🌽🥦🥫🍎🍐🫑🍆Harvest festival is nearly here! As usual we welcome harvest offerings of food which will be gathered in church and then taken to the food bank after the weekend. At harvest, the food bank welcomes all produce, fresh fruit and vegetables as well as the usual longer life items, so we will be delighted to receive a wide range of beautiful offerings. If you want to bring something to offer, you can place it in front of the nave alter anytime from now until Monday. The church is open every day, but with the added bonus of the flower festival displays on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Or bring your offering along to the service on Sunday at 10am. Thank you! 🍎🍐🍊🍇🍅🍑🍆🫑🧅🌽🥦🧅🥫🥖
Community
Our new benches
Three beautiful new benches now adorn our churchyard, donated by members of our community in memory of dearly missed family members. Last week, Nigel, Terry, John and Mike undertook the final task of adding the anchors to secure them in place. Thank you to the families who donated them and our volunteers for doing this work. The benches continue our efforts to make our churchyard hospitable as a place to sit and enjoy some peace or some company, a place for prayer and enjoyment of this space. ☀️
Flower Festival – Harvest Around the World
We are excited about the coming weekend: Friday 24th, Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th September, 10.00am to 5.00pm each day!
🌼🌸🌺FLOWER FESTIVAL – Harvest around the World.🌺🌸🌼
We are really excited that we are able to hold a Flower Festival, and as we are tying it in with Harvest Festival, we’ve called it ‘Harvest Around The World’.
BUT……IT’S NOT ONLY A FLOWER FESTIVAL……… as restrictions have eased, there is the opportunity to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee with a delicious piece of cake, in good company. There will be a raffle and a bric a brac stall full of bargains!
So why not visit the Church Hall after you have had a good look at the flowers and exhibits in the Church? See you there!
Sunday 5th September 2021
We are delighted to let you all know that this Sunday we will be holding our in person service inside our beautiful church building for the first time in more than a year. A specially tailored service has been prepared for this significant day for our congregation and all are welcome! The service will start inside the church at 10am.
Also at 10am, our radio service continues to be brought to you by our friends at Castledown FM for those who prefer. There is a service sheet here for responses and hymns so you can sing along where you are: https://stjamesludgershall.com/service-sheets/
However you choose to join our worship, please consider supporting our church financially with an offering. This can be done online here: https://stjamesludgershall.com/donations/
Ride+Stride 2021
A little advance notice about Ride+Stride: This year, our community at St James will be doing two separate efforts.
1) cycling: Rev’d Tim plans to cycle a route taking in as many churches in our Deanery of Stonehenge as he can on Saturday 11th September, and invites any keen cyclists to join him. More detail to follow on his intended setting off time from St James.
2) walking: we plan to walk from St James, over to Holy Trinity, and then along the road to visit the chapel in South Tidworth and then back again over the hill via the scenic route. This will happen on Saturday 18th September, one week after the official Ride+Stride date because locally we have the flu vaccination drive happening on the 11th, and a lot of our keen walkers will be going to that then. However, we have arranged for the churches on our walking route to open for us on our revised date of the 18th. Again, our setting off time is to be confirmed. The more the merrier-all welcome!
Please sponsor our efforts! The money is split equally between church ministry and the Wiltshire Historic Churches Trust. You can donate online here: https://pay.collctiv.com/ridenstride-62553 All donations gratefully received.
Stepping Stones is reopening!
We are delighted to let you know that thanks to a beautiful new team of volunteers from our community, our drop in and play toddler group, Stepping Stones is going to reopen on Tuesday 7th September. The pandemic has impacted so much, and we are so happy to be able to welcome the children, their parents and carers back into our hall and churchyard to play and grow and support one another. 😊
Sunday 22nd August – 12th Sunday after Trinity
Our In person service will be in the churchyard at 10am, for worship in the great outdoors. As always, come prepared with your foldy chair etc. For those who wish to tune in to the radio service, our friends at Castledown FM will be broadcasting our radio service, also at 10am. The service sheet for the radio service can be found here: https://stjamesludgershall.com/service-sheets/
Please give generously to help with the running costs of ministry here. Thank you. https://pay.collctiv.com/church-ministry-56501
Our in person services continue outdoors during August, and we will move indoors as of Sunday 5th September. 😊
Friday happenings in August
Two lovely things happening on Friday morning:
- What’s The Story, Bible storytelling and activities for 0-5s and primary aged children continues in the churchyard at 9:30am – bring a picnic blanket and be ready for action!
- The Community Cafe is open in the Church Hall 9:30am-11:30am, serving tea and coffee, cake and biscuits. All welcome.
And of course, the church is open for private prayer, as usual, if you want to pop in.
Churchyard Working Party 14th August
🧤🧤🧤Calling all volunteers for our regular Churchyard Working Party, this Saturday, 14th August, at 10am. Maximum of 2 hours working on the upkeep of our churchyard, so we will be all done by noon! Please wear gardening gloves, and bring any tools etc that you think might be useful: loppers, secateurs, wheelbarrows! More the merrier, thank to all in advance! 🧤🧤🧤
Pew Heating Project
Friends, as part of our ongoing commitment to the stewardship of creation and sustainable ministry of our church here in Ludgershall and Faberstown, we are going to install a new pew heating system. This is an electric system which acts a bit like an electric blanket upholstered to our pews, to replace our oil boiler and radiator heating system. There are a number of good reasons that back this decision, which you can read about more on our website here, https://stjamesludgershall.com/eco-church/ but they include significantly reduced running costs/fuel bills, reduced use of fossil fuels and a warmer congregation.
The cost of the new system is £12,052, which we are now seeking to raise. We are applying for grants, but also welcome any donations towards this project from members of our local community. As a church we want to take active steps to reducing our carbon footprint at the same time as protecting the future ministry of the church by reducing costs. To donate online to this project, click this link: https://pay.collctiv.com/pew-heating-project-38888. Thank you!
