Parish blog

After enjoying delicious (free!) hot dogs – thank you, team – everybody trooped outside into the darkened churchyard. Steve started the countdown: “10, 9, 8, …” and precisely on zero Kevin’s grand daughter Annie threw the switch and the Christmas tree lit up in a blaze of light. Tim, on accordion, and Helen organised carols…

Beverley writes: The ministry of cake … and more! St Augustine’s surpassed itself on Saturday 26th October by making sure that all the delegates at the Dicesan Lay Ministry Conference at the Millenium Centre received a warm welcome and were well supplied with fabulous cake and coffee/tea. Everyone enjoyed the refreshments with the most difficult…

Jenny Bewick asks: which fruit would you like to develop this harvest time? Thank you for this beautiful picture Jenny.

Debbie writes: On Saturday afternoon a number of us went to Chichester Cathedral to see Alan and Jenny Cattermole receive the Order of St Richard for their many years of hard work and faithfulness, not only on behalf of St Augustine’s, but also in the community and for FSW. It was wonderful to see them…

Chris and Sue made a loaf using home ground flour from the Living Lightly event! They say it tasted as good as it looks. Perfect! Thank you for telling us about it Chris and I am glad you enjoyed the bread.

The church looked stunning for our Harvest Festival on Sunday. Everybody voted a massive thank you to Dianne Elliott and her team for their hard work and imagination. Thank you, Dianne! Thank you also Chris and Sue for organising and delivering the gifts for FSW (Diocesan Family Support Work).

Living Lightly – some thoughts It’s been wonderful to hear so many positive comments about our Living Lightly day which got me wondering why it was a success. Here are some themes that emerged for me: Community – a wonderful flow of people came to the event, people from our church community, families from St…

Here is the poster for my Living Lightly Demo featuring wheat milled for flour and demonstration of pan-roasted green coffee beans. I chose the strap line “Cut the Supply Chain” to emphasize why we would wish to mill our own flour or roast our own coffee as part of our drive to reduce our environmental…

Jenny’s accumulated diagram is a summary of our conversation during the Gateway service last Sunday. Thank you Jenny, and thank you everybody who contributed with their personal experiences of and reflections about the presence of God in their lives.

David writes: Team Argent-Smith ….Steve, Oscar and I bagged no less than 9 Churches. We went from SASH to Lindfield URC where we picked up Steve, on to All Saints Lindfield, then up to All Saints Highbrook. Unfortunately Oscar wasn’t feeling at all at this stage so had to go home. After Oscar was safely…

Margaret writes: “We had an excellent team after the Service on Sunday 21 July to complete the churchyard plant survey for this year by surveying the remaining area (the Memorial Garden). The grass had been cut, but fortunately was not too short to enable us to identify a good range of species. We were delighted…

Jenny B writes: “We started off together in the Annex with some uplifting prayer and worship. Our thoughts and prayers focussed on the new government, in particular the NHS, justice, education and the environment. As we sat together we considered the call to prayer and how God helps us to pray and leave our failings…