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Valentine’s Day calls for some fun and celebration so we are hosting a Valentine’s Sing-along on zoom with a range of well known songs to lift the spirits. We had a little difficulty finding a free evening for this so we have settled for Tuesday 9^th February at 6pm. These sing-a-longs are just for fun, and are not at all serious – Valentines costumes are encouraged so be creative if you like. If you know of friends / neighbours near and far who would like to join us please do invite them. The zoom numbers will be the same as zoom coffee – if you don’t know those then just ask.

The song sheet is available for download here.

On Sunday 31st January we will celebrate Candlemas at 10am online. Think of Candlemas as the ultimate feast of All Age Worship: three generations together in the Temple with the wisdom and discernment of the older generation as they hold the baby and talk with the parents. Martin and Felicity have recorded interviews with some of our older generation (socially distanced) for the service and we are also looking forward to blessing baby William live in the online service – this will be a first! We will also bless candles for our use so please have a candle ready beside you if you are joining us online. Many of us do have candles at home – any colour, shape or size is good. But if you would like a church candle you are welcome to collect one from the lady chapel at St Johns, or the back of St Mary’s Kidlington or Hampton Poyle.

We are also trying something new for zoom coffee this week: please bring a symbol of something that has sustained you in your faith this year. It could be the cat, a hot water bottle, a flower, some soil, a bible……. And we will talk about them in our breakout groups.

Between now and the beginning of Lent we have three highlights planned:

The Sunday service for Candlemas on January 31^st will be a rather special one with some thoughtful contributions from members of the parish and a little piece of drama performed by Dame Judi and Sir Kenneth (Oh no – they weren’t available but they sent their understudies, Rob and Liz Bruce!). We will also bless candles for our use so please have a candle ready beside you if you are joining us online. Many of us do have candles at home – any colour, shape or size is good. But if you would like a church candle you are welcome to collect one from the lady chapel at St Johns, or the back of St Mary’s Kidlington or Hampton Poyle.  We will also be trying something new for zoom coffee this week: please bring a symbol of something that has sustained you in your faith this year. It could be the cat, a hot water bottle, a flower, some soil, a bible……. And we will talk about them in our breakout groups.

Valentine’s Day calls for some fun and celebration so we are hosting a Zoom Valentine’s Sing-Along with a range of well known songs to lift the spirits. We had a little difficulty finding a free evening for this so we have settled for Tuesday 9^th February at 6pm. These sing-alongs are just for fun, and are not at all serious – Valentines costumes are encouraged so be creative if you like. If you know of friends / neighbours near and far who would like to join us please do invite them. The zoom numbers will be the same as zoom coffee; contact us if you need to be reminded what they are.

Shrove Tuesday also calls for some fun with pancakes, so we will hold a Zoom Pancake Party at 6pm on Tuesday 16^th February.  We will provide a recipe for pancake batter and you may, if you wish make pancakes live during the party. There will be several fun classes that you can enter:

• best tossed pancake (style and charisma, staying within camera range)
• best decorated pancake
• pancake decorated to look most like a member of the staff team

You do not need to make pancakes in order to come to the party and be involved. Instead, you might like to take the ‘Pancake Poem  Challenge’ and write your own poem or find one that someone else has written. Bring your poem to the party and read it out or if you are shy one of us can read it for you. Poems can be about Pancake Day or can be more serious taking up a Shrove Tuesday line of thought – we don’t mind. 

As usual, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will run from 18th to 25th January. But plans are, of course, slightly different this year.

We will be holding our usual noon-time prayers via Zoom on weekdays Monday 18th-Friday 22nd and Monday 25th. Instead of the usual delightful Fellowship Meal with speaker we have arranged a Zoom meeting on Climate Change for the evening of Tuesday 19th January. All of our churches have been exploring how we can be more environmentally conscious in our homes, in our community and in our churches and this talk is an opportunity to be encouraged in that quest, by two experienced and well-qualified speakers giving a Christian perspective.

For further details go to Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Some good news today. We are, at present, allowed to continue our Bouncing Babies group for 0-6 months and parent/carer. We are reviewing the situation each week and are aware that this decision may change. There are a few dates on Eventbrite. Please do not purchase more than one ticket and do let us know if you are unable to attend when you have booked a ticket, so we can give the place to someone on our waiting list.

For more details see here or go to the Hub Facebook page

Yes, we were planning to have our traditional Winter Tea Talks at St Mary’s Kidlington in 2021 – the only thing missing being the tea! We had planned to hold the talks in the church as usual, with just a small audience, for social distancing reasons. We would also have broadcast them using Zoom, so people could join in by staying at home in comfort (and with a cup of tea).

However, given the latest COVID restrictions it’s not possible to have any “in person” audience so we have, regrettably, decided to cancel the January talk for this year. But do watch out for news of future events as we manage to arrange them.

We know of several people who attended a service in December and have since tested positive for Covid 19. All those who came into contact with them in any way have been notified and asked to get a test if they feel in any way under the weather, so if you have not had emails from us you have no special reason to be concerned.

However as there have been several cases we have taken the decision to suspend all in-person church services from now (December 28th). This will continue until 14 days after the last positive test from anyone who has been at our recent services. At that point we will review the situation and decide if we can safely re-open. All online services will of course continue as normal, see here.

Many thanks to David and Rosemary Meara, Naomi Heffer, David Hewett and St Mary’s Choristers and all the mouse-makers for our Monty Mouse video which is now available to view here.

If you need your spirits raising and to get you in the Christmas mood don’t forget to come and join our Sing-along on Zoom on Tuesday 8th, 6-7pm. The Zoom numbers are the same as Zoom coffee.

We will be singing Christmas songs and carols and a words sheet is available to download here. Christmas hats tinsel and jumpers are all welcome, and there is definitely room for a mince pie and some mulled wine! We will be singing the 12 days of Christmas, and if anyone has any of these (or similar) in their house, they are welcome to hold them up in the appropriate verses: Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree – imagination and improvisation welcome! As before, inviting your family and friends to join us is perfectly appropriate if you would like to.

Our Christingle service this year will be on Facebook on Sunday 20th December at 4pm. It will include the opportunity to make your own Christingle. You will need an orange, some red tape/ribbon/paper, a small candle, 4 cocktail sticks, a selection of small sweets/dried fruit, a knife/apple corer and something to light the candle with. If you think you will struggle to get these things together, please do get in touch or collect a Christingle making kit for your child/ren from St John’s Church or Exeter Hall between 3pm and 4pm on Thursday 17th or Friday 18th December or at any time from St Mary’s Church porch on these days.

The order of service is now available to download. Please get in touch if you would like more information.