This week’s gospel continues the theme of being fed which, for me, has been quite poignant.  I have spent much of the week on retreat in the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Crawley Down – the home of the Community of the Servants of the Will of God, an enclosed /contemplative community of Anglican monks.  Some of the reading and reflection I did included the question of why people come to church, with the two options of ‘in search of community or a sense of belonging’ and ‘belief or faith’ being offered.  Jesus is to be found in both and it seems to me that the answer is, as so often, likely to be a mixture of both and, in each other of our faith journeys, likely to be mixed in different proportions at different times.

Rather like, in the Eucharist service, we encounter Jesus in both Word and Sacrament but different elements of the service will ‘speak’ to us more at different times. How does Jesus feed you?

We expect our Alpha Course, which starts next month, to offer a chance of exploring or deepening both ‘faith’ and ‘community’ elements of our Christian life.

Might you be part of that?

Invitations are at the back of church.

Anthony

Preparations for our Come and Sing day on September 19th are well underway.  We will be singing songs from West Side Story and other musicals, then performing them in an informal concert.  For full details of this event, click here.

The timetable for singers has been released by Director of Music, Alex Hiam and is as follows:

Part three of five and Mary Sumner. Today’s gospel reading takes us further on John’s bread theme. After the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus teaching his followers about heavenly bread this week’s focus is on what it means when we gather round the table to share bread and wine.

Today we also remember Mary Sumner, founder of the Mother’s Union, and give thanks for the work they do in our parish and the church as a whole. As we gather round the table as God’s family we will also be giving thanks for the tireless work of the Mother’s Union in holding together and strengthening families since 1876. We give particular thanks for the MU in our own parish and their ministry during our many baptism services, supporting the clergy as families prepare for the baptism and at the services themselves.

It is also a fitting start to the new schedule of services at St Barnabas. Building on the strong mark that Family Services have had on the life of St Barnabas we are introducing a new Family Eucharist this Sunday. From this month on we will have two services for all ages. On the 2^nd Sunday of the month we will have a Family Eucharist. The Family service will move to the 4^th Sunday of the month. With the addition of the Family Eucharist and the second Nic’s service which started in June, there will now be a service in our parish every week suitable for young children. Hope you will join us for one or the other of them.

James