At 10.30
a.m. on Sunday 29th July, Christine led a special service to mark
the end of St. John’s
Before the
service proper began, Jeremy led us in a practice of the song “Jesus put this
song into our hearts”!
Christine began
the service by telling the congregation of our water theme and how the club had
decided to support Water Aid with their “Buckets of pennies for buckets of
water” appeal. Geoffrey also told us
that one of the helpers would be auctioning her painting of the Lake District for Water Aid during coffee after the
service.
We then
launched into our first hymn – “All things bright and beautiful” – before Chris
read John 21 verses 1 -14. Christine
reiterated that the disciples did not recognise Jesus at first! She suggested that when, after they had
caught no fish all night, he told them to “Cast the net to the right side of
the boat, and you will find some”, they would have been reminded of when this
had happened to them before!
After talking about breakfasts/suppers in general, and fish breakfasts/suppers
in particular, Christine put forward four suggestions as to why Jesus would
have appeared in this manner and invited the disciples to “Come and have breakfast.”
Following this discussion Christine told us about the sign of the fish and
ICTHUS which stands for Jesus Christ God’s Son Saviour. [Note: the reason we get five words from the
six letters is that, ‘th’ represents the single Greek letter theta!] Two of the children found a pile of fish
which they distributed to everyone in the congregation. These fish were to be taken home to remind us
of ICTHUS!
Next the members of WOW3 sang “Deep and Wide” to the rest
of the congregation before challenging them to sing it on their own!
It has to be said that the adults did
remarkably well ....
Well done everybody!
The confession and absolution were then followed by the aforementioned song
“Jesus put this song into our hearts” and the affirmation of faith before Becky
led us all in prayer. The service
concluded with the offertory hymn “O Jesus I have promised and the blessing.
As everyone filed out and into the hall for coffee, they passed the “splatter
painting” created during the week.
NOTE 1: The "Lake District" painting raised £60 for Water Aid! Well done to all concerned.
NOTE 2: The buckets for the
pennies will be in Church until we fill at least one bucket – so don’t forget
to save your small change and put it in the bucket on Sundays!
