Knit and Natter
A reminder that our next meeting is on Wednesday 26th June from 2.30-4 pm in St. Matthew’s Church Room. Even if you don’t knit but like to natter, you will receive a warm welcome. Why not come and see?
Otterbourne Summer Festival 2024
This year, the festival will be held on Sunday 23rd June from 12 noon until 3pm on the recreation ground in Otterbourne. We are currently asking for donations of bottles for the bottle tombola please. If you feel able to help with these, please leave them at the back of St. Matthew’s Church for collection. […]
Knit and Natter
All are welcome to come along to this freindly gathering. We meet on the last Wednesday of every month. Our next meeting is on Wednesday 26th June from 2.30-4 pm in St. Matthew’s Church Room. Even if you don’t knit but like to natter, you will receive a warm welcome. Why not come and see?
CHO Tots
The new benefice baby and toddler group is now up and running. We meet every Wednesday during term time from 10-11.30 am in St. Matthew’s Church Room. Babies and toddlers with parents, grandparents or carers are all welcome to come and join us. The group provides an opportunity for children to play and learn to […]
Magazine letter April 2024
‘Then they went out and ran from the tomb, for terror and bewilderment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.’ Mark 16.1-8. So ends the Gospel of Mark, to many a short and unsatisfying end to the Gospel – the Greek even ends on a preposition (very bad Greek!). Several other later endings were added by other hands but Mark’s true account ends here with the women too afraid to speak of what they saw.
Morning Service for the Second Sunday of Easter 2024
We are soon to celebrate the gift of the Spirit. The birthday of the church. The church follows the order of things as given by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles and places the coming of the Holy Spirit 49 days after the Resurrection.
Morning Service for Easter Day 2024
Easter is about conversion – one thing becoming another – or if you prefer, transformation. A tomb with a body becomes empty; women coming in sadness leave in awe and wonder, the language is just that of the transfiguration, when the true nature of Jesus was revealed; women not allowed to speak in public become the vital messengers of new life; a frightened, defeated community of disciples become the body of Christ sharing their resurrection faith with the while world; and, of course, the most central of all transformations, Jesus dead now Jesus risen.
Morning Service for Palm Sunday 2024
We heard this morning Mark’s account of what has become known as the Ttriumphal Entry into Jerusalem. In it we hear that Jesus rode into Jerusalem after giving his disciples detailed instructions on where to find a colt for him to use. This arrival into Jerusalem is to be no casual affair, Jesus has been walking to Jerusalem ever since his transfiguration on the mountain to the north of Israel.
Morning Service for Lent 5 2023
It is General Election time!! Exaggerations and half truths abound. Political parties promise a better world, as well as criticising their opponents.
Deanery Synod Ideas fayre
The Fayre will be held on Saturday 13th April from 2-4pm at St.Paul’s Church, Winchester, SO22 5AB. The aim of the Fayre is to give people inspiration for what can be done in our own parishes, and to link with others to exchange ideas and use local expertise. Anyone who is interested is invited to […]
CHO Tots
W are excited to announce that we will be holding a new benefice baby and toddler group, starting on Wednedsday 17th April in St. Matthew’s Church Room. The group welcomes all parents, grandparents or carers with babies and toddlers. It is a chance for your children to play and learn to socialise whilst you have […]
Magazine letter March 2024
We are a good way into Lent by now, our 40 days of fasting, or what passes for fasting these days, usually the giving up of some self-destructive habit, like sugar in your tea or chocolate biscuits. All very useful but hardly a wilderness experience! I suppose we’ve lost our sense of urgency in the conduct of our spiritual lives, we don’t generally tend to think in terms of ‘doing battle with our lower natures.’ Such language belongs to an age of hand to hand combat.
Magazine letter February 2024
In our increasingly secular world any kind of ‘organised religion’ is regarded as something strange and peculiar. People instead claim to be ‘spiritual’. Which rather sounds to me like claiming to be able to swim without getting wet! Religion is the embodiment of spirituality, it is what gives it shape and purpose, and allows the experience of generations to be shared and learned from.
MORNING Service for Mothering Sunday 2024
Today is Mothering Sunday, please note, it is not Mother’s Day, that is a day for people to celebrate their mother, it began in America after a one woman campaign by a lady called Anna Jarvis. It was declared a holiday by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914, it is always the 2nd Sunday of May. Anna Wilson was so disgusted at the commercialisation of her idea that she regretted starting the whole thing.
Morning Service for Lent 3 2024
The Ten Commandments are a sobering read – they become the terms of God’s third covenant with Israel. The first to Noah, the second to Abraham and now this third to the freed Hebrew slaves in the wilderness. According to the writer of the book of Exodus these Ten Commandments were given by the voice of God himself from the holy mountain of Sinai, in fear and trembling the people heard them.
Morning Service for Lent 2 2024
Today’s first two readings are about having faith and, indeed, justification by faith – being put right with God by faith– is a key Protestant belief and was crucial for Martin Luther. This was contrasted with doing good as a sort of scoring system; I will be put right with God by doing more and more good deeds or in Luther’s time giving more and more money to the Roman Church for the re-building of St Peter’s, Rome.
Morning Service for the first Sunday in Lent 2024
The name Satan comes from the Greek, Satanas, which is in turn a transliteration of the Aramaic, satana. The character first appears in Jewish literature in the book of Job, where he is simply hassatan, the accuser, one of the servants of God. In later literature he developed into an evil power, the opponent of God, seeking to destroy the relationship between God and man. It is difficult not to ascribe this development to the influence of the dualistic religions of Israel’s near neighbours, such as the Zoroastrians in Persia.
Lent Study Group
Don’t forget the Lent Discussion Group meeting in the Church Room of St Matthew’s, Otterbourne on Thursdays in Lent at 10am.
Trinity’s Big Sleep Out 2024
This year the Big Sleeep Out will take place on Friday 24th May. Spend the night under the stars in the grounds of Winchester College, sleeping out in homemade cardboard shelters, while raising money and awareness for those facing homelessness. For more information, please visit: https://trinitywinchester.org.uk/bigsleepout/
A Morning Service for the Sunday next before Lent 2024
Today as we draw close to the season of Lent and our journey in imagination to Jesus’ cross and resurrection, so the lectionary bids us to remember the moment when Jesus’ actual journey to the cross begins in earnest, that moment when at the northern borders of ancient Israel he turns to begin his return south to Jerusalem in time for Passover and the celebration of the liberation of his people from slavery.