30am APCM
Sun 25th 6:30pm Evening Praise!
Thurs 29th 10:00am Ascension Day Communion

This magazine appears online only, with only a few copies available for archival purposes.