Service Date: 28 September, 2009

Communion according to Gaius

Service Date: 20 September, 2009

Mark 9:30-37
This Sunday we are celebrating the first ten years of our organist and choirmaster, Douglas Jones, in St Andrew's. Douglas has chosen the hymns and readings for this service. And some of you may be thinking after this reading, hold on a moment, we've heard this before somewhere. You'd be right, for just a week ago we used this reading when we were thinking about the work of the Contact Centre and how we, like Jesus, can be glad to welcome children.
But last week we looked at the edited highlights. This week we can see there's more to the story. Because the stories in the Gospels are like the different notes that go to make up a tune - Mark has chosen very carefully what goes next to what. And just before our familiar story about Jesus and children begins, we have a much darker melody line.

Service Date: 13 September, 2009

In this service, part of National Heritage Weekend, we celebrate people and organisations beyond our worshipping community at St Andrew's who use our buildings: specifically the Antioch Community Church, the Green Party, St Andrew's Tennis Club and St Andrew's Child Contact Centre.

Service Date: 30 August, 2009

Mark 7:1-23
Does anyone watch the Antiques Roadshow? I find it fascinating, though I don't know much about antiques, in 2 ways. Sometimes something the owner thought was really precious will have a tiny crack, and not be worth nearly as much as they'd thought. But sometimes a really ordinary looking object will turn out to be amazingly valuable. You can't tell from appearances.

Service Date: 2 August, 2009

John 6:24-35

Service Date: 26 July, 2009

I hesitate to say it's summer, in case it starts to rain, but it's surely picnic season, so I thought we'd have a mini-church picnic today.
I hope you were all given a bag as you came in, with some sweets in? Everybody got a bag? Yes? Everyone got some sweets in their bag? No? Oh dear, how can we fix this? [share]
Are we sorted now? Oh no, I've just thought. Can everyone here eat sweets, or do we have some diabetics among us? Can anyone help? [nuts]. Well, once you've found something you like, feel free to nibble!
This reminds me of one of the stories about Jesus, when he was on a picnic with his friends, which we'll hear now from the Gospel of John.
Reading: John 6:1-14

Service Date: 19 July, 2009

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Does anyone here remember a TV programme called Call my bluff? There were two teams of three people, and each had a hard word from the dictionary that they had to guess its meaning. But the other team had to give two made-up definitions as well as the real one, so two of the three people who explained what the word meant were always bluffing, hoping the other team would believe their wrong explanation of what the word meant. And for some reason, one of the made-up definitions always seemed to be a disease of sheep. So I grew up thinking sheep must have an awful lot of diseases - scrapie, footrot, mastitis, these days even bluetongue. And that means shepherds must have a lot of work to do, keeping their sheep healthy and happy.

Service Date: 12 July, 2009

Last year some of us had the chance to go and see Cousin John, the musical written by John Earwicker of St Mark's Church about the life of John the Baptist. Myself, I only got to see the DVD of the performance, but one actor who stuck in my mind was Salome, Herodias' daughter, the one who danced for her daddy with bloodthirsty results. So with thanks to John Earwicker and to Mark's Gospel, here's one take on Salome's story.

Service Date: 5 July, 2009

Mark 6:1-13
Peter: Um, Jesus?
Jesus: Yes, Peter?
Peter: You know what you just told us, that stuff about going out in twos and entering houses and proclaiming things about turning round and coming back to God?
Jesus: If you don't want to go with Andrew, you can always pair up with someone else.
Peter: No, it's not that, John's said I can go with him. It's something else.
Jesus: Well?
Peter: This is going to sound really horrible, and I don't mean it that way, but... how on earth can you send us out like that after how they treated you in the synagogue just now? I could see how much it hurt when that idiot started going on about your mother, and dragging your whole family into it. And that saying you came out with about prophets being... what was it?
Jesus: Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.

Service Date: 28 June, 2009

Hymn (tune: Stories of Jesus)
1. Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear;
things I would ask him to tell me if he were here:
scenes by the wayside, tales of the sea,
stories of Jesus, tell them to me.

As you listen to the first of our stories of Jesus today, I should like you to bear the following question in mind, because in a moment I'm going to ask you to split up into small groups as we did for the last Vision4life service and discuss in your groups this question: If this were to happen in your street, and you were there to see it and to remember it afterwards, who from these stories would you remember and how would you remember them?
Gospel reading I: Mark 5:21-43

Groupwork I: Who from these stories would you remember and what sort of things would you remember about them?