Services This Week
Dear All,
Services this week are taking place in person or via livestream through our YouTube Channel. Please find gathering times and service sheet links below.
Friday 14 November
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Matthias Grebe)
Sunday 16 November / Second Sunday before Advent
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘The Day of the Lord’
Service Sheet: Here
4pm - Ecumenical Evensong (w/ Fisher House)
Other notices:
Pre-Advent Catechesis Classes: Over five consecutive Wednesday evenings, we will be running a discussion-based teaching series on the Church of England’s ‘Five Marks of Mission’. These hour-long ‘catechesis’ sessions will continue tonight (Wednesday 12 November) at 7.30pm with the topic of ‘Proclaiming the Good News’. Tea/coffee will be provided and all are welcome! If you wish to join virtually, via Zoom, please find the link here.
‘Barnes 500’ Events: Over the course of Michaelmas, the church and St Edward’s Institute for Christian Thought are running several events linked to commemorating, and critically reflecting on, the 500th anniversary of Robert Barnes’ 1525 Christmas Eve Midnight Mass sermon, which arguably sparked the English Reformation. A termcard listing these various events can be found on the table by the main west door of the church or here. Our next event will be an ecumenical evensong in partnership with Fisher House Catholic Chaplaincy held in St Edward’s church at 4pm this Sunday 16 November.
Scriptorium has restarted in the church for Michaelmas Term 2025. This is a loosely structured time, bookended by prayer, of independent study for postgraduates, meeting 9am-4.30pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays weekly during University term-time. For more information, see here.
Giving: We are grateful for all of your gifts! Offerings may be made via BACS (Sort: 20-17-19 / Acc. No.: 30851477 / Acc. Name: St Edwards Church), for standing orders, or the SumUp machine on the table by the door, for contactless giving. There is also a wall-mounted deposit box by the door for cash and/or cheques.
Exciting Holiness (Thursday 13 November):
Born in Reading in 1759, Charles Simeon was educated at Cambridge University and spent the rest of his life in that city. He became a fellow of King’s College in 1782 and was ordained priest the following year, when he became vicar of Holy Trinity Church nearby, although some of his earliest preaching engagements were at St Edward, King & Martyr. He had evangelical leanings as a boy but it was whilst preparing for holy communion on his entrance to College that he became aware of the redeeming love of God, an experience he regarded as the turning point in his life. Many of the parishioners of Holy Trinity Church did not welcome him, since he had been appointed through his own family links, but his patent care and love for them all overcame their antipathy and his preaching greatly increased the congregation. Charles had carved on the inside of the pulpit in Holy Trinity Church, where only the preacher could see, the words from John 12.21, when some Greeks came to Philip, saying ‘Sir, we would see Jesus.’ These words were a constant reminder to him that people came not to gaze on a great preacher or to admire his eloquence, but to seek Jesus. Charles became a leading Evangelical influence in the Church and was one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society. He also set up the Simeon Trust which made appointments to parishes of fellow Evangelicals. He remained vicar of Holy Trinity until his death on this day in the year 1836.
Eternal God, who raised up Charles Simeon to preach the good news of Jesus Christ and inspire your people in service and mission: grant that we with all your Church may worship the Saviour, turn in sorrow from our sins and walk in the way of holiness; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
