Milton Matters Oxfordshire OX14



St Blaise Church

St Blaise is open, and you are very welcome to join us

Sunday 4th February at 11.000am – Morning Worship at St Blaise to celebrate Patronal Festival joint with Milton Methodists

Thursday 8th February 2.30pm-4.30pm – Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 11th February 11.00am – Holy Communion

Tuesday 13th February 5.30pm-7.30pm: Pancakes Event, all welcome.

Sunday 18th February 11.00am – Family Service

Thursday 22nd February 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 25th February 11.00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 3rd March 11.00am – Faith Conversation

Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

 If you would like more information please use one of the following contacts:

 ·       Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

·       Rev Phil Sutton   revphil@damascusparish.org.uk   Tel: 07507 378737

·       Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938

 Thank you to everyone who supported our Christmas Appeal to support Didcot Emergency Foodbank. Your generosity meant we were able to provide a large delivery of food and £451.01, Didcot Foodbank are very grateful for your support.

Sunday 3rd December at 11.00am – Family Christingle Service

Thursday 7th December 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 10th December at 11.00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 17th December at 11.00am – Nativity Service

Sunday 24th December at 7.00pm – Carol service, a mix of contemporary and traditional music and readings

Monday 25th December at 9.30am – Family Service with Communion

Sunday 31st December at 11.00am – DAMASCUS service at Sutton Courtenay

 

Sunday 7th January at 10.30am – Joint service at Milton Methodist church

Thursday 11th January 2.30pm-4.30pm – Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 14th January 11.00am – Holy Communion

Saturday 13th January 3.30pm-5.30pm: Wassiling in Milton, meet at St Blaise

Sunday 21st January 11.00am – Family Service

Thursday 25th January 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 28th January 11.00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 4th February 11.00am – Morning Worship at St Blaise to celebrate Patronal Festival joint with Milton Methodists

 

Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

 If you would like more information please use one of the following contacts:

 ·       Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

·       Rev Phil Sutton   revphil@damascusparish.org.uk   Tel: 07507 378737

·       Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938

 Milton Church Christmas Charity – Didcot Emergency Foodbank

This Christmas, St Blaise Church will be supporting Didcot Emergency Foodbank. The Emergency Foodbank is a practical, community-based project aimed at providing short term relief by giving food to people in crisis in our local area. The Didcot Emergency Foodbank serves Didcot and the immediate surrounding villages. Our support will be in in the form of both money and food donations.

 Can you help us contribute to this appeal?

Food donations can be left in the marked box at the back of St Blaise Church until 18th December 2023.

 We will be donating the money collected at our services over Christmas to help support the work of Didcot Emergency Foodbank please give generously.

 If you would like more information about our Christmas appeal, please contact Nicola Turner on 01235 933938 or at nicole@pduck.plus.com

Sunday 5th November 11.00am – Faith Conversations

Thursday 9th November 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 12th November 10:45am Remembrance Sunday – service will begin at the war memorial for the act of remembrance and then continue in St Blaise church

Sunday 19th November 11.00am – Family Service

Thursday 23rd November 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Saturday 25th November 1pm-5pm: Milton Craft and Jigsaw Fair (see notice in Milton Matters)

Sunday 26th November. 11:00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 3rd December 11.00am – Christingle

 Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

 If you would like more information or someone to help with any matter or just a chat, please use one of the following contacts:

 Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

Rev Phil Sutton   revphil@damascusparish.org.uk   Tel: 07507 378737

Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938

Sunday 3rd September 11.00am – Faith Conversations

Sunday 10th September 11:00am – Holy Communion

Thursday 14th September 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 17th July 11.00am – Family Service – Harvest Festival

Sunday 24th September 10:30am – Service with Methodists at Milton Methodist church, no service at St Blaise.

Thursday 28th September 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 1st October 11.00am – Faith Conversations

Advanced notice: Milton Craft and Jigsaw Fair is on Sat 25th November from 1pm-5pm. If you would like a table at the craft fair this year, please contact Nicola Turner (details below).

Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

 If you would like more information or someone to help with any matter or just a chat, please use one of the following contacts:

 ·       Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

·       Rev Phil Sutton   revphil@damascusparish.org.uk   Tel: 07507 378737

·       Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938


July / August 2023

Sunday 2nd July 11.00am – Faith Conversations

Thursday 6th July 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 9th July 11:00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 16th July 11.00am – Family Service

Thursday 20th July 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 23rd July 11.00am – Holy Communion with baptism

Sunday 30th July 9.30am – DAMASCUS Service at St Peter’s Drayton. No service at St Blaise

Thursday 3rd August 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 6th August 11.00am – Faith Conversation

Sunday 13th August 11:00am – Holy Communion

Thursday 17th August 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 20th August 11.00am – Family Service

Sunday 27th August 11:00am – Holy Communion

Thursday 31st August 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 3rd September 11.00am – Faith Conversation

 Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

 If you would like more information or someone to help with any matter or just a chat, please use one of the following contacts:

 ·       Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

·       Rev Phil Sutton   revphil@damascusparish.org.uk   Tel: 07507 378737

·       Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938


May 2023

St Blaise is open, and you are very welcome to join us.

 

Sunday 4th June 11.00am – Faith Conversations

Thursday 8th June 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 11th June 11:00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 18th June 11.00am – Family Service

Thursday 22nd June 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 25th June 10:30am – Café Church at Milton Methodist Church (No service at St Blaise)

Sunday 2nd July 11.00am – Faith Conversation

Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

 

If you would like more information or someone to help with any matter or just a chat, please use one of the following contacts:

 

·       Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

·       Rev Phil Sutton   revphil@damascusparish.org.uk   Tel: 07507 378737

·       Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938

From the DAMASCUS Ministry Team

I could do with a holiday this summer

 June, the start of our meteorological summer, when our hopes turn to restful warm sunny days in the garden or perhaps going on holiday. Looking forward to a much-needed break from the gloom of the crises and threats which surround us, or the gloom of the weather and our tiredness.

 Pentecost heralds the start of summer – the time when the church remembers and gives thanks for God’s gift of His life giving, life enhancing, Spirit. To the early church, God sent His Holy Spirit to be their strength in times of human weakness and vulnerability. As our energy, faith and hope diminishes, Pentecost reminds us again that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.

 Pentecost makes me realise that our sense of emptiness is not a negative thing, it is a capacity.

We read on containers the capacity they hold. Capacities are there to be filled. Without the Holy Spirit we are nothing. It is only through the Holy Spirit, God within us, that we come to believe in God’s refreshing love. It is only through the Holy Spirit that we can pray at all; for true prayer is always the Holy Spirit praying in and through us. It is only through the Holy Spirit that we are capable of any genuine good, for that which is of God within us is good. Without the Holy Spirit we are an emptiness. But this emptiness is a capacity waiting to be filled.

 W.J.Carey, Bishop of Bloemfontein from 1921-1934, wrote a prayer which he suggested should be ‘prayed slowly; or brooded over; or thought and felt.’ This prayer includes the lines: ‘O Holy Spirit of God – come into my heart and fill me … I offer to thee the one thing I really possess, my capacity of being filled by thee…. Fill me so that I may live the life of the Spirit; the life of truth and goodness, the life of beauty …….and guide me today in all things.’

 The full prayer can be found at https://prayerandverse.com/2019/02/05/holy-spirit-fill-me/

 This summer may God grant you restful and refreshing ‘holy-days’.

Phil Sutton


St Blaise Church

Services in April: 

Sunday 2 April 10.00am – Palm Sunday. Meet at St Blaise for procession to Milton Methodist Church followed, by service at the Methodist Church at 10:30am

Sunday 9 April 11:00am – Family Holy Communion, Easter Sunday

Thursday 13 April 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 16 April 11.00am – Family service

Sunday 23 April 11:00am – DAMASCUS Confirmation service at All Saints, Sutton Courtenay with Bishop Gavin. No Service at St Blaise.

Thursday 27 April 2.30pm-4.30pm: Tea, chat and craft afternoon

Sunday 30 April 11:00am – Holy Communion

Sunday 7 May 11.00am – Faith Conversation

Monday 8 May (bank holiday) 2pm Milton Duck Race

Please see the DAMASCUS Parish website for activities in other churches in the Parish www.damascusparish.org.uk

If you would like more information or someone to help with any matter or just a chat, please use one of the following contacts:

 Rev Helen Kendrick   rector@damascusparish.org.uk     Tel: 01235 847179

Rev Phil Sutton    revphil@damascusparish.org.uk    Tel: 07507 378737

Nicola Turner   nicola@pduck.plus.com   Tel: 01235 833938

From the DAMASCUS Ministry Team...

"Is it nothing to you?" (Lamentations 1:12)

 In last month's March issues, Reverend Phil Sutton wrote about using the theme of "failure" in our parish services and study groups, during the season of Lent. Reflecting on, thinking or talking about personal failure, is perhaps more difficult for us to do than talking about and remembering our successes. We would rather have the positives than the negatives in our daily lives. Yet everyday news broadcasts are of what is going wrong in the world, and the good news story, if there is one, is left to the final item. We hear so much of the negatives, of suffering, fear and  poverty, of failures which are the minus sign of living.

So often the question comes, why believe and trust in God, and Jesus too, if He seems to do nothing at all? Jesus shows us God getting involved, getting his hands dirty. Jesus is crucified and has his hands nailed to that crossbeam of the cross...the minus sign. 

The events which we now know as Easter, and everything thereafter, is of the positives, the good news. The story of Easter does not end with the crucifixion on Good Friday, because of the third day; then came the resurrection. On that first day of the new week, came a new start, a new creation. That is the heart of the good news. The negative of the crossbeam to the positive of resurrection: the sign of the cross.

"The end of the story is written by God, who knows what failure is and is not, and whose gracious love overwhelms our greatest failures....so take comfort n God's merciful and hope-filled judgement of each and everyone" (attributed Justin Welby)