Month: May 2013

The work on the lighting is now almost complete, and if you have been in church recently, you will have noticed the vast difference the new lighting makes.  As well as making it much easier to read small print, it also highlights many of the stunning architectural features inside the church, particularly at ceiling level.

However, you will also have noticed the layers of dust which have descended from above!  A thorough clean will be needed after the Russell Street corridor has been redecorated, but we need to make a start at shifting some of the dust, so please come along on Saturday 8 June between 10 am and 3 pm to help.  Cleaning materials and lunch will be provided, and no previous experience is required – just a willingness to work hard and get dirty!

On Sunday 9 June, the Friends of Crown Court will meet for the annual service and lunch.  This year the preacher will be Reverend Timothy Fletcher, who is making a welcome return visit from his very new home in Perth to preach at the morning service.  He and Sheilah will also be attending the Friends Lunch, which takes place in the hall after the service.  There will be no congregational lunches on this day, but if you would like to join the Friends for lunch (price £6), please contact Margaret Rees through the church office.

We will be holding our annual Thanksgiving Service on Saturday 15 June at 11.30 am in the church.  At this service we can give thanks for those in our congregation and in our wider circle of family and friends who have died and remember all that they meant to us.  Following the service, there will be an opportunity to meet together in the hall; light refreshments will be provided.

If you wish to remember someone who has died and to have them prayed for by name during the service, please give their name to the Church Secretary or the Minister.

 

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death in his 91st year of Reverend John Miller Scott, Minister of Crown Court Church from 1963 to 1985.

A thanksgiving service for his life will be held at 2.45 pm on Tuesday 28 May in Hope Park Church in St Andrews.

His was a long and inspiring ministry, and he did much to raise the profile of Crown Court.  He was the driving force behind the formation of Westminster Christian Council (now Churches Together in Westminster), of which he was the first Chairman.  He was also responsible for a number of other initiatives, such as journalists’ lunches and the Kirking Service for Scottish MPs and Peers at the beginning of a new Parliament, now no longer appropriate in the wake of Scottish devolution.  Those members who knew him remember him with great affection: he preached with authority and passion, sometimes dislodging items from the pulpit as he gesticulated to press home a point, spectacles in hand!  Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Loraine and the rest of the family.

 

This year we will once again be opening the church to visitors during the summer months on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 11.30 am and 2.30 pm, and on Thursdays between 11.30 am and 1.30 pm.  We need two people in the church every day to show people around, so once we have decided on the dates we’ll be looking for volunteers to help. If you are able to give some time to help keep the church open, please speak to Margaret Ross.

And again we will be participating in London Open House, which this year takes place on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 September.  Volunteers will be required for stewarding, and more information will be available in due course.

We will once again be playing our part in collecting during this week, focusing on mainline railway stations (likely to be Charing Cross and Liverpool Street) during morning and evening rush hours on Thursday and Friday 16 and 17 May.

If you can spare some time – however much or little – and would like to be part of our collecting team, please contact Andy Tait, the Christian Aid Convener, via christianaid@crowncourtchurch.org.uk or leave a message with the church secretary.

An all-day event to be held on Saturday 11 May at Methodist Central Hall.

In three talks Canon Mark Pearson, co-founder of the New Creation Healing Center in Kingston, New Hampshire, U.S.A, will explore questions around how God can bring healing of body, mind and spirit to us today in a culture that is often unsure and cynical about Christian faith.

For details and booking costs see the event details on the Methodist Central Hall website