Afternoon tea at Immanuel

July 17th 2010, 2.30pm – 4.30pm at Immanuel Church.

Please join us for tea, cake, and fellowship.  All proceeds to go to the Immanuel building fund.  The afternoon will also feature a bring and buy sale, and a raffle.

Pinocchio

Every 2 years the Estelle School of Dance (based at Immanuel) performs a show at the Wyvern Theatre, Swindon, in aid of charity. In 2008 we performed ‘Peter Pan’ raising over £4,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital. This year we are performing ‘Pinocchio’, help us to raise the same again – if not more – for Swindon’s Prospect Place cancer hospice.

The show features not only the Estelle School of Dance but a veritable smorgasbord of local talent including members of our congregation and our Church Secretary!

Dates:
Thursday, 24 June 2010 at 19:30
Friday, 25 June 2010 at 19:30
Saturday, 26 June 2010 at 14:30
Saturday, 26 June 2010 at 19:30

Book tickets & more details:
http://www.wyverntheatre.org.uk/wrt-productions_details.asp?pid=4029

So come along, support a local charity, If you can’t come, tell your friends to come.

NB: A note about tickets: When buying tickets from the Wyvern Theatre please try to pay for them in cash.  The Wyvern will charge you for card-handling and also charge us for card payments, reducing the amount we can give to charity.

Crocheted crosses

You may remember that for last year’s Harvest Appeal Immanuel raised over £3,000 towards a project run by the New Hope Rural Community Trust in Orissa, India, which paid for about 90 older people at the Muniguda Community Centre to have much needed cataract surgery.  The New Hope Trust have expressed their thanks by sending Immanuel 60 hand crocheted crosses which the World Concerns committee decided should be displayed on the Traidcraft stall this Sunday, 6th June.  The crosses are a present to us so please feel free to take one.  If you feel you would like to leave a small donation, please do this – any donations will be sent to the New Hope Trust.

Induction Service

The photo shows L to R  Luana, Mayra, Robert, Silvia’s aunt and Silvia

The sun shone, the church was packed, and the singing nearly lifted the roof (well it does that nearly every Sunday, but April 17th was a Saturday and it was different somehow). Not only did we host a fair number of visitors from away (one even came all the way from Geneva for the day) but it was great to see so many local URC churches represented at the service as well as a good number of clergy from the town. For those who don’t know, we had invited all those preachers who had kindly conducted worship for us during the vacancy and it was a real joy that so many accepted the invitation. The service went without a hitch – though we were sorry that Emma Whitworth and the family had fallen victim of the volcanic ash-cloud and were stranded in foreign parts, so she could not do her reading! (Ryan Walters valiantly stepped into the breach to take her place).  We were delighted to be able to welcome family of Robert and Silvia who live in Hereford,  and hope they will visit again. The refreshments afterwards were simply splendid and the atmosphere was really so joyous that it seemed no one wanted to go home!

This was one of those memorable Immanuel events that saw so many folk working behind scenes to make a great success – so thanks to you all.

Steve Brain

Immanuel welcomes its new minister!

After a long vacancy  we are truly delighted to welcome to Swindon Revd. Robert Jordan and his family.    Along with Silvia, his wife, and daughters Luana and Mayra, Robert has made the long journey across the Atlantic from Buenos Aires province, Argentina. Currently they are still settling into the manse and beginning to find their way around town, but if you meet  them do make yourselves known to them and make them feel at home.
We are looking forward to the formal Induction Service on April 17th after which Immanuel and Highworth will once more have a full-time minister.

Immanuel at Easter 2010

Palm Sunday 2010

Stuart Benjamin, who led our Sunday morning  service, took the whole of the congregation outside and led prayers for the church and community of Swindon.  Jesus often prayed in public, prayers which for him, spurred him to follow the path of God’s will. Here are some photos of the event, with the prayers:

On this palm Sunday morning we celebrate Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, like him we celebrate it openly, in public, we share with the world an expression of our faith, we say “All are welcome” and that Jesus’ love is for us all.

We pray for this Church from the bottom of its deep foundations to the heights of its rooftops. We pray for all the people who use it every week – congregations, choirs, brownies, guides, dancers, musicians, mathematicians, old, young, men, women everyone who crosses our threshold.  Share your grace with all of them Lord, as we remember your loving sacrifice at Easter.

 

Finally we pray for this, our neighbourhood and local community here in Old Walcot, and for all the areas of Swindon that lie before us.  We pray for all these souls today, for Jesus is love for the many, not just for the few and he gladly give his love to all.  Let his example be how we express our Christian lives to our whole community.

In your name Lord, Amen.

Easter 2010

Good Friday – 2nd April

Procession of Witness 10.30am starting at the far end of Wood Street.
Three Hours at the Cross – 12noon-3pm at Christ Church
Joint Choirs Meditation – 7pm at Christ Church
 
Easter Saturday – 3rd April

Partnership Walk – from Christ Church Leisure Centre to Marlborough, starting at 10am.  Return by bus.

Easter Sunday – 4th April

Dawn Holy Communion – 5.30am at Holy Rood on the Lawns.
Morning Worship and Celebration– 10.30am here at Immanuel, led by Geoff Gleed
NB The will be no evening service.

Faure’s Requiem

On Sunday 28th March (Palm Sunday), at 6.30pm, the Immanuel is performing the Faure Requiem. The soloists will be Clifford and Elizabeth Friend.

Join the Spring Clean

Join members of the Buildings and Grounds Committee in giving Immanuel a thorough Spring Clean.  Two sessions will be held, so please make a date in your diary either for Tuesday 16th (not Mon 15th as previously advertised) from about 6pm, or Friday 19th from 9-30am, and come prepared to wield a duster or something a bit more energetic!  Lists are in the Chapel and outside the kitchen for you to sign up – and give us an idea of numbers for teas or coffees.