Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

Gracious God, whose loving kindness has no limits, teach us afresh the way of Christ.
Where we have felt discouraged, renew us through signs of hope;
where we have been tempted to give up, grant us strength and faith to face the day;
Where we have grown anxious about the future, give us courage to plant the seeds of tomorrow in acts of radical love today.
Renew us by your Spirit and set us free to serve you so that the whole of creation may rejoice in your name. Amen.
(Richard Andrew, Darlington District Chair – taken from the Methodist Church prayer of the day)

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

God of grace, good to all,
You have compassion over all you have made.
When I am falling, hold me up.
Raise me to my feet, so that I can walk with you.
When I am in need, meet with me.
Open your hands to me, to satisfy my longing.
When I call out to you, hear my cry.
Watch over me, that I may live in your love.
When I am hurt, lend me your grace.
Open my heart, that I may forgive.
When I see need, help me to face it.
Open my hands, to offer all I have and am.
When I hear you, help me listen.
Open my mouth, to bless your name.
Amen.

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

In your love we trust, creator God:
your love for your world;
your love for each one of us;
your love that invites us to love others,
to love ourselves, and to love you.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
receive our love now, and our thanks.
Amen.

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer (from Psalm 95):

O come, let us sing to the Lord;
Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
O come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
And we are the people of his pasture,
And the sheep of his hand.
The Lord is here: His Spirit is with us
Amen

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

Guided by your Spirit,
we have made the journey through the wilderness and desert,
trekking across rocky paths and dirt tracks,
and crowded city streets.

We have travelled alone.
We have travelled with those we love.
We have jostled with those whose company we have not always enjoyed.
But we have made it here, to this place, this moment.

And now we wait.
We wait upon you,
We wait for rest, for inspiration, for forgiveness, for hope, for love.
Receive us afresh, renew us and inspire us, Lord.

Amen.
(Taken from Roots at Home)

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

For this week’s opening prayer, we are sharing a poem written by Rev’d Heather White, URC minister to Luton and Dunstable Cluster:

When all is calm,
and life is still,
we sense something greater than ourselves.
We see things reflected,
we see things from a different perspective,
a new angle.
Suddenly the world is twice as big
as we see the whole picture,
reflections reminding us that there is more to creation.

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are always looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

Lord, we bring ourselves to you, just as we are.
Help us to see your love, shining through us.
Help us to have a child-like eagerness to know you more, and share your love in the world.
May we live as your children: gentle, and lowly in heart.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
Amen.
(Taken from the Vine at Home)

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

Loving and gracious God, we rejoice to know your presence with us at all times and in all places;

When we feel needy, you hear us and answer us.
When we feel threatened, you hear us and answer us.
When we cry out to you, you hear us and answer us.
Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

For our opening prayer this week, we are sharing the words from a hymn written and shared by Anne Sardeson in last week’s service.

Come Pentecost People, Behold God is here!
Enfolding creation that’s drowning in fear;
embracing in hope all that we do not know;
the seeds in the ground are the life that will grow.

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us:

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Hope that you are all continuing to keep well and stay safe. This newsletter is one of our ways of trying to maintain contact and a sense of community during this time when we cannot meet together as a church family. You can find previous issues of the newsletter here. We would love to hear from you and are looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter.  If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)

We start with our opening prayer:

Lord, we bring ourselves today. Just as we are.
Help us to see your love, shining through us.
Help us to have a child-like eagerness to know you more, and share your love in the
world.
May we live as your children: gentle, and lowly in heart.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
Amen.

Reflection from last week’s Pentecost service

I hope you’ll be keeping the drawings of the Mothering Sunday posy and the palm cross from the newsletter by you during lockdown. Today is Pentecost, so we have a flame to add.
Pentecost, along with Christmas and Easter, is one of the major commemorations in the Church Year – or Liturgical Year, if you want to be posh; 7 Sundays after Easter Sunday, 49 days plus 1 for the day itself gives 50.  “Pentekoste” is the Biblical Greek for “fiftieth”.

Continue reading →

Please follow and like us: