St John’s Mothers’ Union have filled 100 shoeboxes with toys, gloves and hats, stationery and hygiene items. With the help of donations from St John’s congregation to pay for the delivery costs, the boxes will be distributed by Samaritan’s Purse, through their "Operation Christmas Child". The boxes were brought into church and were blessed by Revd John Dudley. They will go to children in countries around the world for whom this could well be their only Christmas present. Read more...
The 2016 Parish Barn Dance took place at St John’s on Friday 21st October. The local band Inisheer provided the music and caller Howard Ballard steered us through the different dances. A sell-out event, we had great fun and raised £389 for church funds. The band is already booked for next year – keep September 29th free! Read more...
St John’s Church was filled with the sound of brass on Friday 16th September 2016 when it hosted a brass band concert featuring the Tadley Band, leader Stewart Lewins. The programme included selections from Cabaret, Les Miserables, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Presley, with other favourites from Walt Disney and Richard Rodgers, and the Finale to Sullivan’s Pineapple Poll. There was a memorable piece which blended Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” with Bach’s “Air on a G string”, an unlikely combination but one which the band proved worked very well. Read more...
The Summer Ramble was Caversham’s version of the Santiago di Compostela pilgrimage, linking as it did the three churches in the benefice and finishing at St Andrew’s Sonning.Various assorted clerics, dogs, children and adults walked the riverside path observing the gleaming newly restored cross on St Margaret’s, and the windows and capital in St Peter’s and traversing the new bridge near St John’s and the historic pack-horse bridge, which Rodney told us had a narrow escape in the seventies. We saw a heron and black swan amongst other wildlife and enjoyed Sussex apple... Read more...
To the clergy and people of the Diocese of OxfordDear Friends and Colleagues,Thank you for your various messages of welcome and for your prayers following the announcement of my nomination as the Bishop of Oxford. It’s an enormous honour and privilege to be appointed to this role and I look forward very much to serving the communities of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire in the coming years.My Confirmation of Election as Bishop of Oxford will be held on 6th July. I am due to pay homage to Her Majesty the Queen later in July and resume my... Read more...
On Saturday 2 July, 2016, our new curate Judith Ryder was ordained as Deacon at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. In the photo, Judith celebrates in the evening sun with Mike Smith our Rector. Read more...
On Saturday 30th April, as part of the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) initiative, people gathered in St John’s for a half-day of discernment looking at What’s God up to Here?There were around 50 attendees from the three CTM congregations who gathered in small groups around tables to hear reports from the earlier phases of PMC and to discern together where and how God is currently at work within this parish.These discussions were structured around a brainstorm and a ‘floated conversation’, outputs from both of which were gathered for each table. These detailed outputs are... Read more...
Dr Judith Ryder is joining the clergy team in the Parish of Caversham Thameside and Mapledurham as curate. Brought up in the Roman Catholic Church, Judith joined the Church of England in 2009 and, feeling called to church ministry, started training for ordination in 2013.She will be ordained by the Bishop of Reading in Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford, on July 2 and will start her new ministry at St Peter’s, Caversham, the next day. Judith will be learning her ministry over the next three years alongside the Rector, the Revd Mike Smith.Having studied theology at St John’s... Read more...
On 6 June 2016, the Revd Penny Cuthbert was licensed as Transition Minister for St Johns in a service conducted by the Bishop of Reading, Andrew Proud. Read more...
