Dear friends,

A very warm welcome to this service, on this first Sunday in Lent.  May the peace of Christ be with you.

Lent courses around the Team ministry area begin this coming week. Please peruse what is on offer (see inside) and make the most of the opportunity to come together, study, pray and reflect. It is quite OK to choose to attend a venue outside of your usual parish, if the subject is appealing, or the time/day is more convenient. Wherever you decide to attend, please could you let the group leader know that you will be coming along?

Next Sunday at our family worship at Checkendon we’ll be taking a “Visit to Jerusalem”. Lent is the time when we journey in spirit with Jesus as he makes his way to the Holy City, and I hope to set the scene for our own pilgrimages by showing some slides of Jerusalem as it is today, including some of the areas of the ancient city itself, as Jesus would have known it.

Our Key Text to revisit this week is the Ten Commandments, traditionally recited in Church at the beginning of Lent, to remind ourselves of the discipline of a life lived in a Covenant relationship with almighty God. Can you recite these by heart? Relieve the tedium of a motorway journey by seeing how many you can remember!

Your Rector, and servant for Christ’s sake                                                    Kevin Davies.

The Ten Commandments

The form below is suitable for memorisation. If you would like to read the “full” text, the reference is Exodus 20:1-17.

I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods but me.
You shall not make for yourself any idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
Honour your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness.
You shall not covet.