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Sunday
School meets in St Stephen's School
Sunday Youth meets in the Glebe Maisonette
Small Children are welcome to play in St Thomas's Chapel,
near the porch
Baptised Communicants of other Churches are encouraged to
receive communion
Children and other non-communicants are invited to come to
the altar for a blessing
The Ministry of Healing is offered in the Chapel, after Communion
is given
Over the year and a half that I have been vicar at St Stephen’s there has been a 30% increase in the number of people worshipping on a Sunday morning. We are sitting on a goldmine. My vision for the church is that we should work in partnership with the school and offer to the wider community in Shepherd’s Bush an example of how a multi racial, cross-generational, different income bracketed group of people can relate to each other.
We have plans to build a church hall and would like to offer a Breakfast Club and After School Club. We will become an oasis for parents within the area.
In the immediate though we need more help for this vision to come to fruition. In the Sunday Services we need people to help with the welcome and hospitality, reading and prayers. In the week we need people to help with cleaning the church. I need help for when someone wants me to pray with them. It is never appropriate for me to go alone into a woman’s house and therefore I need people who are happy to go with me. Is anyone interested in Sunday School or working with young people?
There is also the issue of money. If people were willing to give by standing order rather than by envelope or through the plate our income would jump by 28% in one go.
The last year and a half has seen us go from awareness to interest. I pray that we will now be able to go from involvement to ownership. I feel very lucky to be a part of all this.
Processional Hymn
Collect of the Day
Almighty Father, you have given your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
First Reading Acts 5.27-32
Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead – whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
Gradual Hymn
GOSPEL Matthew 22: 15-22
The Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap Jesus in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what
is God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
INTERCESSIONS
Please pray for
- The sick and suffering: especially Felix Okike, Lucilda Bernard, Joan Andrew, Elizabeth Dorsett, Clive Heywood, Ron & Ivy Smith, Susie Leach, Norbert Edwards, Brother Paul Anthony, Sylvia Steed, John Asbridge, Caroline Nevill, Ruth and Tracey Davies, Esmay Young
Offertory Hymn
Communion Hymn
Post Communion Prayer
Lord God our Father, through our Saviour Jesus Christ you have assured your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him: deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Recessional Hymn
Coffee in church after the service
Acts 5.27-32 © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Pub. Hodder & Stoughton. Invitation to Confession (Easter Day until Eve of Ascension) © 1988 Continuum (Mowbray) (Adapted). Some material included in this service is copyright: © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ, USA. Some material included in this service is copyright: © The Archbishops' Council 2000. Collect (2nd of Easter) © The Crown/Cambridge University Press: The Book of Common Prayer (1662)
NOTICES
NEXT SUNDAY: 22 April 2007 Third Sunday of Easter
10 am SUNG EUCHARIST
Celebrant and Preacher –Reverend Robert Wright
Acts 9.1-6, John 21.1-19
THIS MONTH
Whole Parish Annual Parochial Church Meeting
Tuesday 24th April – 7.30pm at St Stephen’s
DIARY DATES
Thursday 17 May – 7.30 pm – Confirmation Service at St Stephen’s
Friday/Saturday 7/8 September – Parish Residential Event – Felbury Centre, Dorking. Please see Barry or Liz Clarke for further information.
The Bushcity Youth Academy of Performing Arts requires people able to teach drama, singing and dance, on Tuesdays between 6.30 and 8.30 pm. Please contact Elaine Yoda on 07917 166775 or 020 8746 1823
Home Communion – Available to any unable to come on a Sunday. Talk to Father Bob (8743 3166) if you or anyone else might be interested.
Any enquiries about pastoral concerns, baptisms, weddings or funerals please get in touch with Father Bob. The only time that Father Bob will be unavailable is between Friday pm and Sunday am.
Visit the church web site at www.ststephensw12.org for photos of last week’s Walk of Witness and Easter Bonnets.
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The
Church of St Stephen & St Thomas
