WEST DOWNLAND BENEFICE NOTICES Brightwalton with Catmore, Chaddleworth, Fawley, Great Shefford with Shefford Woodlands, Leckhampstead and Julie Howell’s Ordination – is 10am at Christ Welford with Wickham Church, Oxford on 29th June. TODAY Julie has moved into the Rectory in Chaddleworth but we shall offer a formal Sunday 23rd – First Sunday after Trinity welcome to the West Downland Benefice on 8.00am Holy Communion at Leckhampstead. 30th June at St James, Leckhampstead at 10am. 9.30am Holy Communion at Shefford Woodlands. The service will be followed by a Welcome 11.00am Holy Communion at Brightwalton (with coffee before from 10.40am). Reception in the church grounds. Friends and 3.00pm Baptism at Chaddleworth. neighbours are welcome to come and join the celebration. WELCOME Julie will be ordained next Saturday. I’m confident Brightwalton Primary School Art Exhibition – that it will be a remarkable service and I encourage the children have enjoyed an Art Week and you to come along and experience all the pomp and wonder of a cathedral service with a huge their work will be on display in All Saints church congregation and wonderful music. But more this weekend and next. Everyone is welcome importantly I think we should use this season in the to drop in and celebrate the talent and life of our local churches to reflect on our own calling creativity of our children. as individual followers of Christ and as worshipping communities. The Methodist Ordination of Deacons Brightwalton Open Gardens, Walk and Games sums it up like this: “Remember your call. Support takes place 2 -5 pm Sunday 23rd June starting the weak. Bind up the broken. Gather in the outcast. from the village hall, £5 entry (under 16s free). Welcome the stranger. Seek the lost. So minister care that you make glad those whom you help in In support of the ASPIRE project. their need. Let the concerns and sorrows of others be as your own.” By taking this to heart, and by with Flower displays in the churches and Open God’s help making it the foundation of our church Gardens in Great Shefford and Shefford life, what a difference we could make to the lives of Woodlands: Sunday 7th July - cream teas, our neighbours and friends! plants, cakes and jams & jellies stalls available in 3 NEXT WEEK the village hall. The day will end with a short service ‘Giving thanks for the natural world’ at St th Wednesday 26 June Mary’s Church at 5.15pm 5.00pm Evening Prayer at Leckhampstead Welford and Wickham Primary School Summer Readings: Josh. 22.9-end; Luke. 12. 22-31. Production. This year the children are Sunday 30th June – the Second Sunday after Trinity presenting ‘Blast Off!’ at Arlington Arts on th Thursday 18 July at 1.30pm. If you would like 10.00am United Benefice Service at Leckhampstead. to come and see the show please let Miri know We shall welcome Revd Julie Howell and celebrate and she will book you a ticket, or alternatively her ordination with her. The service will be followed contact Beth in the school office. by lunchtime reception. Parking and toilet facilities will be available. Collect O God, the strength of all those who put their INFORMATION trust in you, mercifully accept our prayers and, Rector because though the weakness of our mortal The Reverend Miriam Keen The Rectory, Church Street, Great Shefford, RG17 7DU nature we can do no good thing without you, Tel: 01488 649927 or 07954 117 093 grant us the help of your grace, that in the email: [email protected] keeping of your commandments we may please Pew Sheet you both in will and deed, through Jesus Christ To receive your Pew Sheet each week by e-mail, to have someone added to the prayer list, or to place an entry in the your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with Pew Sheet, please contact Mike Hedges-Jackson you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now email: [email protected] and for ever. Amen t READINGS New Testament Reading had seen it told them how the one who had Gal. 3. 23-29 been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country Now before faith came, we were imprisoned of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for and guarded under the law until faith would be they were seized with great fear. So he got into revealed. Therefore the law was our the boat and returned. The man from whom the disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might demons had gone begged that he might be with be justified by faith. But now that faith has him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to come, we are no longer subject to a your home, and declare how much God has disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming children of God through faith. As many of you as throughout the city how much Jesus had done were baptized into Christ have clothed for him. yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is PLEASE PRAY no longer male and female; for all of you are one Please pray for Julie Howell as she attends her in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then pre-ordination retreat at Ripon College you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to Cuddesdon. Pray that in the silence she may the promise. hear God’s voice clearly and that as she Gospel Reading completes the final preparations for her Luke 8. 26-39 ordination she may be aware of the Spirit of God at work in her, equipping her for her ministry Then they arrived at the country of the with us and in the years to come. Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he Please pray for Charlie Casey who will be stepped out on land, a man of the city who had baptised today at Chaddleworth and for Findlay demons met him. For a long time he had worn Graham and Lily Snell who were baptised last no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in week. the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down Please pray for those who are sick or are before him and shouted at the top of his voice, recovering from illness, among them, Jean ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Hickson, Laura Cuninghame, Ryan Keenan, Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’— Stuart Futcher and Peter Amesbury. for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to A number of local families have suffered recent come out of the man. (For many times it had bereavements. Please continue to pray for seized him; he was kept under guard and bound God’s comfort and peace for all those grieving with chains and shackles, but he would break for ‘those we love but see no longer’ but the bonds and be driven by the demon into the particularly remember in your prayers the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your families and friends of our LLM John Avery and name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had of David Thwaite whose funeral was last week. entered him. They begged him not to order Hungerford with Benford Benefice is the focus them to go back into the abyss. for this week’s Deanery Prayer Cycle. We pray Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine for their ministers Mike Saunders, Michael was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to Morecroft, Alison Saunders. let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the Post Communion Collect man and entered the swine, and the herd Eternal Father, we thank you for nourishing us rushed down the steep bank into the lake and with these heavenly gifts; may our communion was drowned. strengthen us in faith, build us up in hope, and When the swineherds saw what had happened, make us grow in love; for the sake of Jesus Christ they ran off and told it in the city and in the our Lord. Amen. country. Then people came out to see what had Next Week’s Readings happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had 1 Kings 19.15-16, 19-end; Gal.5.1, 13-25; gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in Luke 9.51-end. his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who .