Saint David’s Uniting Church
& Castle Square URC
Minister: Rev. Dr Phil Wall
Tel: 01443 300345 Mob: 07855090360
Website: www.stdavidsuniting.org.uk
Admin email: [email protected]
11th September 2022
We welcome everyone to our services this Sunday, whether you are joining us on Zoom or in person at St David’s. The link for Zoom is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89461145366?pwd=S3ExNTVjdGVGdXlGVlNQc2k3eldudz09
Our zoom service starts at 10:45 am but is open from 10:30 so that everyone, including those in our community who cannot physically come to church – those who are mentally or physically unwell, those who live elsewhere – get to enjoy seeing familiar faces and catching up on news.
As September is ‘Creation season’ – a time in which we more intentionally reflect on God’s creation and our role within it. Our Zoom service will include a discussion of creation parables.
For those who can, and prefer to, gather physically, a parallel service will take place at Gelliwastad Road at 10:45am
At 3pm, we will have a chance to learn from, and worship with, our friends from Llanfair Uniting Church, Penrhys. Transport has been arranged for those who requested it.
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Church Family and Pastoral News
We include this in the news sheet to inform our prayers.
- Many from Castle Square gathered together as Phil led a service at Glyntaf on 17th August to say farewell to Margaret Major a loyal and active member of the church who passed away earlier in the month. Margaret had spent her later years as a resident at Ty Porth.
- We ask your prayers for Gareth as he waits for the results of tests and for Pat in her concern for him.
- We are pleased to hear that Martha, though still in hospital is much better and requesting desserts!!
- We think of Gwyneth James as she waits for results from America which may change her treatment.
- Brian Lancaster has had his operation, which went well and he is recovering at home.
- We are pleased that Bethan has finally had the operation on her wrist which she broke in February. It was a complex operation which involved grafting bone from her hip. She is recovering well.
- We hold the staff and residents of Pontypridd Nursing Home in our prayers as they face a stressful time as the home is to close. The staff will be looking for new jobs and the residents will be relocated to other homes. We have a long association with the home having led services there for many years
Birthdays
Just one birthday that we are aware of this week – Ray Vincent on Wednesday 14th. Enjoy your day Ray!
Good News
We share Marlene Rayner’s joy on her grandchildren’s exam results. Her granddaughter passed all her GCSE Exams and will be going to Huish College in Taunton to study Physiology, Applied Science and Child Development and her grandson gained 3 distinctions in his A Level course and has been officially accepted in Bath University where he will study Engineering.
Sharing Memories
The service at Castle Square last week, was both enjoyable and memorable, as friends shared stories and photographs that represented their stories – it was also emotional and will stay with them for a long time.
Thanks from…..
Hilary….Thankyou!! I had a marvellous few days…..starting a surprise party on Wednesday at ‘Arty August’, many visitors on my actual birthday (Thursday) and a family gathering in Cowbridge on the weekend, I enjoyed it all even though I was shattered afterwards….thankyou everyone for the many cards, visits, calls and gifts I received making it a 90th birthday to remember!
Marlene Rayner – A big ‘thank you; to everyone for the cards and good wishes I received on my birthday.
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Dates for your Diary ~ St David’s
Monday 12th at 11am. – Zoom with Llanfair Uniting Church – An invitation to join their online nurture group.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8820026935?pwd=bU1vQnI2SGlvWTVLekNzSlp5eVB0UT09
Meeting ID: 882 002 6935 Passcode: Blaenycwm
Monday 12th at 2:30 Aspen House service.
Wednesday 14th Church House Thanksgiving Evening
- 4pm – A thanksgiving service.
- 5pm – Refreshments. Join us for a cuppa and conversation as we continue our time of remembrance.
Feel free to come to either or both.
Sunday 18th 10.45 St David’s Uniting
Stephen and Phil will be leading an ‘out of this world’ season of creation service.
There will be a retiring collection for the Pakistan Floods appeal. More details next week.
There is a Church Meeting following the service.
Sunday 18th 6pm – Zoom storytelling Communion service – theme ‘light and darkness’. Come with stories, poems, anecdotes on the theme…or simply come to listen, worship, and break bread together.
Sunday 25th – Harvest Service. We will be collecting for the local foodbank (Tinned Fish, Tinned Rice Pudding, Tinned Fruit, Biscuits, Crisps/Snacks being the top 5 needed food items right now) as well as money for our harvest charity – which will be confirmed at the church meeting on the 18th.
Dates for your Diary ~ Castle Square
Monday 12th at 10.30am Craft and Chat at the usual time.
Tuesday 13th at 2pm Elders Meeting.
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Sponsored half Marathon
Please support Alison as she is running the Cardiff Half Marathon on 2nd October – in aid of British Heart Foundation.
‘On 2 December 2021, my youngest sister suffered a Sudden Cardiac Arrest whilst she was at work. She was 51 years of age and had nothing wrong with her except a couple of unexplained (at the time) episodes of breathlessness in the previous couple of weeks. It could so easily have been fatal. This is why I have chosen BHF’
More information is available here. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Alison-Jones115?utm_source=Sharethis&utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=Alison-Jones115&utm_campaign=pfp-email&utm_term=e31e45b7deda443f864cd01c5a41eaa6.
Alison previously ran this race in 2019, her time was 3 hrs 13 minutes, her goal this year is to run it in under 3 hours. We wish her luck.
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Quote from HM Queen Elizabeth II
“It is through this lens of history that we should view the conflicts of today, and so give us hope for tomorrow.”
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The passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II
“We are putting the newsletter together as we take in the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Some of us are royalists, some Republicans, all siblings in Christ to Elizabeth Windsor. We will ensure that there will be an opportunity for those who would like to offer thanks for the Queen’s life through prayer, whilst our friends at St. Catherine’s have welcomed us to sign their book of condolence. For now, we offer the following reading, reflection, and prayer – taken from ‘Resources from the United Reformed Church’”
Reading: Isaiah 6: 1-5
Reflection
This year will be known by many as, ‘the year that Queen Elizabeth died’. Whatever we think about the institution of the monarchy, the death of our Queen has a huge impact upon us. Her face, her presence, her being there have been part of all our lives for so many years. For most of us, she has been the only monarch we can remember. She has been part of our lives, our imaginations, our sense of who we are.
The writer of this Bible passage from the Book of Isaiah shared this experience of the death of a monarch, after a reign of many years. It is probably no co-incidence that it was in this year, the year that King Uzziah died, that he had an experience of the ground shaking beneath him, when the Temple shook and he felt lost. Many of us now will also feel dislocated and shaken up, in ways we can’t quite describe and perhaps hadn’t expected. But the monarch whose reign has just ended in our own land would be the first to say that the God whom she worshipped, and to whom she committed her life in service, the God in whose name she was anointed in a holy place, this holy God, is with us, and the whole earth is filled with God’s glory. There are those who would say that what she provided above all was a kind of stability and reassurance. When times were painful and difficult for us as a nation, she was there. She always sought to comfort the suffering and to steady the anxious. Above all, her own faith in God was sure and strong. She spoke with increasing depth, in her many Christmas broadcasts, about her own reliance on God. In the face of her death, we can depend on the God who is always with us, filling not only the temples of this world, but also our families and communities, with love and hope.
In the year that Queen Elizabeth died, we give thanks for a life of dedicated service to nation and commonwealth. We give thanks for God’s faithful servant, Elizabeth. We pray for her family and closest friends, for those who will mourn and miss her most. We grieve for what we have all lost. And we also take heart and hope from the faith that we shared with her, that death is defeated and that God reigns above all.
Prayer
O God, our rock and our redeemer, we come to worship you and to give thanks for your servant Elizabeth.
We thank you for her long life and her dedicated service to commonwealth and nation.
We thank you for what she has meant to each one of us…
We treasure memories of meeting her ….of celebrating and marking moments in her life, of the opening of parliament, of her presence at significant times in our history, and of her speaking to us on radio and television.
We rejoice that she lived and shared the faith we hold and that she followed her vocation, hearing a call to serve.
We pray for those who will miss her most deeply, that they may find comfort and hope.
We celebrate and affirm our faith that death is defeated, that new life awaits your children, and that creation is renewed in Christ.
We pray for our nation at a time of change and for our new King.
May he follow his mother in faithful service and may your blessing rest on him.
We pray too for our elected representatives in Parliament, for our public servants and for all citizens, of all faiths and none.
And, in this day and time, we pray, as we are always glad to pray, may your Kingdom come. Amen.
May her soul rest in peace as well thanks