We celebrated our Mothers, Our Lady, and a refreshment from the solemness of Lent this Sunday! As Mothering Sunday falls so close to the Feast of the Annunciation, and as next Sunday will be Passion Sunday, we had our Family Eucharist today.
Father Stephen was the celebrant, and instead of a sermon, we had a presentation of the story of the Annunciation in which the two aspects of Mary's reaction to the news bought to her by Gabriel were imagined. What a shock for a young girl, and such faith to take up the role of Mother of Our Lord! After the notices we had the presentation of a light blue ribbon to our newest Junior Chorister, Maggie, many congratulations!!
The Choir sang Ave Maria in the setting by the Latvian composer Rikard Dubra.
At the end of the service the children distributed posies of flowers to their mothers, and grandmothers, and as we left the Church we were given a piece of Simnell cake to take home. There was coffee after the service.

The Lent group meets again in the Vicarage at 7:00pm on Thursday, if you would like to join us please do, each session is complete on its own it is not necessary to have attended the others so do come and join us!

News of the Knitathon, over £700 pounds raised so far and more to come, and 30 hats now knitted!! If you are wondering how the building is going do look at the page on this website for photos of the ongoing work!

Our next Event is to be Pirates Day! On Saturday the 22nd of April there will be all sorts of Pirate and Smuggler related activities in the Church Hall and the Church yard, including competitions for the best dressed Pirate (child and adult) best pirate cake, find the treasure on the map, guess the name of the pirates' parrot, and a Treasure Hunt for doubloons and jewels in the church yard. The afternoon will finish with a presentation by 'The History Man' who will tell us all about pirates and smugglers in our area! Tea will be served after the Talk. Tickets (£10 per family, or for those who would like to hear the stories and have tea £5) are available form the Church Wardens. It will be a very jolly end to the Easter Holidays, do come along!!

This morning our 10 am service was Choral Mattins, conducted by Father Stephen. The readings, as is the practice at Mattins, were from the King James version of the Bible.
As it is Lent the Canticles included the Venite, the Benedicite, and the Jubilate Deo. The Benedicite was sung in the setting by Lloyd, and the Jubilate by CV Stanford in B flat. was sung by the Choir. Also as part of our Lenten worship we sang the Litany from the Book of Common Prayer.

The Gospel Reading, from St John, was the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. As Father Stephen pointed out, this is another of the dialogues, similar to the one last week between Jesus and Nicodemus, where the verbal 'fencing' brings out more than just the literal meaning of the words. The action of Jesus to ask for water from the unclean Samaritan women speaks of his message to include all not just the apparently righteous!

There was coffee after the service. Next week we will be celebrating Mothering Sunday as a family service, and so the following week, Passion Sunday will be a Parish Eucharist.

Look out for our Easter Holiday entertainment, 'Pirates Day' on the 22nd of April, a Treasure Hunt, competitions, a Story teller and Tea, Tickets, family or individual, from the Church Wardens (£10 or £5)

This morning our 10 am service was a Eucharist, celebrated by Father Stephen. We met on a rainy morning the weather very much suiting the mood of Lent! The story of Nicodemus and his dialogue with Our Lord was the Gospel today. In his sermon Father Stephen gave us some insight into this story, which happened at night, and the conversation would have taken place in darkness, allowing Nicodemus to pose some interesting questions. Through this dialogue we learn about the coming of the Spirit, and our re-birth into a closer relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. We meet Nicodemus again when he brings spices and perfumes to the tomb for the preparation of Jesus's body after his death. He was probably a pharisee, but drawn to the teachings of Jesus.
We used the new setting for our service today, after our preparation last week, we sang the setting known as the Wiltshire Service by Richard Shephard. It was well sung by every one!
The choir sang 'O Saviour of the World' by John Goss as the anthem. There was coffee after the service.

Money continues to come in from the knitathon, if you sponsored a knitter please do make sure to give them your money. More hats are also being finished, we have 22 already!

We are now thinking about our next event. On 22nd of April we are having a Pirates Day. In the Church Hall and Church Yard, there will be lots of events, a Treasure Hunt, competitions, a fantastic visit by a Smuggler who will tell us about the history of Pirates and Smuggling, and of course a Sidlesham Tea! More details in due course.

We enter the season of Lent this week. On Wednesday evening we started our Lent Journey with a Eucharist at 7:30 pm including the imposition of ashes. This lovely service was celebrated by Father Stephen. The traditional act of marking each person with the ash was followed by the Eucharist. The Choir sang Ave Verum Corpus in the setting by Mozart as the anthem.
On Thursday evening the Lent group met for the first time and considered the opening of St Mark's Gospel; the time of baptism and temptation in the wilderness. Father Stephen used a combination of images and video clips, together with Bible reading. The following discussion gave us a thoughtful start to Lent.

This Sunday, being both the first of Lent and the first of March we had our Family Eucharist. The Children gave us a very interesting demonstration of the temptations and choices we have to make about our behaviour, and where they may lead us! The intercessions were read by our young parishioner, Emily, and the collection taken up by Seth and Hazel. The choir sang A New Commandment by Peter Nardone as the Anthem and there was coffee after the service.



On Sunday afternoon 12 redoubtable knitters convened at 'Russetts' home of Adrian and Janet Harland and at 3 pm commenced the Knit -a -thon! The item we were knitting was a woolly hat for the Mission to Seafarers, and having previously cast on 120 stitches they began to knit in knit 2 purl 2 rib as fast as they could!! After 45 minutes of knitting and conversation there was a break for tea, kindly prepared by Marilyn, after which a further 45 minutes of furious knitting was called to a halt at 5pm. Measuring the lengths it became apparent that the longest was that of Mrs Field, who was duly presented with a small prize of flowers and hand cream. The knitters will go on to finish their hats, to add to the 17 already knitted, and we hope to have a large consignment of hats to send to the Mission with the speaker who will be with us on Sea Sunday in July. Its not too late to knit a hat, the pattern is on a sheet at the back of the church!!!

Sponsorship of the knitting, in aid of the New Annex, came to around £700! thanks to all who contributed.

Please do come to our next event, a Teatime Concert in the Church next Sunday at 3 pm. Ian Scott and Joanna Chivers will play a selection of music classical and modern for Violin and Piano, followed by tea and a retiring collection in aid of the New Annex.

A little further ahead, look out for details of our Smugglers and Pirates afternoon on the 22nd April, A treasure hunt, competitions, and a storyteller followed by tea, perfect for families and individuals, details to follow!