This is the weekly news sheet distributed on paper in the churches each week. This format may vary from that version.

Worship

“The God who made the world and everything in it

is the Lord of heaven and earth…”

Special prayers for today:

Collect

Risen Christ,
by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples:
help your Church to obey your command
and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Amen

Post communion prayer

God our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
may we thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness,
through him who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Amen

First reading: Acts 17. 22-31 ~ Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Gospel – John 14. 15-21 ~ “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Ascension Day ~ Thursday 2^nd June

Since the fourth century this day - 40 days after Easter - has been the day the church has chosen to celebrate Christ's Ascension.

This year we will mark it with a simple service of said Communion at St Martin’s at 7.45 pm.

The service should last about 30 minutes and at the end we'll go outside to release a blazing lantern and watch it drift heavenward remembering the words of the angel:

"You men of Galilee why do you stand

looking up toward heaven......?"

Events

Today sees the launching of our new style Sunday sheet! The idea of the ‘Weekly Wen’ is courtesy of Pam Morter!  You may remember that we asked for suggestions for renaming the opps sheet a while ago. Pam’s was a favourite as it very cleverly incorporates a ‘trinity’ of ideas that sums up our parish life – as well as a brief allusion to St WENdred and a play on the word ‘when’…WELL DONE, PAM!

In putting Pam’s ideas into practice, the sheet is being assembled so that the ‘Worship’ section enfolds the ‘Events’ and ‘News’ sections as a symbol of our parish life.

Also today there will be an opportunity to pop upstairs to ‘view’ the parish office after the joint service at 11am. The accompanying leaflet, entitled ‘The Parish Office’, lays out the hopes and dreams for this venture as well as some practical considerations. PLEASE KEEP IT FOR REFERENCE. Thank you. Ann Mc

Saturday 18^th June is the Duck Race, and we are looking forward, with your help, to putting this on as it has become a popular event. It is also a very labour intensive one for a few hours and we really appreciate offers of help to prepare and serve food or man a sideshow. This year we have invited the Parents’ Association and Stepping Stones to join us with their own stalls.  The Lucky Dip, run by Patsy and Joyce Edwards, needs small gifts to wrap. This is immensely popular with the children and only limited by the number of small gifts available to fish for. Donations for this will be gratefully received. Please let Clive or Ben know if you can assist by helping on the day. Thank you.                                                                                                        Jan Lovegrove

Stop Press! - At 7.30pm on Wednesday – 1^st June - there will a meeting for the congregation of St Philip’s - St Philip’s Voice.

I realise that this is short notice but Lesley has decided that she needs to step down from her role as pro-warden so there is a pressing need to decide how we can share out her role and ensure the smooth running of our church. If you are a member of St P & E, it would be both helpful and encouraging if you could be at the meeting. If you can't be there but feel you can offer to help with opening up/closing/counting the money/making the coffee then please let me know.                                                                                                                                                                           Joyce

Songs of Praise takes place on Monday 6^th June at 2.30pm at St P & E. Janet Langham will be leading our worship and sharing her thoughts about “Prayer” Please phone your usual contact if you need a lift or Pam Morter on 577284.

News

Sally and John - in order to take some pressure off John, we have agreed that I will act as a conduit for information about Sally's progress. They may well continue to send out information by email but if you have any other enquiries about Sally's progress, or about visiting her in Birmingham, please ring the vicarage first and we'll try and give you the answer.

In the meantime we continue to hold them both in our love and prayers.   Joyce 

Christian Aid - A great big ‘thank you’ and congratulations to everyone who took part in the house to house collection last week. I cannot give you the final total but I am delighted to say that we have again achieved over £2000, which in these difficult financial times is really wonderful. This is possible only because of the voluntary effort put in by you all, in giving your time so   generously. It has made us able to make a worthwhile contribution to the effort to lift people out of poverty. We will let you know the final total soon. Thank you everyone.                                           Jan Lovegrove
PS - As usual we received some unusual coins in the envelopes. One was a commemorative £5 struck for Princess Diana, for which we are looking for bids of £17 if anyone is interested. The foreign coins will go to the East Anglia Air Ambulance.

A PS! – Please take the time to read ‘The Parish Office’ leaflet and keep it handy. It outlines some of the plans for the use of the office as well as a few changes to printing deadlines and my contact details. The idea is to put my role on a more businesslike footing leading to a more efficient use of my time. This will then free me up to develop other areas in our parish life and my own Christian life. As many of you know, I am only semi-retired and also now have extra family ‘obligations’ with the arrival of Isobel and Thomas…so I am now trying to get myself better organised! I am really excited that at long last we have a pleasant office environment where we can work together in fellowship.

Once again, thank you for all your care and support.                                Ann Mc

The Parish Office

 Parish of Exning with Landwade 

MAY 2011

*Please keep this leaflet for future reference!*

The Parish Office…

is primarily a space for adults to work, meet and occasionally socialise in! There is a designated spacious work area with the following equipment:

• Risograph machine – used for most of our printing
• Computer compatible printer, scanner and copier
• A4 laminating machine
• A4/A3 laminating machine
• Paper folding machine
• Paper shredder
• Paper trimmer
• Large desk with comfy office chair
• Booklet stapler
• Radio/tape/CD player
• Kettle!

The ‘social’ side of the office is set up comfortably with armchairs, standard lamps, storage bench and extra cushions for seating. It also has a small computer desk where people can use their laptops or just a notebook and pen!

NB Children visiting the office must be accompanied by an adult – this is due to the office area being organised efficiently for parish work as well as the obvious health and safety issues.

The Grand Plan…

is to start by having a regular ‘opening time’ on a Wednesday each week plus the occasional Saturday morning. The idea is that people can just drop in for coffee and a chat – relax or perhaps help out…

The next step will be to put together a programme of ‘activities’ for each Wednesday or Saturday. These activities might consist of learning to use our office equipment, a new skill or taking part in a discussion…

Future developments being considered are:

• Having St Martin’s open on Wednesday mornings,
• Hosting a monthly coffee morning in the hall.

A store of raffle prizes has already been started so that there is a ‘pool’ to be drawn on. It is also hoped to set up a ‘Bring & Buy’ table in the office to raise funds…any other such ideas will be welcomed!

The first such opening will be on Wednesday 15^th June from 10am to about 12noon (this time might be extended on occasions eg when the parish Christmas card is being bundled).

As things get established, a monthly programme will be published in the weekly sheet and monthly news sheet.

Please come along if you can!

Important Information…

Now we have a more professional workspace for the parish it is time to revise the arrangements for contacting the Communications Officer(s?). These will be as follows:

• Printing of the weekly/monthly sheets will take place on Wednesdays from WEDNESDAY 15^TH JUNE.

• All items for the weekly/monthly sheets will need to be received by 7pm on Tuesdays.
• Items can be emailed to anniemc29@yahoo.co.uk in Arial 10 together with any attached files as a Word doc in the same if at all possible. A parish email address is coming…
• Contact may be made by phone 01353 667949 on Tuesdays – please leave a message if necessary. It is hoped we will have an office phone in the future.
• Letters/notes may be left in the designated baskets at the back of each church. This is safer than handing them to the present CO at events or after services!
• A table of charges for printing, laminating etc is being drawn up – this will be for non-parish work.
• All deliveries of paper etc to be made direct to the office rather than via Ely!

Our prayers are requested for:

those baptised in the past year for whom we have promised to pray:

those who are unwell or in need of comfort or support:          

and for those who have died, their family and friends: