Dear Friends,
Our gospel lesson this week is from Mark 9: 2-9 and is St. Mark’s account of the Transfiguration, describing the occasion when Jesus invited three of his closest disciples, Peter, James and John, to climb a high mountain with him. The disciples are dazzled by Jesus’ altered appearance. In contrast to the voice that spoke to Jesus at his baptism, this time a voice speaks directly to the disciples and tells them to “listen to him!”. This was a moment of profound significance for the disciples when they had a glimpse of the divinity of Christ but when it was over all of them headed back down the mountain and Jesus went on to heal a sick child (Mark 9:14-29).
We may have moments when we feel especially close to God, be it in church, in our own home or on a mountain top. Such moments are precious and inspiring, but we all have to come back down to earth and live out our faith in the everyday world. Those moments should strengthen us for service. As we approach Lent and our forty-day journey to Easter, perhaps we should consider not just giving something up for Lent but taking something up, helping, volunteering or serving in the everyday world. In that way Lent becomes a positive experience not just a penitential season.
With best wishes for a HAPPY Lent,
William.
Live Streaming of Worship
Services can be watched via the church website,
https://www.stcolumbas.org.uk/live-stream.
Reminder: If you do not wish to appear on the live-stream please choose a seat in the rear half of the sanctuary. Note that the Evening Services on the 1st of the month are not live streamed as they are held in the London Scottish Chapel.
Dial into Sunday Service
If you are aware of church members or friends who do not have access to internet please inform them that they can now phone in to join the Sunday service. No visuals clearly, but at least they can hear the service. Those interested should follow:
Step 1: At 10.40am call phone number 0203 051 2874.
Step 2: You will be prompted to enter a meeting ID. Please type (using your telephone keypad) 266 883 5072#
Step 3: You will then be asked for a participant number – simply press the #.
Step 4: Enjoy the service! You will hear the organ music from 10.50am.
Hymns, Music & Readings for Sunday 11th February 2024,
Transfiguration of the Lord, 11am
Hymn 39 God the Lord, the king almighty (Psalm 50) (Hyfrydol)
Hymn 193 God is love: his the care (Personent Hodie)
Hymn 463 Fairest Lord Jesus (Shonster Herr Jesu (St. Elizabeth))
Hymn 355 You, Lord are both Lamb and Shepherd (Triumph)
Anthem: Light of the world, Elgar
Musical Interlude: O nata lux, Tallis
Old Testament Reading: II Kings 2: 1-12
New Testament Reading: II Corinthians 4: 3-6
Gospel Reading: Mark 9: 2-9
Reader: Dr Iain Beveridge
Congregational Offerings
Details on the many ways you can support St Columba’s can be found here https://www.stcolumbas.org.uk/giving/supporting-st-columbas
Anyone wishing to contribute to St Andrew’s, Newcastle please contact the Session Clerk on standrewssessionclerk@gmail.com for bank details or other means of donating.
THIS WEEK: St Columba’s Quiz Night, Saturday 10th February:
Come and test your general knowledge at the St Columba’s 17th Annual Quiz. Saturday, 10th February 6.30 pm for 7 pm start. Tickets £6 per person, please email rosa@stephensomerville.co.uk or the Church office. You could join The Choir, Tennis Club, The Magnificent Seven, Reeling Together and The Lanark Collective, who are all immortalised on the Quiz shields in the Lower Hall.
THIS SUNDAY: Congregational Prayer Group: 10.15am – 10.30am, Kirk Session Room
Come and join us for 15 minutes to pray for our church, our community, our nation and our world …everyone is welcome and our prayers, both spoken and silent do make a difference.
Church Magazine, February issue
Pick up a copy of the new Church Magazine, with its stunning front cover, from the bookstall. Then pick up another to give to a friend! Thanks once again to our Editor and her team of contributors.
NEXT WEEK: Ash Wednesday, 14th February & the Season of Lent
To mark the beginning of Lent there will be a short service of holy communion on Wednesday 14th February at 1pm, in the London Scottish Chapel.
NEXT WEEK: “Let Me Go There”: Lent Study, First session, Wednesday 14th February, 7.15pm & Thursday 15th February, 10.30am
The book selected for our Lent Study is “Let Me Go There” by Paula Gooder, Theologian in Residence for the Bible Society. Arranged as a series of engaging and profound biblical reflections the book is an invitation to experience Lent, not as a season of restriction, but of wide-open spaciousness, in which to learn new lessons, to grow in faith, and to give God the chance to meet us in new ways.
Groups meet either Wednesday evenings (7.15 – 8.15pm) or Thursday mornings (10.30 – 11.30am.) Sign up via the church office to receive zoom invite. Attendees asked to provide their own book copy.
UPCOMING: Saturday 2nd March, “Embody Lent” London Scottish Chapel, 10.30 – 12noon
Revd Pauline Steenbergen author of the newly published Embody Lent, (Wild Goose Publications, Iona Community, £10.99, available on their website) is offering a free session of Christian spirituality, via her yoga practice. Pauline gave two well-received sessions at the Festival of Silence at St Columba’s last November.
The session will be held in the London Scottish Chapel, 10.30am – 12noon on Saturday 2nd March. Twelve places available. Please sign up via the church office, indicating whether you would prefer chair/mat yoga.
Pauline’s book intersects Yoga and Christian Spirituality in an illustrated 8 session course; involving movement, breath awareness, biblical reflection and ways into silent prayer. It is a resource for individuals, pairs or groups and there are options for chair yoga only, if necessary. Pauline is a Spiritual Director and a Church of Scotland minister living in Carlisle in the Presbytery of South-west Scotland; she is currently an ecumenical pioneer minister in the Diocese of Carlisle and a Yoga Scotland teacher, with classes in Cumbria, SW Scotland and weekly on Zoom.
NEXT WEEK: Sounds of St Columba’s, Sunday 18th February
Join us for a recital in the Upper Hall from 1.30pm with mezzo-soprano Maria Sotiropoulou and Ben Lewis-Smith on the piano. Recital to include works from Bizet, Bellini and Verdi.
Lent Appeal 2024 – Firefly International www.fireflyinternational.org
Our chosen charity for the Lent Appeal this year is Firefly International, a small Scottish registered charity that provides help overseas for children affected by war. The charity works in a few countries, but for the Lent Appeal we are focussing on its work in Brcko, Bosnia, with the charity’s partner organisation Svitac. The population in Brcko is a mix of Serb, Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Croat. The charity was created in 1995 by Ellie Maxwell, while a student, to help children affected by war. Sadly, Ellie died young but her work carries on through the charity. In the aftermath of war and conflict there is such a need to build relationships and reconciliation between all faiths and different ethic groups. The children and young people in Brcko, are really benefiting from Firefly / Svitac and it is having such a positive impact there. Funding is required to keep this project going. Lent Appeal donations will certainly play their part in that. Firefly / Svitac provide a safe location for children and young people to meet, they run the only inter-ethnic kindergarten in Brcko and provide after school clubs, music/band, art, workshops, IT, filming. Two summer camps are organised for children of different age groups. These fantastic opportunities bring together children and young people of all faiths and from various ethnic groups, giving them the chance to build friendships, trust and learn to live together in peace and mutual respect for each other.
Please click on the links below, to watch brief video clips from the children and young people involved with Firefly / Svitac in Brcko, Bosnia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHCX4j8umbE&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnxXeRF_YmM&t=5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKQ-L1l7_hc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Kpr-2rN-Y
To launch the Lent Appeal on Sunday 18th February, we are delighted that Jane Salmonson (Director, Firefly Int.) will be joining us as a guest speaker during the service. Jane will be doing a brief talk about the work of Firefly International and specifically about Firefly / Svitac in Bosnia.
If you would like to contribute to the Lent Appeal: Gift Aid helps, if you are eligible. If you need to complete a Gift Aid declaration form, please contact the Church Office. Various options to donate: White Lent Appeal envelopes are available in the Upper Vestibule and in the pews, as from Sunday 18th Feb. until Easter.
Alternatively, by electronic bank transfer: Please use “Lent Appeal” as the payment reference.
St Columba’s Church of Scotland
Royal Bank of Scotland
Account Number 00264741
Sort Code 16 00 42
Cheques payable to: “St. Columba’s Church of Scotland” and with a note attached to cheque indicating it is for the Lent Appeal. Send to:
Finance Dept. (Lent Appeal)
St. Columba’s Church
Pont Street
London SW1X 0BD
If you would like to make a card donation, please go into the Church Office.
With your donations we can help children affected by war to build a better future together, thank you. Mission Committee.
HOSPITALITY Lunch Service in the Lower Hall.
As we are a “gathered” congregation, being able to have lunch, or coffee after the Morning Service, is important for fellowship.
We really do need a few Volunteers for the lunch teams when we cater for lunches on the 1st and 3rd Sundays every month – this means being part of a team six times a year and could be helping in the kitchen, laying tables, serving and clearing tables. We also serve lunch on 5th Sundays (four times a year). If available please contact Ben Gourlay at ben.gourlay41@gmail.com or on 01206 795244, or via the church office. Thank you, Ben Gourlay, Convenor of Hospitality Committee.
UPCOMING: Scots in London Ceilidh Evening: Saturday 9 March 2024, Lower Hall, 7pm – 10:30pm
Join for an evening filled with Highland Dancing to a live Ceilidh Band plus a range of live entertainment from the London Scottish Pipes and Drums, the London Gaelic Choir and the Burns Club of London. There will also be the opportunity to join in with a community sing along. No previous dance experience is required, just enthusiasm, as there will be a caller to lead guests through all the moves step-by-step. A light supper is included in the ticket price, and there will be a bar available to purchase drinks. The evening will start at 7pm (doors open 6:30pm) and tickets are £20.To book tickets please visit: http://tinyurl.com/29jyxj6z
Office Hours
The church office is open from 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday.
E-mail: office@stcolumbas.org.uk
Website: www.stcolumbas.org.uk
Facebook: @stcolumbas churchpontstreet.
Twitter: @LondonKirk
Pastoral Emergency Number (out of office hours): 07591926271
Prayer Resources for Sunday 11th February 2024 Prepared by the Congregational Prayer Group
Opening praise
Here is love, vast as the ocean,
lovingkindness as the flood:
when the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten
throughout heav’n’s eternal days.
On the mount of crucifixion
fountains opened deep and wide;
through the floodgates of God’s mercy
flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
poured incessant from above,
and heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
kissed a guilty world in love.
In Thy truth Thou dost direct me
by Thy Spirit through Thy word;
and Thy grace my need is meeting
as I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring
Thy great love and pow’r on me
without measure, full and boundless,
drawing out my heart to Thee.
Bible readings: I John 4:9-10
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Ephesians 3:14-21.
For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and how deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we all ask or imagine, according to his power that is in work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Prayers
Heaven Father, thank you for sending Your dearly beloved and only begotten Son into the world, for the love of me. Thank you that he was born to die for my sins, so that I may be born again and have life more abundantly and eternally in Him. Thank you that in Christ I am set free from the fear of death and terrors of hell. I pray that your love may be shown forth in me, not only in my thankful praise but in a life that is lived for you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
O God, we pray that in his fullness, Christ would dwell in our brothers and sisters, who we have in our hearts and minds, through faith in Christ, in all his fullness. Dwell in them we pray, so that they may be rooted and grounded in faith. Lord, we pray that you would help them remain rooted and grounded in love for each other. And that in your love they would have the strength to comprehend with all saints, what is the length, and breadth and depth and height of your love. This we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Doxology
Now to him who loved us,
gave us every pledge that love could give,
freely shed his blood to save us,
gave his life that we might live,
be the kingdom and dominion and the glory evermore.
Amen.