BENEFICE
SERVICE INFORMATION:

** CHURCH SERVICES **
The services across the Benefice follow a four month cycle. 
Click on the relevant link below for a current PDF file of the services for:-  June  July

SERVICES IN THE BENEFICE THIS WEEK:
There is just one service in the Benefice on 30th June, the Fifth Sunday after Trinity:- 
10.00  (Bow Brickhill)  Benefice Holy Communion

To download a PDF with full details for the current month's services and readings:-  Click Here

The readings for Sunday 30th June are:-
Lamentations 3: 23-33;  2 Corinthians 8: 7-24;  Mark 5: 21-43

"PATHWAYS" EDITION SPRING 2024:
To download the latest copy of Pathways, the magazine for the people of the Diocese of Oxford:-  Click Here

RECTOR'S SABBATICAL:-
Please note that the Rector is on sabbatical leave until 1st July. All clergy are due a three-month sabbatical every ten years. The Rector’s last sabbatical was in 2010 – his intended sabbatical in 2020 was cancelled due to Covid. Services will continue as normal and cover is being arranged for the Rector's absence.

RECTOR'S
NEWSLETTER

Words of Comfort

July 2024

Dear friends,

There are precious parts of the Bible that can speak to us at times of hurt, struggle or disappointment. One of those is Chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah. It was first spoken to the people of Israel when they were in exile – defeated, humiliated, and forced to live in a strange and foreign land, uncertain what their future would be.

The chapter begins with the words, ‘Comfort, comfort my people, says your God,’ and goes on to meditate on the wonder of God’s glory seen in creation and in human life. It concludes with the assurance that, although even the most powerful people will sometimes stumble and fall, those who put their trust in God ‘will renew their strength … they will walk and not be faint.’

Somebody has written this about this part of the Bible:
"The prophet is commissioned to preach to a people whose faith is burnt out, whose morale is gone, whose hope is extinguished, and to tell such people that their God is alive, he does care, and he is about to return to them".

At the times when our faith seems to fail, and it is hard to see a way forward, passages such as Isaiah chapter 40 can bring us God’s word of comfort and hope.

Revd John Waller