Made by St Lawrence Stitchers :

Ethelwyn Osbourne, Gretel Wakeham, Alison Glennie, Sheila Jackson, Bridge Stephens, Teresa Anderson, Jenny Wharton, Rosemary Attenborough, Louise Clark, Lesley Rayner, Maureen Lewis, Gwen Ayling and Roz Morris. 

The tree design has been inspired by the location of the church and the school  in a rural setting near to Sevenoaks.  The leaves and animals on the ‘Oak’  tree are in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours, to represent the diversity of life in the school.  The materials and skills used in the design  represent the important connection between the church and the school.   

All the fabrics,  embroidery threads and wools used to make the tree,  leaves and animals were donated.  The white silk of the tree was left over from making a vicar’s stole to celebrate 150 years in 2018. The green background fabric was donated by Robin Kiddell, and the White lining fabric was donated by Kate Clark.

The leaves on the tree and the animals have all been individually drawn and made by the Stitchers using  a variety of stitching methods, including needlepoint, embroidery and knitting. The wools and canvas used to create these leaves and animals are the excess materials from earlier stitching projects at the church, including the kneelers made following the lightening strike in 2005.  The owl and the squirrel were made by Teresa Anderson, The ‘Jenny’ Wren by Jenny Wharton, The dormouse by Louise Clarke and the Blackbird and ladybirds by Roz Morris. 

Dear Sisters and Brothers

I attach for your attention a letter (or download it here) from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.  This points you to new and important guidance relating to the administration of Holy Communion, the sharing of The Peace and other acts of ministry.

This new guidance is prompted by:

• The developing public health situation (among those advising the Church of England is the Revd Professor Gina Radford, formerly the Government’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer);
• Our responsibility towards those who may be most at risk of infection;
• The desirability of consistency of practice across the church.

While there may be a few situations where ministers need to exercise judgement in the application of this guidance, it should be noted that this is guidance to which we should all have ‘due regard’ – in other words, we need to have a good reason for not abiding by it. 

If in doubt, please be in touch with my office at Bishopscourt. 

There is likely to be further advice in due course (e.g. about funerals where a person’s family are all self-isolating), and planning is in place in expectation of any significant increases in deaths. 

Where necessary, there will also be guidance about Confirmation and Ordination Services.

At present there is no guidance suggesting that we should discontinue public worship or other gatherings or close our schools. 

The exception to that would be if there was a case of actual infection in a particular community. 

At Diocesan Synod last Saturday, I drew particular attention to the importance of our care towards those who may be the most at risk, especially the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. 

Please be particularly alert to those in our communities who may themselves decide not to attend worship or other gatherings, and take steps to make sure that they have all that they need for their wellbeing. 

And please do all that you can to make sure that those people are not exposed to the risk of infection.

I am conscious also that there will be those among our clergy, lay ministers and pastoral volunteers who are themselves more at risk due to their own age or medical circumstances. 

Please do not place yourselves at risk and, if you need advice, please be in touch with Bishopscourt.

While we do need to be proportionate in our response to the present situation, we also need to take proper care and indeed to take a lead and set an example of good practice within our communities. 

Please be alert to the very simple guidance about frequent hand-washing and ‘social distancing’; also keep alert to further advice on the Church of Englandand diocesan website.

Please hold especially in your care and your prayers those who may be the most at risk of harm in our own different settings and more widely.

With my thanks for your attention to this and the assurance of my prayers.

+James
The Rt Revd James Langstaff
Lord Bishop of Rochester and Bishop to HM Prisons

Some wonderful video clips showing highlights of our Christmas Nativity.

Our Vicar Serena spent some special time this past week with the children from St Lawrence School next door, explaining the miracle of Easter.

Over the past 12 months, many of you may have seen in the press some of the WWI commemoration installations that have been taking place across the country. Earlier this year, on behalf of the church we applied for a grant from the There But Not There 2018 Armistice project to fund our own installation. Following the widespread acclaim of the placing of 51 transparent seated military figures in Penshurst Church over Remembrance 2016, the Armed Forces Covenant Fund is supporting the There But Not There project to fund the costs of similar installations for schools, places of worship and charities across the country. As a recipient of such a grant, it means that St Lawrence Church is able to display 10 of these transparent silhouettes in church over the Armistice weekend this year. The aim of the project is to create representative figures for those names on local war memorials across the country, to raise awareness of the work of the Armed Forces and to also create a time for reflection, as part of the centenary commemoration of the end of the First World War.

You will see these figures seated amongst the pews when you come into church on Armistice Sunday. They will be part of a wider community project, involving St Lawrence School, St Lawrence Pre-School and the St Lawrence Brownie Pack as well as our church and local residents. We will be opening the church on Saturday morning (10th), where we hope to attribute names and stories to some of the silhouettes through displays of local history and research, together with some WW1 items and photographs. Please do come along for a coffee from 10am – 12pm. If you have any information or family history you would like to be included in the display, please contact Sally Rees on sally[email protected] or 07900 167430.

St Lawrence Church, Seal Chart
Concert in aid of
Sevenoaks Area Youth Trust
At 6pm on Sunday November 1st, 2015
Greg Tassell – tenor
David Flood – accompanist and organist

Greg and David will be performing a varied programme ranging from operatic arias and folksongs to Noel Coward and Ivor Novello songs, taking in on the way comedy songs by Flanders and Swan.

Greg Tassell trained at the Royal Academy of Music and is in great demand in the UK and abroad for recital and oratorio appearances, most recently in Krakow, Poland singing Bach’s St John Passion. The Times music critic Hilary Finch has described Greg as ‘personable and musically intelligent’.

David Flood is Organist and Master of the Choristers at Canterbury Cathedral and, as well as accompanying Greg on the piano, will also play solo organ pieces.

Tickets (£12 to include interval glass of wine and refreshments)
are available from Carol Lambert Telephone: 01732 810913

Sevenoaks Area Youth Trust is a Christian Trust founded in 2001 to employ, manage, train and support Christian Youth Workers in the Sevenoaks area whose role is to undertake detached youth work in the streets and parks in local towns and villages – wherever young people are. Funding mainly comes from local churches and St Lawrence Church has supported the excellent work of the charity since 2001.

Stone Street Village Hall

Saturday 3rd October 2015- 7pm

Please come along – families welcome.
2-course meal with cheese and coffee, entertainment, quiz and bar.

Always a popular evening. Please book early.

Tickets £12 per adult – £6 for children under 12
Available from:
Carol Lambert 01732 810913
and
Rosemary Cole 01732 763107

Christmas Carol Singing

We shall meet at 5.45 pm on Tuesday 16 December in the barn at Foxbury Farm to sing and enjoy Mince Pies and Mulled Wine.

It is then on to Chart Farm Shop to sing again and enjoy more Mince Pies and Mulled Wine (courtesy of the Peterson Family).

Come and join us, help to swell the ad hoc choir, and above all enjoy a good evening!

The Collection during the Evening is for The Children’s Society

I approached our archdeacon, the Ven Clive Mansell, to enquire about ways of securing the future of both St Lawrence’s and St Margaret’s when I retire in the summer/autumn of 2016. At the present time each church is a separate parish and therefore a quarter time appointment (together they make a half time post sharing the same vicar) and as such they are potentially vulnerable. Plans are being made at the moment which will bring our diocese in line with other dioceses and the allocation of money for ministry could in the future be decided at a deanery level. People will quite rightly be making decisions about where ministry money should be spent and small parishes do not offer good value for money. One possible solution would be to legally bring the two churches together. The best model for our two churches would be a “Joint Benefice”, with two PCCs; four church wardens and separate finances – working together more closely, but retaining our
identities.

The Standing Committees, of both churches, have met twice to discuss this and both PCCs have met and there is a willingness to explore this further and to get answers to questions raised at the meetings. As part of the process of discerning what might be a good way forward we would like to involve people from both congregations in the discussions that are taking place. We would need to agree about what we might like to share together, or what we would like to commit to and this would be part of our application should we decide to go ahead. I would appreciate you coming (if you can) to a joint Away Morning to help to shape this. We will be meeting on the 8th November at Platt Church Room (adjacent to the church in St Mary Platt) from 9.30 am – 12.30 pm.

If we came to the decision that it would be right for our churches to become a Joint Benefice there would be a process to go through, which might take some months. The change could be made by what is called a Pastoral Scheme, and it would need the agreement of both PCCs. The diocese would then have to make the decision to proceed at the Pastoral Committee (that would come with a recommendation by the archdeacon); Bishop James would then have to send the required paperwork to the Church Commissioners; the Commissioners would ask the parishes to consult locally, to see if there are any objections; then the Commissioners would take the final decision. The process could take 3-4 months, or maybe longer? The diocesan secretary has already been informally approached by the archdeacon and would be agreeable to this change should we decide to make it. The archdeacon wondered why this had not happened 20 years ago when the churches were linked together with the same vicar?

Please come to the Away Morning, if you possibly can, and please pray about this.

Carol

St Lawrence Christmas Fayre

will be held in

Stone Street Village Hall
on

Saturday 22nd November – 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm

GIFTS, CAKES, CHOCOLATE TOMBOLA
JEWELLERY, GLASS, POTTERY, CHOCOLATIER,
LUCKY DIP, COOKIE DECORATING, RAFFLE
MULLED WINE & MINCE PIES
FESTIVE STALLS & MORE !

Special guest for the little ones, as well as St Lawrence’s own Plum Puddings
St Lawrence School Brass Band

Please do mark the date and come along!

Entry £1 per Adult

Please click here for more.