Welcome to St Marys

Coming Soon - A Peal at St. Mary's !

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:37:38 +0000

On Saturday November 21st, members of the Hertford County Association of Change Ringers (HCACR), including 4 Redbourn ringers, will be ringing a peal at St. Mary's to celebrate the 125th anniversary of their Association. The peal attempt will start at around 9 am and if all goes well, the ringing will continue for 3 hours without a break. The last peal that was rung at St. Mary's was to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee in 2003, so it is quite a rare event, requiring stamina and concentration from each ringer. The band will also include a former Redbourn ringer, who will be travelling from his home in Wales to conduct the peal of spliced surprise minor methods.

Stewardship Sunday – 18th October 2009

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:21:31 +0000

The following is the talk given by Mike Wood to the 9.30 service on Stewardship Sunday. Please click the read more link to view the whole text.

Well it doesn’t feel like 12 months since I stood here last year to talk about Stewardship at St Mary’s. The past year has flown by.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you this morning. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Michael Wood and I’m chairman of the Stewardship Committee and also a member of the Local Ministry Team.

What I want to do is talk a bit about what Stewardship means at St Mary’s and how you can all help. Stewardship is about resourcing our church – that is ensuring all the various activities are run efficiently, be that officiating at services, singing in the choir, making the church and its grounds look so beautiful, ringing the bells, running our children’s groups, supporting our charities, keeping the website up to date or providing us with much needed refreshments after having to listen to me talk about Stewardship, and of course, generating income.

Transforming our Community

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:14:17 +0000

An amazing programme of events is developing for the Redbourn 900 celebrations and I’m getting very excited about the opportunities and outcomes that these will offer to us all. Someone recently asked me why we were making such a big thing about the 900^th anniversary and was almost suggesting that there was a hidden agenda for

St Mary’s Church. I was able to reassure them that there wasn’t – we just care passionately about this special place and the people who live here and know that many others do too. Redbourn has enjoyed a great history and has consistently ‘punched above its weight’. There is much to give thanks for and celebrate in that past and part of the programme of events will be about doing that.

Patronal Festival

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:36:31 +0000

From Patronal Festival

On Sunday 6 September we kept our Patronal Festival with a splendid day for all ages to enjoy. Our celebrations began with an uplifting service attended by well over two hundred people, young and old, who were treated to some wonderful music and an inspiring and challenging sermon by the Archdeacon of St Albans, the Venerable Jonathan Smith. Also during the service, we had the privilege of mandating our new Local Ministry Team of ten lay and ordained members to serve our church and community over the next six years.

Following the service the congregation, and many invited guests from our community, spilled out into warm sunshine to enjoy drinks and a fantastic lunch. It isn't often that you have a choice of 25 different puddings on offer!

As we ate and chatted, to the accompaniment of a brilliant jazz quartet, the young (and young at heart) enjoyed a bouncy castle and games on the church lawns. Our prayers for good weather had again been answered, capping another fabulous event for our church's Patronal celebrations and marking the start of our build up to our exciting 900th anniversary next year.

You can view a few pictures of the celebrations. Click the Read More link.

Fellowship Afloat

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We are planning a Sailing Weekend for the Summer of 2010 and we'd like to invite all the PALs and Gospellers to come.

Fellowship Afloat is Christian Sailing and Outdoor activity centre in Essex on the beautiful Blackwater Estuary near Maldon. It's based on a restored lightship moored in the saltmarshes and, yes, at high tide you do get cut off from the mainland!

We've been there a number of times and are always excited about this special place. For those that are into outdoor activities the dinghy sailing is just fantastic. For those that aren't so keen the staff are also very good at making sure you always feel safe and secure or just have an easy option! It's also a great time to gel and get to know each other. Being a Christian centre there's always a few minutes to have a think about our faith as well.

The likely format will be to travel down on Friday 18th June, arriving for 8pm just in time to explore the Lightship, sailing on Saturday and then an evening activity. Sailing on Sun morning and departing around 4pm to get back to Redbourn for 6(ish)pm.

The first stage is to see who's interested and willing to put down a deposit of £25. The Lightship can take between 25 and 36 people. We expect the total fee to be slightly more than £87 plus any travel costs.

To reserve your place on this exciting trip we need you to fill in this form and send us your deposit.

Please click here to fill in the form, after you press submit you'll see the address to send your cheque to.

If you have any questions please just email Sandra Cresswell

Updated Welcome Booklet

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Will Gibbs) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Church is very pleased to be able to launch an updated Welcome booklet.

This booklet seeks to give you a fl avour of some of the activities and groups at St Mary’s. It is by no means an exhaustive guide but sets out a number of the things on offer and ways to be involved. Of course, our main activity is to worship God and with a range of services of various styles and at different times we hope that you will fi nd something to suit you at this point in your journey of faith. But beyond the worship, there is a lot that happens here in this busy Parish Church and we hope you’ll want to find out more.

To see the booklet please click here.

If you have any questions please click to contact Mike Wood.

PIANO RECITAL by SUSAN CLARK,

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:18:55 +0000

As promised, an update about the PIANO RECITAL to be given by SUSAN CLARK, concert pianist and composer, on SATURDAY 14th NOVEMBER AT 7.30 pm.

Susan has selected a delightful programme for us of twelve short pieces, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Billy Mayerl, of well known Classics and Light Music.

Tickets will be available by telephone from the 1st October. Adults £8 and Children £4, which includes an interval drink and programme.

Please see the October edition of Common Round for telephone numbers to order your tickets, which will be delivered to your door.

Come, Listen and Enjoy

Churchyard Extension

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:25:54 +0000

On Sunday 21st June at the end of the 9.30 am Parish Eucharist, additional burial ground was Consecrated in the extension to the churchyard here at St Mary’s. The Act of Consecration was led by Bishop Robin Smith, in the presence of the Diocesan Registrar, Mr David Cheetham, and The Rt Worshipful Mayor St Albans City and District, Councillor Chris Oxley. The ground was purchased on behalf of the church by St Albans District Council who is responsible for the provision of public burial space with the kind assistance and agreement of Mr and Mrs George Blair, who owned and farmed the land. The half acre space will ensure that the people of Redbourn continue to have somewhere in the village to bury their loved ones as the existing churchyard is now full.

Weekly Notice Sheet

Web@StMarysRedbourn.org (Mark Cresswell) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:17:13 +0000

Please find below a link to our weekly notice sheet distributed in the pews on Sunday. The sheet is in Microsoft Word format and if you don't have access to that program you can download a free viewer from the Microsoft Web site however many programs including those that come free with Windows and Linux will display the file.

To view the sheet please click here or click on the notice sheet image above.