St John's News

Sizewell Hall Holiday 13 - 20 August 2022 

The booking form is available to download in pdf HERE, or if you would rather complete and return Electronically and make a BACS payment use the word document HERE then email your form to info@stjohnswoodbridge.org.uk, or if you would rather a hard copy you can collect one from the office during open times.
 
If you have never been to Sizewell before you can find out more about the holiday by watching a video message from members of our Church Family as they share with us what they love about the holiday.  
To view the video message click on the picture below. (Ignore the dates in the video, the date of the holiday is 13th - 20 August 2022)


Please feel free to talk with any one of us, we would love to tell you more.
We really hope you can make it.

Sizewell 2022 organising team
(Noelle Gore, Cathie & Julian Taylor, Alan Hawes, Marian Thomas, Stephen David, Nigel Maxwell and Pete Hanes)
 

Prayer Diary for August

The Prayer diary for August is now ready for you to view on our Website, click on the above image to go directly to our Prayer Diary page.

Summary of PCC meeting held on 15th July

We had a really good meeting with lots of different views aired, heard and discussed, and decisions made.  
 
We started with Ephesians 2:21-22 which speaks of the whole church being built together in Christ, building on a key theme emerging from last Saturday’s prayer meeting from Isaiah 43 – I am doing a new thing. 
 
Interregnum - We formally kicked off the process of recruiting our new incumbent by appointing Lyn Spall and Richard Bolt to be our parish reps. They will lead on creating the “Parish Profile” which is effectively an extended advertisement for our new vicar. A number of other people had expressed an interest in being involved, or were recommended to be involved, so we cover all parts of our church family as well as those we come into contact with through the Hub, Little gems and other activities. Lyn and Richard will ensure the team is widened to include these views. We have already had lots of great input from you, so please keep it coming. We will be running a session in church after one of the Sunday services in August to enable us to talk over some of the themes emerging, and take more input from people there. The next formal step following the work to create the profile will be the section 11 meeting (scheduled for September 16th ) when the draft profile is formally approved by the PCC.
                                                                                  
Children and Families - We talked about some changes we need to make to the provision for children because the current approach would not be sustainable after the summer. Clare presented the work she has done with families, which identified Sunday afternoons at 4pm as the best time to meet for a child-focussed meeting, where everyone would still be still welcome.   We agreed to try this out on a temporary basis as we have lost many of our young families over recent years. We cannot make the change permanent, as that will be a decision for the new vicar, but the trial will give us more information as to whether this serves our children and families more effectively. 
 
Sunday evenings - We also confirmed that we would re-start a Sunday evening meeting “Presence” to meet and seek God together in worship from September. This will replace what used to be café church, but will be a lower-key event so we can resource it from the volunteers we have. 
 
Sunday mornings - We are very aware of the Sunday morning service is quite liturgy centric and wanted to re-introduce something less formal and more free flowing, a request which has come from both old and younger members. We agreed to trial a more informal service on the first Sunday of each month from Autumn. There is a communion service at Bredfield that day, giving us more freedom to do something a little different. The first Sunday has traditionally been an all-age service, but we want to broaden the scope to remove the need for the all-age team to deliver this.  
 
Reconnecting - We discussed various ways to encourage people to re-connect following lockdown, and will encourage people to bring a picnic lunch to church over the Summer months. This will give us an opportunity to chat for a little longer to people we’ve not seen for a while, and maybe move to the grounds or the park if the weather is good. 
 
Sizewell – we have enough people booked in to give us confidence to run the Sizewell church holiday next year and agreed that this would now go ahead. There are still places, so please don’t leave it too long if you are still thinking about booking. 
 
Church Hall – we reconfirmed the decision made previously that the Hall should be the primary Youth venue, giving them priority over other users. We clarified that it could be used for other community purposes, but not commercial hire. This will enable the Hub to use it over the winter months and other charitable events to be run there. 
                         
We talked about our finances and progress on: our Safeguarding policy and plan; appointing a church architect; re-letting Bury Hill; supporting local Asylum seekers and our approach to opening up post-lockdown,  we’re waiting for guidance from the diocese and while hoping to be able to resume singing we will be continuing to make sure people feel safe, so please continue as you have been with masks and distancing.
 
We closed with Matthew 11:28-30 reminding us that our yoke is easy when we rely on him, followed by prayer. 
 
Alan Nunn, Vice chairman.

Let's pray together Tuesdays at 7.30pm 

Join with us on Zoom every Tuesday Evening at 7.30pm by clicking on the image above
or by using ID: 937 1772 6932 and Password: 389335 if you have the app.

Wednesday Mornings in Church

Our next Wednesday Morning Communion Service will be on 4 July at 10.30am and will then continue to take place fortnightly!  No need to book, but please remember to wear your mask and bring your own mug as tea and coffee will be served following the service.

Encourage one another in building Community

During lockdown so many of us have felt alone , isolated and disconnected from the Church Family.  Now we are emerging from this time of isolation let's come together again to reconnect and to feel part of our  community.
Perhaps God is suggesting to you, come, try something new?  Give it a go?  This is your community, and you are the most important people in it, nothing can happen without you.  When we serve alongside each other we build community, feel that we belong and are encouraged, while encouraging others.
 
There are loads of different ways you can now get involved, whether you have previously been on a team and want to change and try something new, or if you want to come back to the team you previously served on, your team leader will be able to share any changes we have had to make to enable us to do this in a new, safe and simpler way.
 
Whether you want to do something challenging with your specific skill set or whether you just want to serve and be with others there’s something for everyone, and then as we serve each other we can reach out and serve the community around us.

Would you like to lead a Daily time of Prayer in the church to start each weekday morning or at a new time?

Ever thought about Hospitality?  The Refreshment Team needs you?

Maybe Welcome folk into Church on a Sunday morning or join the team of Duty Wardens who look after us all while we are in Church each week?  

 We have a special event coming up which will need some extra special help Mission Woodbridge in Elmhurst Park on 29 August – Stewards, Technical help, possible refreshment team, TBC.. plus movers and shakers ?…..  plan of what we need still TBC…
 
Do you have an interest in IT?  There are opportunities to learn how to man the Audio desk, or the Live Stream, either on a Sunday morning (this is instead of Easy Worship) or help in building the recorded elements of the service prior to each Sunday.  
 
Do you have a heart for Worship? Or for Youth? Or for Little Gems on a Tuesday?
 
Would you like to support the activities of the church by changing the layout between events?  Now we have Little Gems each week, and our lovely Wednesday Service will be restarting in July along with the informal Sunday evening 'Presence' in September, we need folk willing to move the chairs about, with a few hands great things can be achieved.  But we cannot do any of this without you?  Would you like to lead a new team to get folk together for moving the chairs?  We want to know….
 
Would you like to just get involved by giving your time once per week to open and lock the church so we can keep it open for private prayer?  
  
How about some DIY with a small group of Church Family Friends?  
Our hall is in desperate need of a Garden Tidy up, we have weeds coming out of everywhere.  We are even in the process of refreshing our main driveway noticeboard thanks to Max Double, but this will need a willing person to give it, its final coat of paint before we put it back up?  Our Hall needs to have its makeover completed, our youth did a great job just prior to the pandemic to paint a large proportion of it, but this work still needs completing and they need some help to finish it, could you help with this?
 
A heart for Administry? The PCC needs a Secretary and occasionally the office needs some support of adhoc tasks? (Do you like filling envelopes, or being the postman?)
 
This list is not exhaustive, there are many, many more ways to get involved in Church life.  Let the office know if you would like to get involved and in which area, we will match you up with the person responsible for it, or if you want to take that responsibility on where there is no leader, together we can build our community and be of service to our amazing God in the community around us.

Something to look forward to in the Autumn

‘Presence’ - Time to just be with God.

We are planning to meet together for 'Presence' at 6.30pm on alternate Sunday Evenings for a very informal time together with God and with each other.
The evening will include, 
* acoustic worship * space to chill * time to pray * time to be  * time to receive   * time to relax in God’s presence. No real service outline, just allowing the Holy Spirit to do his work. 

We had hoped that 'Presence' would begin taking place at the beginning of July but due to the lifting of Covid restrictions now not happening until possibly 19 July and also people taking time away we have decided to postpone the start of Presence until September.

New Wine Breaks out 29 July–3 August 2021

Peter and Julie Plummer are hosting some of this in our Church this year so we can come together as a community.  

The basic plan is that we meet in church every evening at 6:30 for a 7pm start, the meeting ends at 8:30, so we should be done by 9pm.  We are not planning to do the after-hours. 
We are not planning to do the mornings, except the Saturday when we start at 10:30 for 11 start and we run until 1pm when we have a bring-your-own lunch.  We will then be back at 6:30 in the evening.  There will also be a Children's session starting at 9.30am.

On Sunday, we will have our usual morning service and we will show the 11:45 – 12:45 New wine session after the service. We may get a copy of the early talk and play it at a later date; may not.  Will let you know.

For more information on this year's New Wine Offering please click below


 

Contactless Giving 

When you come into Church you will see our new contactless giving signs dotted around, if you have a smart phone this is a simple way to give and avoids the need to bring cash into church.  We have other ways to give which you can also find on our giving page.

The Hub Community Café 

 
The Hub Community Café is open in accordance with the Covid regulations between10am to11.45am every Monday on the outdoor terrace of The Red Lion, Woodbridge.
We look forward to seeing you there for a hot drink, biscuit and chat.                         
The Hub Team

 

Church Office Opening Times