Do you fancy some extra excitement in your life.  Bored in the evenings and weekends.  Want to meet some new people and make new friends then the latest mens and Nightingales (women’s) group activities have been posted in the activities section of this website.

We all have a great time socialising and doing different things during the year.  If you are interested in joining in then contact the appropriate person listed by each activity.  If you want to see what we have been up to recently then check out this web page.

We have Jacqueline Peart , founder of Deep Calleth Unto Deep.  Jacqueline is one of the UK’s most dynamic female ministers and has inspired thousands through her radio broadcasts, conferences, workshops and weekly e-zines. Known internationally as an inspirational speaker, poet, author and businesswoman, she was recognised as one of the UK’s leading women preachers by Keep the Faith Magazine in 2009.

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The Nightingales and Men’s group are joining together to have a Bowling night at Basildon Bowling on Wednesday 14 March 2012.  It will start at 7.30.

If you would like to come please contact Pat Ali at St John’s or phone 07931 801190 or Lin Slocombe at St Mary’s.  Check out our other activities during the year – do come along.

17 Nightingales and 3 from the Men’s group had a very enjoyable evening watching The Kings Speech at St John’s.  We had a break half way through for a cup of tea and a cake.  Hopefully this will help us with the Lent Course called ‘Finding a voice’ that is going to include extracts from the film - Liz Burton

It gives me great pride to inform you that our childcare services at St John’s, which include our Preschool and Out of School Club, recently received a “good with many outstanding features” report following an Ofsted inspection. A copy of the report will be available soon if you would like to read it.

Our congratulations to Gaynor, our manager, and all our staff.

Rev Colin Hopkinson

I am delighted to announce that the PCC has appointed Julian Patching as our new “Community and Youth Pastor” starting from 1st February 2012. His duties will include various pastoral and Sunday worship duties as well as setting up new youth work in the parish. There will be a short act of commissioning for Julian during our services at both churches on Sunday 5th  February. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday evening Lent Course 2012

Every year during Lent (the weeks leading up to Easter) we meet at St. John ’s for a short course about some aspect of our faith. (Some of our small groups will stop meeting and join together, along with others, for these weeks). This year we will be using a course called “Finding a Voice” which is inspired by the film “The King’s Speech”.  The sessions will include worship, excerpts from the film, an introductory talk and led bible based discussion in groups.

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Bigger. Better. More explosions

Happy new year, viewers. Welcome to the new, improved Off the Wall 2. There will be exposés, there will be quizzes, there will be a problem page and more zzzelebrity gossip than you can shake a bishop’s crook at. And what’s more, it’s still FREE. You can’t say that for the Sun. Get yours today.

It was a lovely 3 course meal and we were all bloated after the 2nd course of the carvery but all managed to eat dessert, some of us even managed “Syryp pudding and custard” !!

Eulogy for a fiend

I’m quite honoured this month. I’ve been asked to write a piece about a much loved yet much maligned (in this column) member of the Hopkinson family. Sox the cat. I first saw Sox as a kitten at the rectory. I wanted to pick him up then, but I held back as he wasn’t my cat. Mind you, he wasn’t the Hopkinsons’ cat either, He was no one’s. Cats own themselves. If anything, he would have owned a Hopkinson human once he’d chosen which one he wanted. Besides, he was far too busy jumping on the furniture and being curious about everything.

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Rob Aley has kindly written about the men’s group outing on the 7th November evening to Wapping and recalls the evening’s events.

After meeting at Laindon and travelling to Fenchurch Street, where we met with others, we had a very interesting walk through the old East End to Wapping. This part of London has changed immensely and been refurbished beyond recognition, however many of the old landmarks still remain intact.

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This year you can shop on line for your exciting, high quality Tearcraft gifts from www.createdgifts.org .  If you don’t have access to the internet then phone 0845 218 3960 for a catalogue.

Please consider buying from Tearcraft and bringing hope to those in the world’s poorest communities.