A warm welcome to you on this First Sunday of Lent. Please do join us after the service to share in a cup of tea or coffee. All ages are welcome at St. Mary’s, children included. There is also a crèche in the Octagon for the very young if you need it. If this is your first time with us, please do fill in the slip at the end of the newsletter, so that we can keep in touch with you. St Mary’s is fitted with a hearing loop system. Members of the congregation who have a hearing aid with a ‘T’ switch will find that they can hear better when it is switched to ‘T’.

Coffee Club
There will be no Coffee Club meetings in March. In April they will meet on Wednesday 4th and 18th at 10.45 am. All Welcome. You may be interested to know that £100 has been donated to the Church Refurbishment fund from the Coffee Club. Gwen and Audrey

Annual Meeting
Our electoral roll is currently being updated. All regular worshippers at St Mary’s should sign an electoral roll form (available from Sheila Wick) this year as the roll is being completely revised. Membership entitles you to vote at our Annual General Meeting which takes place on March 25th when we shall be electing Church Wardens and our Parochial Church Council. The review closes next Sunday. Could you please also ensure that any outstanding reports are in the office by next Sunday.

Lent
Lent began last Wednesday - if you didn’t take a book ‘Love Life - Live Lent’ home last week please do so today. The book gives suggestions of actions for each day in Lent which may help make our world a better place. Love Life - Live Lent was used in Birmingham Diocese last year to great effect and has gone national this year. Sadly not many left, but you are welcome to those we have.

Welcome Booklet
If you might be able to give a little time to help Jean and Derek Hudson put together a welcome pack for newcomers to St Mary’s, please speak to either of them as soon as possible.

Fund Raising Group
Last Thursdays meeting which had to be postponed has been rescheduled for this Thursday at 7.30 pm. Please see Jean Hudson for more details.

Mission Group
In November 2006, Mission Group made recommendations to PCC for St Mary’s 2006 charitable giving; full details of this will be reported at the annual meeting on 25 March 2007. We also hope to provide more information about charitable giving at our “Worship for All” service on 4 March at 10am. In the meantime, please see the Mission notice board for thank-you letters, and related information, received from: Coventry Myton Hospice Appeal, Yeldall Manor, Headway Coventry and Warwickshire, USPG, Global Care - Child Sponsorship and Gilead Health Development Charity (also k/a Luweero). Sue Morton, for Mission Group

Lent Course
From Wednesday 28th February we shall be running a Lent Course both in the morning (10.30 - 12 noon) and evening (7.30 - 9 pm). Following the success of ‘Life Balance’ last year we shall be undertaking a similar course ‘Life Attitudes’ this year which looks at the beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel (Blessed are the poor in spirit etc). We shall conclude the morning group with a soup and roll lunch. Please sign up on the board if you can come to either session.

Bishops’ Visitation - Generosity of God
Please remember that on 4th March Bishops Colin and John will be speaking on the Generosity of God at Stoke St Michael’s beginning at 3.30 pm. Please do try to attend and stay for refreshments afterwards. The scheduled finishing time (with refreshments) is 5.30 pm.

Your Church Needs You
You will be aware of the amount of repair needed to be done to the church fabric - peeling paint and degraded plaster bear witness. We can, however, keep the church as clean as possible and that is where you come in. Two volunteers are needed to fill a vacancy on the cleaning rota. The work involved takes less than an hour every seven weeks. If you are prepared to help please have a word with me. Alan Robinson

The First Sunday of Lent

Collect: Heavenly Father, your Son battled with the powers of darkness, and grew closer to you in the desert: help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer that we may witness to your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

First Reading: Deuteronomy 26. 1-11 Hannah Tyler

Second Reading: Romans 10. 8b - 13 Samuel Liggins

Gospel Reading: Luke 4. 1-13 Owen Vigeon

Intercessor: Stephen Baker

Hymns: 293 240 372 204 442 541

Post Communion Prayer: Lord God, you have renewed us with the living bread from heaven; by it you nourish our faith, increase our hope, and strengthen our love: teach us always to hunger for him who is the true and living bread, and enable us to live by every word that proceeds from out of your mouth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This week beginning 25th February 2007

25th February 8 am Holy Communion
10 am Parish Communion, Junior Church and Lazers
6.30 pm Evening Prayer
Monday 9 am Morning Prayer
7 pm Parish Office
Tuesday 9 am Morning Prayer
Wednesday 10 am Holy Communion
Thursday 9 am Morning Prayer
7.30 pm Fund Raising Group
Saturday 9.30 am Morning Prayer

Sunday 4th March

8 am Holy Communion
10 am Worship For All
6.30 pm Evening Prayer