Sunday 4th MarchOur Collect Prayer for this week – The Third Sunday of Lent

Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord.

What’s happening this morning?

St Michael’s Church 9.00am Eucharist Rev. Nicola Callen

St Ambrose Church 9.30am Eucharist Rev. Nicola Coleman

St Aidan’s Church 10.30am Eucharist & APCM

Rev. Jordan Ling

St John’s Church 10.30am Eucharist Rachel Greaves leading and Rev. Canon Stephen Purvis presiding and preaching

Readings this week

Exod 20.1-17; 1 Cor 1.18-25; John 2.13-22;

‘Reaching Out to Welcome In’www.staidanbristol.co.ukSunday Service 10.30am

Special notices St Aidan’s APCM. This will take place today during the 10.30am Service.

Baptism Preparation. The next session will take place on Sunday 18th March 4pm in Church.

Services focussing on Prayer during Lent. On Sunday 18th March 7pm until 8pm St Aidan’s will hold a Labyrinth Service. Everyone is very welcome.

THE ORGANAlan J. Kitley

(Organist & Choirmaster 1959 – 1981)

&

Bernard L. Merrick

AVAILABLE NOW! A brand new publication written and compiled by Alan J. Kitley and Bernard L. Merrick, featuring the “The Organ” at St. Aidan's – its history, its features, how it came to be, and all sorts of fascinating details surrounding this marvellous instrument. Sixty pages long, full colour photos, personally autographed by the authors if you want! At the very reasonable cost of £7 per copy, any profit going to charity. Place your order now by contacting Bernard at Church or by email to merrickqs@blueyonder.co.uk or by phone 01179407142

Regular weekly events Sundays - 1st in month

MESSY CHURCH 9.45am - 11am in the Church Hall

Sundays – Fortnightly

DEAF CHURCH 3pm

Tuesdays EVENING PRAYER 7pm in the Lady Chapel

Wednesdays MESSY CHURCH 3.30pm at Air Balloon Primary School

Thursdays MORNING PRAYER 9.15am in the Lady Chapel

Thursdays COFFEE & CHAT 10am - 12pm in the Café area of Church

‘Serving the Community Worshipping God’www.stjohnsfishponds.com

Sunday Service 10.30am

Special noticesFair Trade Fortnight. To mark this St. John's Developing World Group are holding a raffle for a Fair Trade Hamper of goodies and selling cakes, after the 10.30am Service today. Please support us in trying to help those who have so little.

Mens Group. Due to unforeseen circumstances the Mens Group meeting for March has had to be cancelled.

Services focussing on Prayer during Lent. On Sunday 11th March 7pm until 8pm St John’s will hold a RELEASE Service and not this evening as previously advertised. Everyone is very welcome.

St John’s PCC. The next PCC meeting is on Monday 12th March at 7.30pm.

St John’s APCM. This will take place on Sunday 18th March during the 10.30am Service. Please make every effort to attend. The APCM report will be emailed out, however if you are not on email or cannot print it yourself there will be some printed copies available on the day.

Real bread. On Sunday 25th March real bread will be offered.

Regular weekly events Tuesdays MORNING PRAYER 9.15am in Church

Tuesdays COFFEE & CRAFT 10am - 11.30am in Church

Thursdays HOLY COMMUNIONfollowed by Coffee

10am in Church

Saturdays BIBLE STUDY 10am in Church

Regular monthly events Sundays - 1st in month

HOLY COMMUNION 8am in Church

Sundays - 2nd in month

RELEASE SERVICE 7pm in Church

Sundays – 4th in month

MESSY CHURCH 3.30pm - 5.30pm in Church

Mondays - 1st in month

MENS GROUP 8pm in Church

St Michael’s Church‘Serving the Community of Two Mile Hill’

Sunday Service 9am

Special noticesSt Michael’s PCC. The next PCC meeting is on Monday 12th March at 2pm.

St Michael’s APCM. This will take place on Sunday 15th April during the 9.00am Service. Please make every effort to attend.

Regular weekly events

Fridays COFFEE AFTERNOON

2pm - 4pm in Church

Saturdays COFFEE MORNING 10am - 12pm in Church

Wednesdays - 1st and 3rd in month

HOLY COMMUNIONWith prayers for Healing

10am in Church

Wednesdays - last in month

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS GROUP

2pm - 4pm in Church hall

St Ambrose and St Leonard’s Church‘At the heart of the Community’

Sunday Service 9.30am

Special noticesElectoral roll. Revisions of St Ambrose and St Leonard electoral roll will begin on 11th March 2018 and end on 25th March 2018.  If you are not currently on the roll for St Ambrose and St Leonard’s and wish to be included, forms will be available from Derek Cann during this period.

St Ambrose and St Leonard PCC. The final meeting of the PCC before the APCM will be Tuesday 20th March 2018.

St Ambrose and St Leonard APCM. St Ambrose and St Leonard’s Church APCM will be held on Sunday 15th April 2018.  The deadline for all reports to PCC Secretary Joanna Phillips, will be Sunday 11th March 2018.

Regular weekly eventsWednesdays HOLY COMMUNION

followed by Coffee10am in Church

Tuesdays - 1st in month

HEALING EUCHARIST

7pm in Church

Thought for the week by Helen O’SullivanCreative Prayer

Prayer is a gift, an invitation from God. It is not a task, but is one of God’s chosen ways of building relationship with us. This Lent, we are focussing on this invitation to prayer, re-commiting ourselves to receiving prayer as a gift and taking the opportunity to explore paths of prayer we may not have tried before.

Prayer is about communication between us and God and in the Bible God communicates in a myriad of ways. Music, artistic description, poetry and stories are all called into use to create different ways of engagement and communication between man and God. I wonder how often we make use of this breadth of resources in our times of prayer?

Our God is a creative God and in a wonderful passage from the Book of Proverbs we hear about the artistic God who delights in creativity and plays in creation:

‘There I was with him, as artisan,

and I was delight day after day,

playing before him all the time.’

Proverbs 8.30

This is the creative God who invites us and who has gifted us with a range of talents, skills and resources to encounter this creativity in prayer. We can use music, dance, art, poetry and much more in our times of prayer, whether we ourselves are doing the creating or whether we are using things created by others.

This Lent you might like to try adding one of the following to your pattern of prayer. Maybe re-discovering an old favourite or trying a new approach:

* Journalling involves writing, drawing or painting your prayers. Not only does this allow you to express yourself in a different way it is also a great way to keep a record of your prayers and note down how God responds to them.

* The Photo a day Challenge is a great focus for prayer and is especially popular with those on social media. Each day you take a photo connected to

a given word. This is designed to help you pay attention to the world around you, reflect on a theme and collect these together in prayer before God. A quick search on the internet will offer a range of possibilities.

* Using Icons or Paintings as inspiration for prayers. Taking time to gaze and dwell on an image of a biblical figure or scene and allowing it to prompt questions, requests and silent reflection and leaving space for God to speak to you through it.

* Music, for example the repetitive chants of the Taize movement, can help to create space and a focus that raises our awareness of God’s presence. The short, simple phrases become our prayers and shift our focus away from ourselves and onto God.

Creativity can enrich and deepen our rhythm of prayer, this Lent may we all find space for a little creativity in our prayers as we seek to draw closer to our creative God.

Special notices and upcoming events for allThere is now a calendar on the notice board in each Church detailing what is happening across the EBP this month.

Rev. Jordan Ling. Just to let you know I will be going in for surgery next Friday 9th March and will expect to be off work for a week after that. I appreciate this comes as a surprise to you all, I was offered a cancellation next week and it makes sense to get it over with sooner. It is nothing serious so don’t panic on my behalf, it relates to heavy bleeding which some of you will recall led me to being hospitalised in 2013. Your prayers are appreciated as all operations come with some risk (although the risks are relatively small in this case).

This week

Please note that the RELEASE Service at St John’s Church will be on Sunday 11th March 7pm as normal and not Sunday 4th March as advertised above.

Bristol Spring Clean. From 2nd until 11th March there will be a focus on cleaning up Bristol. Litter pickers and high visibility jackets will be available from Hillfields Library to clean up a small corner of where you live.

This month

Social Justice Network event on Tackling Homelessness. Wednesday 14th March 6.30pm at Bristol Cathedral. Richard Hawkridge from Streetwise and Jonnie Angel from Crisis Centre Ministries reflect on their work, homelessness, and the challenges we face as a society as we seek to respond to this most difficult of problems. To register please visit:https://bristol-cathedral.co.uk/whats-on/bristol-homelessness-policy-vs-practice

Baptism Preparation. The next Baptism Preparation Session will take place on Sunday 18th March 4pm at St Aidan’s Church.

Music and Readings for Passiontide. This will take place on Sunday 18th March 6.30pm at St Mary’s Church. Everyone is very welcome!

Further aheadWalking Groups Fishponds. Volunteer spaces available. Would you like to help lead local walks in the Fishponds area? The aim is to support people into improving their health and well-being by joining a friendly and sociable group to explore their locality on foot. Full training will be given, the first date is Tuesday 17th April. For more info contact Elena at elenadorso@thecareforum.org.uk or on 0117 9589321.

EBP WEEKEND AWAY. The EBP is going camping on Friday 4th May - Monday 7th May. A group of happy campers are off to Petruth Paddocks, Cheddar, Somerset to camp. Petruth Paddocks Caravanning | Camping | Cheddar Somerset | Tel +44 (0) 7813 320870 This will be a great opportunity to have fun together and deepen friendships. You can book yourselves into the camping or one of the huts on site. Activities will happen for anyone to just go down for a day or evening if you cannot make the whole weekend. It is close enough to Bristol if you want to return for church on the Sunday. If you would like to just register your interest for now please let Amy Donaldson know.

Page for Prayer

God of passion and power

God of passion and power, insistent, immediate,

challenging, compelling us with your story’s breathless beginning. Walk us into the wilderness

to hear your voice where silence reigns. Give us insight, the vision beyond all seeing,

so we may look upon heavens torn open and know that the time of good news for all creation

is always now. Amen.

Those we are praying forRev'd Father Robert Britton, Wynn Evans, Jan Thomas, Derek Lucas, Valerie & Richard Comer, John Artus, Paul, Elaine Mason, Olive, Jules Brown, Caroline Rowley, Michelle Artus, Pat Holloway Far, William Murray, Margaret , Gerald, Brian and Richard Hutton.

Please keep Amy updated as to who needs prayer. We commit to praying for one month unless otherwise advised.

This morningWhat has moved you / spoken to you in this Service?

How might this affect your thoughts and actions this week?

Priest-in-Charge of Benefice Rev. Jordan Ling 0117 3304953Focal Minister for St Michael’s Rev. Nicola Callen 0117 9658833

East Bristol Partnership OfficeT: 0117 9586412 E: eastbristol.org@gmail.com