Church on the Corner

Our two most popular services of the year are coming up in the run up to christmas. Our Carols by candlelight are beautiful traditional carol services, old favourites, choral numbers, mulled wine and  an uplifting message.

This amazing image of the Lights of Bethlehem was taken by Mathieu Soete (Belgium).

Once again this year we are marking the season of Advent with a series of reflections, day by day we will take turns sharing a thought, and image or a prayer as we travel through this time of preparation together. You can follow them here

This Weekend we are heading out to the wilds (of shropshire) for a weekend away together. Time to think & pray, to hang out with old friends and meet new ones. To eat, rest and play. These are always fantastic events. Don’t miss it. If you have booked in see you there, if not talk to Bee and book your place.

Our Speaker is a friend of mine called Mark Berry. Find his blog here, and more about the theme of the weekend here.

We are doing a screening of The Age of Stupid at All Saints Church in the Parish. Find out more here

In this Autumn’s series of Saturday workshops, we will be exploring ‘creativity’. You will re-discover a sense of play through simple improvisation and writing exercises. And in the process have a lot of laughs and gain a fresh perspective on your own creative journey.

When: Saturdays, 2pm – 5pm (19th September, 3rd October, 10th October, 31st October)
Where: Church on the Corner
Who: Anyone! (You don’t need to come to all four, as each one is a stand alone session)

And finally, what people have said about previous Saturday afternoon workshops.
“I can’t encourage you enough to take part in one of these workshops. It may be the start of a whole new chapter in your life!”
“The laughter and freedom you experience is wondeful and as a non-creative person (my own label) I have
been amazed at what I have produced!”

Email Rebecca for more information or to book your place: rebecca.mackenzie@gmail.com

Our links with our local parish have always been important to our identity, but we have been working hard to strengthen them over the last few years. There is always a danger for a church like COTC that it exists in a rather virtual world, and it is our commitment to belong in this place that keeps our feet (literally) on the ground. Our commitment to the morning service at St Andrews, and the Bemerton Soul project on our local estate are part of this. Also we now have a Parish website at www.barnsburyparish.com which is an expression of our unity and a place where parish wide projects can be publicised.

Why not drop in, comment on the articles, and be part of that online expression of our local community.

Another amazing London Churches Football Tournament at Hyde Park. COTC host this every year, along with Ambassadors in Sport to raise money for local football ministry and 60 odd churches from across London and beyond compete. A Titanic effort from everyone at church to make it happen, and from the four teams we put out (perhaps Titanic is an unfortunate adjective!)

Tom C took some fantastic pictures of the day (that boy has talent). You can find them here.

Easter Services

This Lent at COTC we are committing ourselves to reading the whole New Testament in 40 days. 

Rebecca Mackenzie is our new Artist in Residence. She will be encouraging the many creative gifts at church, and her first project is called Home.

The project involves daily writing, reflecting on the theme of home, and everyone is welcome to participate. You can find out more here.

We had both our Christmas Lunch and the first of our carol services this week. Both very lovely. Well done to Bee, Jon and Anna for their amazing work cooking christmas Dinner for 70 people, and to Sam and the corner voices, and thank you to everyone who pitched in for this mammoth sunday. You can find pictures here

What’s on at COTC and in the Parish this Christmas. Download the full size version here.
UPDATE The Christmas tree is here!

This is a great piece of work. I spotted it on the BBC website, it is an oil painting by Andrew Gad for the Church Advertising network who were responsible for The revolution begins.  Instead of the traditional nativity scene it imagines Jesus born in a London bus shelter. Not only provocative, it is beautiful too.

I have used it for our carol service invitation, so if you want to send it to friends or workmates you can download it here.

Lovely to see so many of you at our Advent prayer meeting. 

I particularly appreciated some of the responses to our ‘Advent Hope’ section, where we imagined we were writing a card telling the story of someone we had met, someone who was in need in one way or another and who needed to see the kingdom of God come in their life, even if they couldn’t articulate it. We used them as a basis for our prayers, but so many of them were so good that I want to put them up in Church. This was a good one.

“My hope this Christmas is that my children don’t end up like me. I pray that they will escape from the life that I live, that the lessons they learn at school will be their passport out of this. I pray that they will never have to experience the feeling of not being able to pay the rent or buy food for their famly. This is what I hope.”