Services
Morning Prayer at 10am every Thursday
Just in case you missed it, last week and the week before we've launched our new Thursday 10am Morning Prayer.
 Rev Kathryn says:
"A short service of Morning Prayer will be held in St John’s every Thursday at 10am.
Whether you’re a regular, occasional, or ’never before’ Sunday morning
churchgoer, Morning Prayer is a wonderful way to spend time with God in
the middle of the busyness of the week.
The Annexe will also be open from 9:30am until 12pm for people to meet and chat over a coffee. Why not make this is a regular date in your diary and spend time in the warmth with friends, as well as time with God.
See you there!"
Our Services and events for the week from Sunday are:
- Sunday 29th January 2023 - Epiphany 4
- 8am - BCP Morning Prayer
- 11am - Holy Communion - followed by refreshments in the Annexe
- Monday 30th Jan 7pm - Zoom Chat (bring your own Coffee, Cake or even Horlicks)
- Tuesday 31st Jan 2pm - The Funeral of John Martindale - all are welcome - for more details see below
- Thursday 2nd Feb 10am - Morning Prayer - for more see above
- Thursday 2nd Feb 9:30-12pm - Meet and Chat over Coffee in the Annexe - see above
The Funeral of John Martindale - 2pm, Tuesday 31st January, St John’s Church
John Martindale sadly died at the end of December. Many of us will
fondly remember John, who, with his wife Eileen, was a regular member of
St John’s congregation.
John’s funeral will be held at St John’s church on 31st January at 2pm,
with the committal at Harwood Park Crematorium at 3:30pm. All are very
welcome to attend the funeral and the after service gathering at Welwyn
Garden City Golf Club.
Thinking of being confirmed? Then pop Monday 12th June in your diary!
Rev Kathryn says: "A Hatfield Team wide confirmation service is being held at St Michael’s on 12th June at 5pm and it would be wonderful if we could have lots of candidates from St John’s and St Michael's!
Confirmation is a joyful service in which adults and teenagers confirm
for themselves that they wish to accept the Christian faith into which
they were baptised as a baby or small child. If you’re not already
baptised, then you can be baptised and confirmed in the same service.
The local Christian community will be there to support and pray for you
during the evening, and it’s always wonderful if family and friends can
be there as well. The local bishop will lead the service and ask God’s
Holy Spirit to give you the strength and commitment to live God’s way
for the rest of your life."
Kathryn will be holding a short course a few weeks before the
service to help candidates grow in understanding of the Christian faith
as preparation for their confirmation. This Christian basics course won’t be restricted to those being confirmed - everyone is very welcome to attend. More details to follow soon.
If you’d like to find out more drop Rev Kathryn an email at revkathrynalford@gmail.com
St John’s & St Michael’s 2023 Lent Course - HEARING GOD THROUGH THE BIBLE
A five week Lent Course starting 28th February - suitable for EVERYONE!
Tuesdays
10am - St Michael’s, Birchwood
7pm - St John’s Lemsford
Have you ever wondered….
‘How can I grow in my prayer life?’
‘What on earth is God saying to me and our churches?’
How do I make sense of the Bible?’
….then this is the course for you!
This year’s Lent course will be using materials from Pete Greig’s
fantastic Lectio course to help us learn how to hear God’s voice through
the Bible. Lectio Divina is an ancient spiritual practice - a
prayerful way of reading the Bible that allows for God to speak to us
through scripture in powerful ways. It is suitable for everyone - no matter how little, or how much, you’ve read the Bible or prayed before.
Each of the five sessions will consist of:
- Refreshments!
- A short video, with Peter Greig and a guest interviewee exploring a different aspect of Lectio Divina
- Group discussion
- A practical ‘Lectio Divina’ activity.
- Optional reading and activities to undertake during the week
For a taster, take a look at the trailer at www.24-7prayer.com/lectio-course.
Food Bank
 Our local Food Bank at the New Zion Christian Fellowship
church would appreciate receiving donations of food and other
things from us now and all year round. It would be wonderful if you
could support them by bringing various things in on Sunday mornings, and
placing them in the big plastic box which will be placed in the porch.
The sort of things the Food Bank would like to receive are:
- All food with good sell by dates (tins of fruit and veg, jams, packets of cereal, coffee, tea, long life milk and so on)
- Toiletries such as shampoo and conditioner and toilet rolls
- Cleaning products (kitchen and bathroom cleaners etc)
We are asked not to donate clothes.
Nigel will arrange to take our offerings to the New Zion church every Wednesday morning.
Thank you so much.
Please sign up for a spot in the Cleaning Rota
Still slots to fill!
"The Cleaning Rota" did not run during Covid and instead the
Churchwardens Jenny and Nigel cleaned and disinfected per Covid best
practice, but now it's time to ask for your help with getting the rota
started again.
Jenny will be contacting people who have previously taken a turn with
cleaning. More volunteers are needed to help us. All the materials
you'll need are provided. All that we need is your time!
Let's spread this load between us all!! Please contact Jenny if you would like to take a turn with cleaning.
You can choose a date that suits you!
We continue to think of Ukraine:
Update - John Blanch emailed me to say that the "Taste it Polish Restaurant" in Hatfield is no longer taking donations of clothing for Ukraine. However this doe snot stop our efforts.
Bishop Alan says we can pray, and practically we also have an option to donate to the Red Cross Appeal which I again repeat here:
To see their appeal details, please copy and paste this link into your browser: https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-crisis-appeal.
You may donate any amount you wish, and your cash will go towards
helping people who are being affected by the crisis, by supplying them
with food, water, first aid, medicines, warm clothes and shelter.
Donations may be made direct to the Red Cross appeal, or alternatively,
you may care to donate using the QR code below. The QR code will also
be displayed in church.
If you don't do QR Codes then clicking this link on your computer goes to the same "give-a-litte" link: https://givealittle.co/campaigns/753bbfac-510a-47d8-86cf-f6a707ddc585
Zoom Chat has moved to Mondays at 7pm (not this Monday, but resuming on 9th January)
We've moved our Zoom chat to Monday at 7pm and the first one went well.
If you've found you couldn't get to the Sunday 4pm one, or never came to
any, this is your chance.
Hope to see you there. - see below for joining link and details.
Church Giving. We are now passing the offerings plate at services. I
know that many of us are happiest giving cash rather than scanning QR
codes or tapping payment cards or smartphones, so this is good news
indeed.
 But,
if you like the QR Code, you can point your Smartphone’s camera or QR
app at it, and it will let you give, or from your PC/Mac you can just
click this link: https://givealittle.co/campaigns/10cd954f-25f7-46d9-8813-634634729bfa.
You can also give via the new (easy to use) card payment device –
both at the back of the church - these donations go to St Johns funds.
We are planning to make the QR Codes easily accessible from the pews
too.
Coffee and Chat Details:
Friendship Teas - every second Tuesday of the month at 2:30pm in the Annexe!
The next one is this Tuesday 14th February 2023 at 2:30pm
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St John's Church Lemsford