Monday 9th September 2024

Sunday Catch Up 
Yesterday we continued our 'Challenging Lifestyles' series on the Sermon on the Mount and Dinos shared with us about being salt and light. I found it both challenging and comforting which is a hard thing for a preacher to balance (well done Dino!)! You can catch up here. We also had our Prayer Ministry team and it was great to see people going for prayer and see God engaging with people deeply. If you would like to explore being on the Prayer Ministry team, email me and we can have a chat and get you some training. We also prayed for Jane Maffett and Emma Harniman as they (and the panel) shortlist this week for the four candidates to take to interview for the post of our new vicar! Do keep praying for wisdom and discernment for them and that they would all agree.

This Sunday we take a break from our sermon series to welcome Helen Stephens from our mission partner A Rocha. St. Stephen's has a massive heart for creation care and environmental issues and A Rocha's strapline is 'caring for God's earth' so she should fit right in! She will be speaking at both the 9am and the 10:30 am service.

Pimms & Hymns
This Sunday 15th September, we have our Pimms & Hymns event. We will be gathering at church at 3:30pm to drink some pimms and sing along to some favourite, classic hymns. This is a great event to invite your friends to as hymns, much like carols at Christmas, tend to evoke nostalgia in people who maybe grew up in school or church or in choirs singing them. Email Stephen@ststephens-ealing.org to vote for your favourite hymn and to let him know if you intend to come so we can make sure we have enough Pimms!

Welcome Tea
If you consider yourself still new to St. Stephen's, you are invited to a Welcome Tea on Sunday 22 September 3-5pm. Join me and some of the Leadership Team to have some cake and hear more about our church community. Email me if you are interested in coming. I will also have some invites on Sunday and can let you know the venue.

Ealing Half Marathon
Sunday 29th September is the date for this year's Ealing Half Marathon and as usual, we will not be running our usual 9am and 10:30am services, but will be gathering at the church to cheer on and support the runners with a water station outside our church. We also offer free tea and coffee. You can look out for our own Lizzie Rainbow who is running on behalf of the Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter. Click here to sponsor her! We will have a 6pm spoken communion service in the evening as we are not meeting in the morning.

Some of us are getting back in the swing of things post holidays maybe with kids back at school and some of us are now going off for our restful breaks! Some of us are facing tough times and need support and prayers. I pray that whatever is going on for you in the coming weeks, you know God's deep love for you. Yesterday in the service I felt God wanted us to remember that wonderful passage in Romans 8 that includes the words:

'..in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

God bless and have a great week!