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Over the Christmas season we tend to get through rather a lot of mince pies! If you’re happy to pick up a few extra boxes on your weekly shop and donate them to the church, that would be fab! Just leave them piled up in the church kitchen!

Planning is underway for a range of Christmas services and events. Our Christmas craft event, ‘Create for Christmas’, will be taking place on Friday 5th December, beginning at 7:30pm. If you are willing to help with various practical jobs either in the build-up or on the night, or, if you’d be willing to host a table on the night, please let Julie Thomas know.

If you’re free for an hour or two on the morning of Saturday 6th December, do consider coming along to help with our December workday. If you’re around to help, please speak to Cathie Kitley.

A carol service blending the traditional with the more contemporary. Do come along and invite friends for an evening of Christmas worship. Mulled wine and mince pies will be served afterwards.

A fun event for all the family! A nativity themed pantomime – what’s not to love! A great event to invite friends and family to. Please do book well in advance as spaces are limited. £2 per adult, £1 per child.

Our Christmas Eve Christingle service is a lovely event, especially for children and their families. A great service to invite friends along to! Make sure you wear something festive!

A fun, short, all age service! Make sure you bring an unwrapped present…or a wrapped one and unwrap it in front of us all!

Alpha and Practicing the Way 2 – Tuesday nights at 7:30pm. The simple format for the evening will be as follows:

7:30pm Refreshments and Puddings – Eating together is an important part of the course!
Do come with a little room for a slice of cheesecake or similar!
7:50pm Both courses start – One will meet in the chapel, the other in the Church Centre.
9:15pm Close - We will always finish by 9:15pm. Some weeks may finish a little earlier.

It’s not too late to come along to Alpha. If you’ve never taken part in Alpha, it’s a great way to explore the Christian faith. There’s lots of chance for conversation and questions.

Our parent/carer, baby and toddler group for pre-schoolers, called Play & Chat, takes place every Friday morning from 10am to 11.30am during term time and includes stories, songs, and a space to play, chat and make new friends.

This term, our Sunday night youth group will be led by a far more youthful team of people, Dan Allen, Joey Cheesman and Ella Thomas, supported by the slightly older Catherine Root, Nick Cheesman and myself!

We won’t be following quite the same pattern as last term, so please make a note of the following dates when youth will be on. Youth is open to all those in year 7 – year 13 and runs from 6 – 7:30pm at the Church.

12th October / 26th October / 9th November / 23rd November / 7th December

Please speak to Dan Allen for more details.

On Mondays, 1.45 – 3pm (term time only) we run a weekly Practising English class. It’s a friendly group, providing people opportunity to practise their English in a conversational setting. If this is helpful to you or someone you know, do let them know. The class is led by Cathie Kitley.

We may over the next few weeks and months experiment with some different chair layouts. We are often well over 80% full on Sundays and in order to make room for others we want to find some ways of creating more space. If on one occasion you're favourite chair is no longer where it used to be, please bear with us, we want to be welcoming and create as much space for as many people as possible!

A significant percentage of the Sunday morning congregation now sit in spaces not serviced by our current PA system. As such we are going to be experimenting with some different configurations to see whether we can improve the sound in the chapel, the side room and in the first few rows. As with the chairs, please do bear with us in this...we hope to improve the sound for all, no matter where you find yourself sitting!

For those who use hearing aids, the whole of the main church (not the side room or the chapel) is serviced by a hearing loop. Do make adjustments to your own hearing aids in order to connect to this. Do please give occasional constructive feedback to Martyn, Andy or Craig on how the loop is working.

We're committed to being a church that is welcoming to all and safe for all. We're also a church which is fortunate to often welcome new comers. In order to increase safety and to make life easier for those who may be visiting, we are going to be encouraging certain teams to wear lanyards on the Sunday's they are serving. The two teams initially will be the youth and children's team and the prayer ministry team. It's really helpful for people, especially guests, to see at a glance who they can receive prayer from and who they can leave their children with!

Follow the link on the home page to watch this Easter's baptisms.

Throughout 2025 we are gathering monthly for prayer and worship on the first Tuesday of each month.

We’ll meet for about an hour, with approximately 30 mins dedicated to worship and 30 mins dedicated to prayer. This month we’ll be looking back with thankfulness and looking forward with faith and hope!

Do come along if you can!

The Community Larder opens each week on a Tuesday from 11.00am - NOON.

We have a cafe beforehand serving tea and coffee providing a space for people to sit and chat whilst they wait to go in. This normally opens around 10.30am.

Bring a bag plus minimum £5 donation per bag.

For more information on the Community Larder please see: https://www.stphilipstw.co.uk/community-larder

If you have a query, please email: larder@stphilipstw.co.uk

If you would like to give a donation, which will allow us to purchase food and equipment for the Community Larder, please visit our Just Giving page: http://bit.ly/larderdonate

Our youth group meets fortnightly on Sunday evenings beginning at 6pm and is open to all those in school years 7 - 13. For more info please contact Rich.

We’re really blessed to have a good number of young people coming along on Sunday’s. We also have a youth group that meets fortnightly on Sunday evenings (6-7:30pm). We are looking to build the Sunday evening team, so if this is something you might be interested in helping with, do let me know as soon as you can!

The 8am service will take place once a month, on the first Sunday of each month and will alternate between the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship communion services. The service will last about 30-40 minutes.

CHILDREN & YOUTH
We’re looking to expand our children’s and youth team for September. We’d love to be able to increase what we do on Sunday mornings, and so, might you be willing to lend a hand and get involved. Our aim is for people to only serve once a month. If you’d be interested in joining either the children’s or the youth team, please do speak to Julie re: children, or Catherine re: youth. (For these teams, DBS checks will be required.)

AV
As from September we will need a few new people to join the AV team. (The team that operates the PA system and the projection software.) Full training will be given. Our aim is for people to serve a maximum of one Sunday a month. If interested, please speak to Andy Collins.

Might you be willing to provide (bake or buy) some cakes periodically for after the Church Service. If so, how about joining the cake rota! You don’t need to be the next Paul Hollywood…last time Julie and I did it, we bought doughnuts!!! If you’re willing and able let me know as soon as you can.

If you’re interested in standing for PCC or Church Warden, please can you notify me by Sunday 21st April. You’ll need to complete a form which includes the details of those nominating you. If you would like to discuss what is involved in being on the PCC or acting as Church Warden before deciding, please do get in touch as soon as possible.

Some of you asked if I might send a reminder of the ‘Nine Practices of Jesus’ I mentioned very briefly during a recent sermon. They were, Sabbath, Solitude & Silence, Prayer, Fasting, Scripture, Community, Generosity, Service and Witness. I’d really encourage you to experiment with these practices as you partner with the Holy Spirit in the life-long process of spiritual formation and becoming more and more like Jesus. Start where you’re honestly at, not where you think you should be…i.e. if you don’t usually read the Bible at all each day, begin with a short section from a gospel, or perhaps a Psalm. How about this week, you start with Sabbath, a day of your choosing given over to worship, rest, and the cultivation of joy! (If you want any recommended reads or pointers, do come back to me!)

Every six years we have to completely re-new our electoral role, meaning everyone comes off and everyone needs to re-apply. The electoral roll is the closest thing we have to a membership list. Being on the roll allows you to vote in church meetings and to play a part in the governance of the Church. Being on the electoral roll doesn’t commit you to anything. It’s a formal way of indicating that you consider yourself a part of St Philip’s. The most helpful situation is when the electoral roll closely resembles the actual worshipping life of the church, i.e. when those who worship regularly are on the electoral roll. To this end, on Sunday 16th and 23rd March electoral roll forms will be available. Please do complete one and pop it into the box that will available. It’s very simple and will take about 1 minute! (The forms can also be completed at other times if you're not able to be present on those Sunday's.)

We get together for morning prayer each week, Monday to Friday, at 9am via Zoom. See PRAYER under
ABOUT US in the main menu for Zoom details and words.

All our talks are available as podcasts and can be found here: https://stphilipschurch.podbean.com

At 9:00am every Sunday we have 30 mins of worship and prayer for the life of the church, the nation and there is time to listen to God for the service itself. Do join us if you can.

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