Mick Wall, Author at St John the Evangelist, Shirley - testing

South Norwood Community Festival (SNCF)

04/06/2019 by Mick Wall

John – one of our church members is organising this fantastic local event, so if you are looking for things to do please add this to your diaries.

Click the picture for a detailed list of events.

Hannah leaves us today

02/06/2019 by Mick Wall

Well after 3 years today is Hannah’s last official day with us.

Please stay on after the 10am service to say goodbye to Hannah, James, Molly and Tabitha.

We thank God for blessing us with your presence.

Informal Worship

29/05/201929/05/2019 by Mick Wall

This Sunday see’s informal worship return to St Johns

As the name suggests this is a much more relaxed service You can help yourself to coffee and cake during the service and the music is has a more modern slant.

Here is a selection from this weeks service

There is also no “sermon”, but the teaching section is much more interactive – you can be as involved in this as you wish.

If you have never tried this before it would be great to see you – everyone is welcome.

TT4G – 28 May

27/05/2019 by Mick Wall

The church will be open from 08:00 to 09:30 tomorrow, 28th May. Why not take the opportunity to make space in your day to pray for the things that are important to you.

Inclusive church

24/05/201924/05/2019 by Mick Wall

I realise the website tends to have lots of information about what happening at our church, events, services etc. This post is a little different

At our recent APCM our vicar (Lu Gale) asked us to think about joining the inclusive church so I’ve been doing a little reading in preparation for an upcoming PCC meeting.

There is a lot of information on there and I hate to take a snippet out of context but I saw this and thought I should share it. It was a briefing paper on the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Guidance on using the Affirmation of Baptismal Faith with transgender people. In that paper there are some questions and answers, the last one struck a chord, here it is

Q. What might transgender people be looking for from their church?

A. For the Church to

signal that trans people are welcome
be a safe space for them, and for family and friends journeying with them
listen and learn from their experience
be a place where they are not required to hide who they are
recognise the honesty and integrity of their particular journey within the love of Christ
understand that their experience is about being true to their own sense of self
have their loved ones supported and their relationships affirmed
be open to their requests for prayer & offer resources to mark significant life events
treat them equally with everyone else in the ministry and mission of the church
not presume that they have automatically fallen from grace just for being who they are

I read the above thinking that sounds pretty much the same list that anyone would have.

The whole article can be found here.

Please continue to pray and think about what your response will be when asked about this topic.

Book Club- new book

23/05/2019 by Mick Wall

by Sally Vickers

n 1958, Sylvia Blackwell, fresh from one of the new post-war Library Schools, takes up a job as children’s librarian in a run down library in the market town of East Mole.

Her mission is to fire the enthusiasm of the children of East Mole for reading. But her love affair with the local married GP, and her befriending of his precious daughter, her neighbour’s son and her landlady’s neglected grandchild, ignite the prejudices of the town, threatening her job and the very existence of the library with dramatic consequences for them all.

The next book club meeting is on 16th June At 3:30pm in the Tamberlin Room. Everyone is welcome.