Sunday 3rd May 2026 – Services at Shaugh Prior, Bickleigh, and Glenholt – All are welcome

St Edwards, St Mary’s & St Anne’s welcomes you.<!–

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St Edward’s, Shaugh Prior

This Sunday’s service at Shaugh Prior is a special service to think about our vision for St Edward’s, so please do come along if you can.

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Upcoming Services:

Baptism:

Oscar Carson, Sunday 17th May, 2026 @ St Mary The Virgin, Bickleigh

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Life in our churches and communities

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St Mary’s Church Christian Library

We successfully applied for a grant from Speaking Volumes Book Grant Scheme last year and received a generous grant of £250.

This is available to community organisations to buy Christian books that can inspire, uplift, and transform lives, and to enhance their community spaces.

Rev. Jo, Jo Carpenter and Grace chose 22 books from the Eden online christian bookshop and now they have been stamped and installed in a donated bookcase in St Mary’s, next to the Choir stall.

The books vary in topics from grief, suffering, prayer to faith, for new or lifelong Christians, for toddlers, teen and adults. Please take a look and book out your chosen book on the form for up to one month.

If you have christian books you would like to donate to the library, please contact Grace.

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QUIET SPACES

Thanks to everyone who came to Quiet Spaces at St Anne’s – our theme was ‘Spring Renewal.’ A big thank you to Linda and Grace for leading, and to Grace for the refreshments, setting up the zoom, and the wonderful photos of the garden. Also a big shout out to Grace and her team for the work they do making the wild garden such a delight, and thanks to Linda for playing her singing bowl to everyone.

Spring is very much here. In winter we waited – a time of such hard work with all of life’s activities and the resurgence occurring out of sight. Henri Nouwen taught that waiting is not a passive, wasted time, but an active, hopeful, and patient discipline. He taught that true waiting means living in the present moment while believing that “something hidden there will manifest itself”. And if we look out of the window we can see all of creation coming to life.

More info www.Quiet-Spaces.co.uk

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Weekly Activities

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Online Prayer Group

Each Wednesday Rev Jo and Frank will be holding a weekly prayer meeting via Google Meet (video call via your computer’s browser, a bit like Zoom), at 9:30 to 10:00am to pray for one another, our churches, ministers and volunteers. If you are interested in joining the meeting, please get in touch for the link details.

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GAMES CLUB NOTICE:

There will no Games Club on Friday 1st May as there is a Community Talk being held at St Anne’s (see notice early in Newsletter).

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Regular giving

Thank you to all of you who are donating to our churches! Have you considered setting up a regular donation to support the life and maintenance of our church communities? Please consider a single or monthly donation.

Donate now for Bickleigh Parish / Donate now for Shaugh Prior Parish.

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Prayer lists

Those in need of our prayers
Julie, Sophie, Karen, Richard, Judy, Mo, Valerie, Avril, Eileen, Steve, Jill, Dawn, Anne, Rita, Ray, Diana, Maureen, Mike, Mel, Vanessa.

Pray for the Souls of the Recently Departed

Those whose year’s mind occur around this time
John Pitcher, Leonard Williams, Peggy Staddon, Albert Jacobs, Joan Berry, Joan Strange

Those whom we love and see no longer and those who have no-one else to pray for them

+Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord
and let light perpetual shine upon them

May they rest in peace
and rise in glory

(please email admin@bspchurches.co.uk with updates to the prayer list)

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Sunday, 3rd May 2026

5th Sunday of Easter

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The Collect

Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

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Readings

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Acts 7, 55-end

⁵⁵But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ ⁵⁷But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. ⁵⁸Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ ⁶⁰Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.

This is the word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.

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1 Peter 2. 2-10

²Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – ³if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
⁴ Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶For it stands in scripture:
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’
⁷To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner’, ⁸and
‘A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

This is the word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.

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Gospel Reading

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.

All: Glory to you, O Lord.

John 14. 1-14

14 ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ ⁵Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ ⁶Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’
⁸ Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ ⁹Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All: Praise to you, O Christ.

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Post Communion

Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

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Sunday 3rd May 2026 – Services at Shaugh Prior, Bickleigh, and Glenholt – All are welcome

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