All Saints & St Barnabas News

Tomorrow, 10am - 4pm, all are welcome to come and have a peep inside our Victorian church. We have self-guided tours, refreshments and lots of people happy to help you explore our beautiful building.

    Mothering Sunday can be hard for many people.  Sometimes our relationship with our mum isn’t what we might have wanted it to be, or our Mum is no longer with us and a happy service isn’t right for us; or your Mum or Nana might be seriously ill and it all feels overwhelming. Maybe you have experienced miscarriages or the death of a child. Maybe the day makes you think of people you have lost and you want to remember them quietly. Maybe you long to have children but it just hasn’t happened. It can often feel like these thoughts and memories and feelings aren’t allowed. But that's not the case. They are just as important as everything that goes on all the cards and alongside the bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates. You still might want to do something to mark Mothering Sunday but not with a celebration. Maybe you want to say 'I miss you’ or 'I know you tried your best’ or ‘I forgive you’. Maybe you want to cry for a child you never got to be a parent for as th...

  "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing!" And here is the lovely church choir singing it, back in 2020, for our lockdown Christmas service. Pour yourself a little glass of mulled wine, sit back and enjoy! Hark The Herald Angels Sing might have been Top of the Pops, but the voting was tight and the others came very close runners up: At number 2 we had 'Silent Night';  At 3, we had 'In The Bleak Midwinter'; and at number 4, 'O Little Town of Bethlehem'. Other fantastic suggestions included:  It Came Upon The Midnight Clear;  Once in Royal David's City  and Ding Dong Merrily On High Whatever you're tapping your toes to this festive season, we wish you a very Merry Christmas.

  Christmas Carols are a time honoured tradition... but which is your favourite? The top four carols sung at All Saints and St Barnabas are: 1. Silent Night 2. In the bleak mid-winter 3. O little town of Bethlehem 4. Hark the herald angels sing We would love to know if you like these the best, or if you have others that you prefer. Perhaps 'Once in Royal David's City', or 'While Shepherds watched their flocks by night' bring back happy memories of childhood nativities. Here's a little history about the four popular carols listed above: Silent night ·          The music for this carol was written in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber with the words by Joseph Mohr, a local catholic priest.  They lived in the small town of Oberndorf bie Salzburg in Austria. ·          The story goes that the church organ was broken due to flooding and so Gruber and Mohr sang this at the frist Christmas Mass, with Mohr o...

  There is a frame of remembrance at All Saints Kenley, located in the church hall. Everyone is invited to add your notes this week, in tribute to someone you would like remembered, for this Sunday's Service of Remembrance (12th November). Thank you to the Beavers who have created this lovely frame.

  In this troubling time, we offer a prayer for peace from The Very Revd Canon Richard Sewell of Saint George's College, Jerusalem:  O God of all justice and peace, we cry out to you in the midst of the pain and trauma of violence and fear which prevails in the Holy Land. Be with those who need you in these days of suffering; we pray for people of all faiths - Jews, Muslims and Christians, for all people of the land. While we pray to you, O Lord, for an end to violence and the establishment of peace, we also call for you to bring justice and equity to the peoples. Guide us into your kingdom where all people are treated with dignity and honour as your children, for to all of us, you are our Heavenly Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If you would like to donate funds to the Anglican Al Ahli Hospital, to help those being treated there in Gaza, you can do so via The Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association