Author: Margaret Day

How lovely to do the annual Walk of Blessing in Hampton Poyle on Sunday 29th August. You can find out more here.

As part of our preparations for the Kidlington Eco Festival in October leading up to the COP 26 Conference on Climate Change to be held in Glasgow Churches Together in Kidlington have launched this project to encourage everyone to create flags and windmills for display around the village. For all the details, just click here.

For a few years we enjoyed a programme of Sunday morning talks in the Kidlington Theological Forum. After the main service at St Mary’s Kidlington we grabbed our coffees and returned to church for a 20 minute talk followed by 10 minutes questions. The program has covered aspects of theology, faith, church, ethics, and discipleship presented in an accessible manner and has been very much appreciated.

COVID forced us to suspend them last year but we are delighted to announce that (COVID-willing!) they will be back in October and November 2021 with two excellent speakers.

Find out more here.

As we are into August and some people manage to get away for a break we are also scaling down some of our routines for a month. Here are the arrangements for services in August:

• The online Communion service will continue as usual each Sunday at 10am (Sunday 29th livestreamed from St Mary’s Kidlington).
• Wednesday simple said Communion will continue at 11am in St Mary’s Kidlington.
• 8am Communion services will stop for August and resume in September.
• Pause for Prayer will stop for August but will resume in September.
• Iona Communion Online will stop for August and resume in September livestreamed from an onsite service in St John’s Lady Chapel.
• Sunday 1^st August the whole team of leaders will be away so there will be no services in our buildings on that day.
• Sunday 8^th 10am Communion at St Mary’s Kidlington and 10am Communion at St Mary’s Hampton Poyle.
• Sunday 15^th: 10am Said Eucharist at St Mary’s Kidlington, and also 10am Communion at St John’s with singing.
• Sunday 22^nd 10am Communion at St Mary’s Kidlington.
• Sunday 29^th 10am Communion at both St Mary’s Kidlington and St John’s and 3pm at St Mary’s Hampton Poyle Rogation Day prayer walk and blessing of the village (possibly with horseback vicar!)
• Like last year, open air Pop Up services may happen in mid August depending on who is here, what is going on, and what the weather is like! These will be notified by email and web site at short notice.

We are now able to give details for arrangements to continue our services in a safe but worshipful way following the removal of government regulations on July 19^th.  

The Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN) are doing a relay walk, starting at the G7 in Cornwall in June and ending in Glasgow at the end of October. The purpose is to #RiseToTheMoment and raise awareness of the climate crisis and the urgent need for action, requiring bold commitments at COP26 in November. You may have heard this walk talked about on radio and in the national press. A core group of young people will do the whole walk and others (like us) are invited to join them for single days or for parts of the walk. On Monday August 16th they will walk from Oxford to Kidlington sleeping overnight at the Baptist church and will be joined by Bishop Steven for a short service which will be live streamed at 7.30pm on KBC YouTube channel 

If you would like to join them walking for the day please meet at 10.30am at St Columba URC in Oxford. It’s a short day, so we expect to arrive in Kidlington around 3.00pm approximately. We are also looking for a car driver to ferry their bags from Oxford to Kidlington on that day – offers to Scott Cheeseman please.

We are looking for a new administrator to join the team supporting our ministry “to serve the people of Kidlington and Hampton Poyle for their own sakes”. Applicants should be a people person, committed to our vision of ministry, able to use their own initiative, proficient in a range of IT applications, and have some experience in bookkeeping (or a willingness to learn).

For full details and an application form just click here.

We now have access to a better recording of the service at which Susy was ordained priest on June 27th and a selection of photos. See them all here.

Susy will be ordained priest at 3pm on Sunday June 27^th. Normally we would take a coach load of people to support Susy and celebrate with her but with social distancing still in force she can only invite a very few people to be with her in in person. The service will be livestreamed and you can support her from your own home. But we have also had the idea of some people gathering in St Mary’s Kidlington to join the livestream and watch together. This might feel more friendly and more of a shared occasion.  Now that we have our new wifi in the church we can do this sort of thing. You will need to book but there is plenty of room. Thank you to Scott Cheeseman for volunteering to do the technology for this.

Susy’s first Mass will be the following Wednesday 30^th June at 11am in St Mary’s and the preacher will be The Rev’d Lucy Winkett. So do put the date in your diary and come and support her if you can; booking as usual. Following the service the congregation will be invited to stay for a presentation to Susy.  Champagne and soft drinks will be served in the churchyard and Susy has asked people to bring their own sandwich lunch to eat together instead of a bring and share lunch which is what we would usually do. 

The meeting for election of churchwardens and the Annual Parochial Church Meeting will be held, via Zoom, on Tuesday 22nd June at 8pm. Papers will be available in the churches soon.

Bishop Steven will be holding a service of Confirmation in St Mary’s Kidlington at 6pm on Tuesday 25th May. Please pray for the candidates: Scott Cheeseman, Denise Dempsey, Sophia Gardam, and Tyson Newell. The service will be livestreamed, so you can join with Facebook as usual.