Church Blog
News, Updates, Thoughts

I am thinking about starting a Homegroup, possibly on Thursday morning, at or in a home near St. Barnabas, Darby Green.

There has been a bit of conversation about a craft group as well, but I can’t do both, although many creatives would say that their craft helps them pray, so there may be a creative opportunity here.

Would this interest anyone else who hasn’t talked to me already?

Can you spare an hour occasionally to deliver emergency food parcels to local people when the foodbank is closed i.e. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday?

If you are interested please let me know.

From Monday 2nd January 2023 online Morning Prayer (via Facebook and later available on YouTube) will be shared by Rachel, Jane and Derek on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only.

We hope this will continue to be a source of prayerful enrichment to those who like to make use of it.

Please come and join us at our Christmas Services:

Friday 9th December

5:30-7:00pm Fireside Carols (at St Mary's Church)

Sunday 11 December

10:00am Community Carol Service

Christmas Eve

4:00pm Christingle Service

11:00pm Midnight Communion (at St Mary's Church)

Christmas Day

10:00am Holy Communion

With the cost of cards and postage ever increasing, the idea was put forward to have one Christmas card which everyone could sign at the back of the church.

There will also be a donation box for any donations they wish to make instead of buying cards.  The money raised will be donated to a charity.  Please give any suggestions for a charity to Margaret.

A huge thankyou to Marilene, Rachel, Derek, Kate, Seren, Abby, Penny, Kathy, Jane L, Jane H, Jeanette, Jackie who helped out with our schools days at St Barnabas over the last two weeks.

In total, nearly 300 children from Potley Hill, Frogmore Infants and Spring were able to engage with the Christmas story as part of their RE Syllabus.

Thank you so much!

On 1 November 2022 our Diocesan Vacancy in See Committee has asked us to hold a day of prayer and fasting to pray for the Holy Spirits guiding in the process for discerning and appointing our next Bishop of Winchester.

We are also suggesting we use the day as an opportunity to pray for the next Priest in Charge for our own parishes.

We will be holding the following events during the day where this will be our particular focus of prayer but you are also invited to offer your own prayers at other times in your own way:

• 10am - Online and in person Morning Prayer at St Mary’s
• 11.30am - Holy Communion at St Barnabas with a focus on prayer
• 6.45pm - Prayer meeting at St Barnabas prior to the PCC Meeting at 7.30pm

A huge thank you to everyone who came along, and especially to those who helped with the Lite Nite at St Barnabas on Saturday.

We had a good number of people come and join us, and quite a lot from outside our regular congregations in particular.  Lots of fun was had and we took over £130 in donations.

A huge thank you to Derek and Jeanette in particular for organizing it, and for everyone who took on jobs and helped make it so much fun.

Over the last few years we have struggled to get sufficient numbers together for our midnight services to justify them and so I have been asked if it is worth holding one this year.

If you think that you are most likely to want to come to a service at 11/11.30pm on Christmas Eve, please could you let me know by Friday 4th November and we will take a decision on whether / where to hold a midnight communion service this year.

We are looking at being able to use the Honeycomb to provide a warm space for people to come during the day if they are finding it hard to keep the heating on at home or just to find people to talk to.

There are a few of our current groups, such as Tots and the Friday coffee mornings where this will be happening anyway.  The idea however is to use the honeycomb outside of busy times to allow people to just come and sit in the space.

We are looking to have 2 people who will volunteer to come and be in the Honeycomb during the day and allow people to come and use the space to sit in, perhaps make them a cup of tea but mainly let them just keep warm. We are looking for volunteers to come and be in the room, ideally once a week for 2-3 hours.

Here are the times we are currently looking to cover:

• Mondays 9am – 12.30pm
• Wednesdays 9am – 4pm
• Thursday 9am – 12.30pm     

Please let me know if you can help.