Friday Friends continues to meet from 2.00 – 4.00pm every Friday, price £3.50 (carers free), offering a mix of talks, light exercise, singing together, table top games or craft activities in a safe, warm and friendly environment – with tea and cakes.
Why not arrive early and enjoy a meal in Café Siena.
See below for details of the program for April & May.
April
4th
Cards & Games
11th
Carebus talk & quiz with Kimble Earl
18st
CLOSED for Good Friday
25th
Seated Exercises with Juliet
May
2nd
Cards & Games
9th
Craft with Madeline
16th
Working as a BA Dispatcher with Hayley
23rd
Carol of the Bells
30th
Reminiscing Food, Past & Present with Christine Sanger
An advance reminder that our popular “St Cat’s Lite” returns Saturday 5th April.
St Cat’s Lite is a fun, informal, all-age service. We start with different craft activities that help us think about the months theme. We continue exploring the theme through songs, stories and prayer. We finish with refreshments. While open to anyone of any age, it’s especially popular with children & families.
It takes place at St Catherine’s on the first Saturday of the month, starting at 3:30pm. The next one is Saturday 5th April where our theme will be “Hope”.
Everyone is very welcome at this or any of our activities.
St Catherine’s Mothers’ Union are hosting the annual World Day of Prayer service, on Wednesday 12th March at 7:30pm.
This year the service has been prepared by Christian women in the Cook Islands. It is based on the words of Psalm 139 and this worship service invites us to recognise that God created each one of us with great attention and loving care.
This will be an unrehearsed and informal service, to which everyone is invited.
Tea/Coffee and biscuits will be available after the service.
It is common for St Catherine’s to offer a course during Lent.
This year we are offering the ‘Romans Course’ – the Bible Society’s follow up to their very popular “Bible Course”.
The course itself is not a course about Lent – instead it a 10 week course about the book of Romans, which we will be doing through Lent and beyond. It will take place Monday evenings, in church, at 7pm, starting on Monday 10th March.
The course tackles ten big themes found in the book of Romans which are key to understanding the Christian faith:
Gospel – How can we become confident in our faith?
Sin – What’s wrong with the world?
Salvation – What’s so amazing about grace?
Peace – How can we find rest in a stressful world?
Freedom – How can we avoid negative cycles?
Hope – What has God promised?
Mystery – If God is sovereign, what is our role?
Devotion – How can we live full on for God?
Community – How can we live together in love?
Mission – How can we be ambitious with the gospel?
Each evening will offer a video to watch and some questions to help us chat to each other as we think about that weeks topic.
People are welcome to attend as many or as few sessions as they like. We not pop along to the first one and see !
Easter Cracked team at St Catherine’s after a visit from a local primary school
We are delighted to be working alongside the team from Reach in local schools.
On Shrove Tuesday we welcomed year 6 from a local primary school into St Catherine’s to talk about why Easter is so important to us. The session was lead by the Reach team & used their ‘Easter Cracked’ material.
Last week we visited a local secondary school to help Reach provide a Coffee & Cake pitstop to staff on their inset day.
Coffee & Cake Pitstop for staff at a local secondary school
Reach is a small local Christian schools work charity mainly offering RE and pastoral support to secondary schools. However they also offer sessions to Year 6 in Primary Schools, and those sessions include “Easter Cracked”
We expect to be delivering an ‘Easter Cracked’ session for another local primary school early next month.
It was lovely to see friends old and new at last month’s St Cat’s Lite – one of our Family events here at St Catherine’s. St Cat’s Lite returns next Saturday – March 1st.
St Cat’s Lite is a fun, informal, all-age service. We start with different craft activities that help us think about the months theme. We continue exploring the theme through songs, stories and prayer. We finish with refreshments. While open to anyone of any age, it’s especially popular with children & families.
It takes place at St Catherine’s on the first Saturday of the month, starting at 3:30pm. The next one is Saturday 1st March where our theme will be “Faith”.
Everyone is very welcome at this or any of our activities.
Carol Atkins was introduced to St Catherine’s as curate on Sunday 9th February.
This is an extract of the livestream of that morning’s service.
Carol had previously introduced herself in the weekly notice sheet with the following text …
Hi there! My name is Carol Atkins and I’m really looking forward to joining you at St Catherine’s in February. I have been a Pioneer curate for 2 and a half years at Reading Gateway Church in South Reading and am looking forward to finishing up my curacy with you all. I will be with you for at least 6 months.
I am married to Chris and have two adult children, Ben who is 23 and Beckie who is 20. The children both live in London, but hopefully you’ll get to meet them at some point whilst I’m with you.
I was born and brought up in London, went to Uni there and moved to Reading with Chris in 1999. We have lived in Cemetery Junction, West Reading, Tilehurst and now South Reading and I am delighted to be returning to work in Tilehurst where we lived for 14 years, the longest I have lived anywhere in my life!
Prior to being ordained I trained as a paediatric nurse, which I did for 14 years, then worked as children’s worker for Greyfriars for 8 years, then a Family Support Worker at St Michaels Primary for 3 years before working on two projects, Make Lunch Reading and the Family Support Hub.
While doing these projects, I studied at Church Mission Society Headquarters for a Certificate in Pioneer Leadership. I trained at CMS and Cuddesdon jointly before ordination.
Friday Friends continues to meet from 2.00 – 4.00pm every Friday, price £3.50 (carers free), offering a mix of talks, light exercise, singing together, table top games or craft activities in a safe, warm and friendly environment – with tea and cakes.
Why not arrive early and enjoy a meal in Café Siena.
See below for details of the program for February & March.
St Catherine's 