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Books, vegetable seeds & jigsaw puzzles to share.
It's great to see our church porch used for this. Thank you to Karen, Alli and friends for setting it up!
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Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, all church services are cancelled. If you would like to go inside the building for private prayer, please contact Naomi Sargent: 01454 260376
We hope to resume church services later on this month. To keep everyone as safe as possible we'll need to adopt a new pattern of worship: there'll be just one Sunday service each week within the Berkeley Benefice. We'll publish the service rota within the next few days, so watch this space! 
At the moment All Saints' doesn't have a Vicar, so for general enquiries please contact the churchwarden, Naomi Sargent: 01454 260376
For enquiries about weddings and funerals, please contact David Bainbridge: 01453 810049 If you would like someone to pray with you (or on your behalf), please phone Naomi (01454 260376). Someone in our Pastoral team will then be in touch. 
'Thought for the Day'
Sunday 5th July
Opening up This weekend sees the pubs reopening and so I chuckled when I read the Gospel passage for this Sunday and found the people of the day referring to Jesus as ‘a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ (Matthew 11 v 19). Of course Jesus did not conform to the stereotypical views about what or who a Messiah would be. Who knew that ‘unconscious bias’ was around in those days too? Jesus ‘calls out’ their behaviour as like children not wanting to play either ‘game’ suggested (v17). Here he refers to the fact that although they did not approve of his ways; ‘eating and drinking’ (v19) they also objected to the ways of John the Baptist, who was at the opposite scale to Jesus, definitely not eating and drinking and socialising. John preferred a diet of locusts and wild honey and chose areas of wilderness (Matthew 3: 1-4). It strikes me as a touch of the ‘don’t shoot the messenger approach’ as Jesus is saying to them; make up your minds. First you thought John the Baptist was a false prophet and you now think I am a false prophet, perhaps you just don’t like the challenge of the message? Of course Jesus had a message which was about a different way of living and a different way of being, a message, which was hard to hear then and hard to hear now. The people were making excuses for not wanting to hear the messages either from John the Baptist or from Jesus, accusing one of being crazy or having a demon and the other of being a party animal. Did the people back then find the messages a burden I wonder? Do we find it a burden? Jesus reminds us later in this passage that his ‘yoke is easy’ and his ‘burden is light.’. It doesn’t always feel that way as we move forward slowly towards reopening our churches in a safe way, in addition to the challenges we face of being in another vacancy. Let us keep praying into both situations, so that the ‘yokes’ we are given feel ‘easy’ and the burden feels ‘light.’ Amen. Sherri - Reader Coronavirus: useful contactsFinancial help
'Stone Parochial Charities' for Stone and Woodford 01454 260278 'Berkeley Parochial Charities' for Berkeley, Alkington, Hamfallow, Hinton and Ham 01453 542 208 Home delivered meals 'Severn Vale Community Kitchen' 01453 708338 https://severnvalecommunitykitchen.co.uk/ 'The Salutation Inn', Ham https://sallyathome.selz.com/ Groceries Falfield Stores 01454 260218 'Severn Fresh' Milkman http://www.severnfresh.co.uk/ 01453 811297 Berkeley Bakery 01453 297415 Clayton House Meats https://claytonhousemeats.com/ 01453 511399 Tortworth Farm Shop http://tortworthestateshop.co.uk/ 01454 261633 Emma Jane Goodwin, fruit & veg deliveries 07544 740477 Chemist Berkeley Pharmacy Mon - Fri, 9.30 - 1.00, 2..00 - 5.00 Sat 9.90 - 1.00 Plants & Gardening supplies Tortworth Plants https://www.tortworthplants.co.uk/ 01454 260020 Eastwood Park Garden Centre https://www.eastwoodgardenplantcentre.co.uk/ 01454 260288 Ironmongers/ DIY Aldridges, Berkeley Mon - Fri, 8.00 - 1.00 http://www.jcaldridge.co.uk/ 01453 810360 Hawkins, Thornbury Mon - Fri, 9.30 - 4.00 https://mythornbury.co.uk/thornbury/hawkins 01454 416688 |
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Colour Key: Berkeley Benefice St Mary's - Berkeley All Saints' - Stone St Michael's - Hill |