News

A sequence of words and music for the start of Holy Week fashioned around the “Seven Last Words” of Jesus on the Cross.

Palm Sunday Evening, 14th April 2019, at 6.00pm

Hall Grange have a grant to revitalise the seven acre garden created by Rev. William Wilks (2nd St John’s Vicar) and Bernard has invited Alice Henry, the Head Gardener to tidy and replant the Wilks grave plot with Shirley Poppies.Alice is meeting Bernard in the churchyard on Sunday afternoon and they will join the Tea Room folk for a chat about the scheme and a St John’s link. The Fellowship Group are planning a Sunday Ramble soon to explore the Hall Grange Garden and return for tea and cakes.

Work began on Sunday to replant the Shirley Poppies around our former Vicar’s grave. The Revd Wilks was a renowned horticulturist, who developed the Shirley Poppy from 1880 onwards.

For more information on The Revd Wilks’ early ecological garden at Hall Grange, click here http://www.londongardensonline.org.uk/gardens-online-record.php?ID=CRO033

Keep up with the project here – this link will take you to the Methodists’ website about The Wilderness Project to revitalise the garden at Hall Grange https://www.mha.org.uk/news-and-views/latest-news/news_archive/reclaiming-wilderness/

Don’t forget tomorrow there is a Lent Lunch being run to collect funds for the Demelza Hospice Charity.

On the menu there is Sausage Casserole, Beef stew and vegetarian cottage pie. Why not get to the Tamberlin room for 12 o clock and save yourself some cooking and washing up.

Here are the items that are urgently needed for the food bank, When you are doing your shopping why not drop a few of these in. Collection point is at the back of the church, just drop them there and you can make a difference.

In aid of the kidney research charity.

Why not pop along today and have a feast on lasagne or Thai curry.

It’s sure to be a lovely afternoon, why not dine outside.

Many congratulations to our very own Claire Barracliffe who won the poetry competition at the recent Methodist Festival of talents.

Here it is in full for your pleasure.

By the Waters

She gave me a single, silver leaf,

From the branch of the willow tree;

As it bowed down to touch the pool

Of the tears that were both her and me.

She smiled as I gave her my blessing;

She sang as I looked on her heart;

She danced on the bank by the willow tree

And wept when she knew we must part.

But I can go back to the willow tree;

To the place where I found that lost child;

I can speak kind words and reclothe her

And she will not be betrayed or beguiled.

Her rags are no longer her garment,

She has something more fitting to wear

And the shame and the grief that subsumed her

Are held in the love and the care

Of another, who offers her blessing,

Another, who knows we must part,

Another who weeps as I weep by that tree,

Another, both child and apart.

So I will go down to the willow tree,

Where the branches dip guileless to see;

I’ll bear my silver leaf in my hair,

As it drops gold in the pool by that tree

© Claire Barracliffe

Congratulations Claire.

The new church website has a mobile app that goes along with it.

If you download it and connect to St Johns you will be notified when a new article is posted.

Interested? Download links below

Once you download and open the app for the first time just enter st johns, it should find St Johns the Evangelist (there is only one St Johns on the list), click next to it and the app will load.