Harvest Festival

at St M's - and for the first time since I've been there, it really felt as if our efforts to build relationships with the schools and uniformed groups was having some impact.
There were lots of children in church. Definitely double figures, which for a Sunday morning is simply stunning.

My lurvely friends in the youth group spent yesterday afternoon here at Privet Drive making some excellent bread to illustrate the talk on the feeding of 5000, and our ordinand on placement did a star performance around the theme "God provides and multiplies".
Trying to consume the "12 baskets over" that had inadvertently been consecrated presented a few challenges to my personal theology of Eucharist, and led to a good few stifled giggles at the altar...but all has now been sorted, with due care and reverence...and all in all, it was a very happy morning.

Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Celebrate God's love with praise
God has filled the earth with good things
in their season year by year.
Field and forest, mine and ocean
Yield their crop for all to share,
Given for our lives' enrichment,
Tokens of our Maker's care.

Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Celebrate God's love with praise
Gifts of mind and hand and talents
Echo God's creative power.
Human hands tend God's creation
Body, mind and soul are fed
Work and rest and worship offer
At God's feet may all be laid.

Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Every day's activity.
Worship God in home and office
Boardroom, classroom, factory.
Join the song of adoration
Join the symphony of praise
Bring to God your gifts for harvest
Brint the fruit of all your days.