Church on the Corner

Great music, festive vibe, mulled wine and punchy preaching. Our Carol service is our biggest event of the year, and a great event to invite your friends and workmates to.

You can download the invitation here.

Our advent 2011 project is now live. Check back each morning for updates or follow by the magic of twitter.

There is something lovely about september. Autumn is one of the most beautiful times of the year, and I enjoy the sense of new beginnings, getting organised, making plans for the year..

It is a new term at Church on the Corner. We have been doing lots of work on the building, and the old place is looking spruce.

The new teaching programme will be on the book of Genesis. Thinking about minor themes such as the origins of the universe, the nature of God and the meaning of existence.

It all gets started this Sunday 4th September at 7pm.

The Greenbelt Festival is, for many of us, the highlight of the summer and a good crowd from church will be attending. If you don’t have plans for the bank holiday I would highly recommend it. Church will be closed this sunday. We will be back for a new term on Sunday 4th September.

Well it was quite a night, as we said goodbye to Bee before she heads off to vicar factory. We recreated our favourite old COTC picture, and we sent her off with songs, prayers, tears and a comissioning from the Ordinal which went a bit like this:

May you be diligent in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith and fit you to bear witness to the truth of the gospel.

May you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place.

May you faithfully minister the doctrine and sacraments of Christ so that the people committed to your charge may be defended against error and flourish in the faith.

May you, knowing yourself to be reconciled to God in Christ, strive to be an instrument of God’s peace in the Church and in the world.

May you endeavour to fashion your life to the way of Christ, that you may be a pattern and example to Christ’s people.

May you work with your fellow servants in the gospel for the sake of the kingdom of God.

May you in the strength of the Holy Spirit, continually stir up the gift of God that is in you, to make Christ known among all whom you serve.

A Blessing:

God who has called you is faithful.

May the Father, whose glory fills the heavens,
cleanse you by his holiness
and send you to proclaim his word.

May Christ, who has ascended to the heights,
pour upon you the riches of his grace.

May the Holy Spirit, the comforter,
equip you and strengthen you in your ministry.

And the blessing of God almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be upon you and remain with you always.

Amen.

WOWEII stands for ‘Womens weekend in Islington’. After the amazing Women’s Weekend away (WOWA), this year the girls are getting together closer to home.

It is going to be a lot of fun, a great way to get to know women in the church and have some much needed time with God and together. We are now collecting £15 from everyone who wants to come to cover food and activities) so if you are coming please bring money along to church.

[Gentlemen - Further to the woweii announcement, our pub trip is still on. It's still at the Lord Clyde on Essex Road and it's still from 7pm Friday night.]

WOWEII Programme below.

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Not satisfied with riding to our weekend away in Sussex, EA is now setting out to ride across the States on a push bike over the next two months. It is a remarkable expedition, in aid of the American Lung Association. She is blogging here, and you can follow the route here (where you can sponsor her too). Have and amazing time EA. We will be following and praying and look forward to see you in September.

Photo’s from our Soul in the City Project on the Bemerton Estate, in partnership with KXC and Kings Cross Baptist.

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We finally got our corner blackboard cleaned up and running. I quite like the idea of quotations on it, so would welcome suggestions.

Here are some potential future ones, all from Albert Einstein.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

We’ve been thinking about Lent, and what the things are that we are dependent on. And top of many of our lists was the permanant connectivity that we now take for granted. Email, Facebook, Twitter, TV, iPod, Radio are all amazing tools, but when we become dependent on them they are noise which drowns out who we really are. This Lent we are disconnecting. 40 days of limiting the ways we use media, to rediscover what we have to say, to connect in older ways, or just to be silent. You might want to record your experiences in some way – write, draw, photograph; let us know how it unfolds for you.