Seal Junior Choir is recruiting...

DO YOU LOVE TO SING?

SEAL CHURCH JUNIOR CHOIR is looking for new members, as several of our older children have just graduated to the adult choir.

IT’S FUN!

Sessions usually include:

• silly songs accompanied by the guitar
• vocal exercises to help us sing better
• basic activities to help us read music
• practice of some of the songs and hymns we sing in church

IT’S FREE

• Most music tuition is expensive, but you can learn to sing and to read music with us for nothing! *

IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!

• Making music is relaxing and fun, but it also helps us concentrate, listen, work together, read and count. It makes life richer and happier.

IT’S FOR EVERY CHILD (and parents are welcome too!)

• Everyone can sing, whether they know it yet or not.
• All children are welcome, whether or not they can come to church on Sunday mornings.
• Sessions are tailored towards KS2 (Junior School) age children, but younger ones are welcome too. Parents are invited to stay if they want to (and join in if they like!)

WHEN? Wednesdays in term time at 7pm. The adult choir joins us at 7.30pm. Children can either come from 7-7.30, or stay on to sing with the grown ups till 8pm.

WHERE? Seal Church TN15 0AT

WHO RUNS IT? The Vicar, Revd. Anne Le Bas

You can just turn up if you like, but more details are available from Anne

01732 762955,         priest@sealpeterandpaul.com.     http://bit.ly/1iWdlEq

* Once children are confident enough to sing in the choir at weddings, they will be paid £5 for each wedding too, so it’s a good source of a bit of pocket money!

Monthly news from the Church of England

The monthly news from the Church of England can be found at the links below.

InReview February's edition of InReview, featuring the successful twitter campaign #christmasmeans, prayers for February's General Synod and the Archbishop of York Youth Trust grant making programme, is available here InFocus February's edition of InFocus, featuring the Church's new Ministry Experience scheme, Pilling report resources available, and the appointment of the new Bishop to the Armed Forces, is available here

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A Thousand Tiny Celebrations - Christian Aid Collective message for the New Year

A Thousand Tiny Celebrations - from Christian Aid Collective.

A Thousand Tiny Celebrations

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By Chris Mead | 07 January 2014 at 9:09

2013 is dead.

It had its chance and now it's over. Sure, it didn't have as many days to thrill us as 2012 did but it got 365 which is at least as many as any other year. So no excuses, 2013, how did you do?

Global poverty: still very much a thing

Climate change: worse if anything

Tax justice: Starbucks and Amazon just did a happy dance

Gender equality: it's glass ceilings a-go-go

Royal babies: okay, in fairness 2013, you did do better than most in this category

Finding out what the fox says: Apparently it says Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

It's scary how fast these years flash by. For me, life has started to resemble one of those time-lapse photographs of a cityscape. Headlights smeared in florescent trails along empty streets, people there for an instant and then gone. Buildings growing like weeds, the sun racing across the sky - everything too jittery, too bright, too easily forgotten.

I can remember summer holidays that lasted for centuries.

But I digress.

The fact is that we start our years feeling that anything is possible, that we can make a real difference, both in our own lives and in the world in general, and too often we end them out-of-breath, disorientated and with a bad case of psychic whiplash (although this may just be the New Year's parties I go to).

It's the same for the Collective, we've done some amazing things in 2013: met a bunch of inspirational people, campaigned on tax and hunger, tried to live out our faith in action in as many ways as possible. But there's still so much to do and for every step forward we take, there's a danger the weight of the task ahead of us might make as falter or stop altogether.

But this is January, a New Year, a new chance - 2014 is big and shiny and untarnished by failure and disappointment. How then to take this feeling of potential and apply it to a year's worth of activity? I would argue we need to set achievable goals and, most importantly, celebrate our successes. To actually take a moment when things go well to acknowledge that fact and sit with it for a moment. Have a little smile to ourselves, maybe give someone a cheeky high five?

And if we do that I think we'll realise just how much we can do in a year and how all these little successes and minor wins add up to something bigger than any one of us.

Or to put it another way...

My wish for this year is that we fulfil our potential in a thousand tiny and celebrated ways. That we carry that potential through the year, that we live in moments that might otherwise whip past us.

Perhaps then we will look back and understand that we are agents of change, that the choices we make are powerful and that each of us transforms the world with every step we take. 

Chris Mead

More about the contributor

The Posada comes home

Our travelling crib set, the Posada, came home safely to the church at the Christmas Eve Crib service. It has been travelling round the parish during Advent, starting in Seal School and then visiting local families. Many of them have written in the scrapbook, sharing how they used the posada to help them think about the Christmas story. It will be in the Lady Chapel for the next few weeks, if you would like to come and look at it.

Our church crib set is looking good under the Lady Chapel altar, and will be in place until Candlemas on Feb 2.

Michael Morpurgo on WW1

There is a thoughtful article from Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, on the centenary of World War One here.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/01/first-world-war-centenary-michael-morpurgo