Discover & explore: St John the Baptist

There are just two more Discover & explore services remaining in our current series at St Stephen Walbrook. On Monday 20 June at 1.10pm Sally Muggeridge will lead our reflections on the life and thought of St John the Baptist, while on Monday 27 June at 1.10pm I will lead our reflections on the life and thought of St Peter.

The Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields will sing at both services. On Monday 20th they will sing:

• Introit: Victoria - Ut queant laxis;
• Anthem: Byrd - Agnus Dei (from Mass for Four Voices);
• Anthem: Gibbons - This is the Record of John; and
• Anthem: Fauré - Cantique de Jean Racine.

The autumn series of Discover & explore services will begin on 3 October and run until 21 November at 1.10pm on Mondays. The themes to be explored involve aspects of Stewardship and relate particularly to the financial role of the City of London: Time, Talents, Treasure/Gold, Guidance, Promises, Safety, Money, and Security. This series will include a service for All Souls Day on the theme of Promises. Our Discover & explore service series are supported by The Worshipful Company of Grocers.

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 Orlando Gibbons - This Is The Record Of John.

Discover & explore: Faith

Sally Muggeridge led the second in the current series of Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook today. The theme of this service was 'Faith'.

The Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields sang Bruckner's Pange Lingua, Gibbons/Loosemore's O Lord, increase our faith, Byrd's Tribue Domine and Leighton's Gloria from Missa Brevis.

The service included the poem God's Flight by Heather Flood:

On the ground sits a bird
that's too afraid to fly.
Beautiful wings could make it soar,
but the pain of past failure makes it cry.
God said unto this frightened bird,
"Trust and have faith in me,
for I will carry you in your flight.
The miracle of life is there for you to see."

The bird said to God, "But I can't fly.
I am weak. I will fall and feel real pain
It's happened before when I tried to fly.
I'm afraid of being hurt again."
His voice soft and reassuring, God said to the bird,
I created you, and I will protect you.
Your lonesome cry I have heard.
Have faith in me. That's all you need to do.

So, stand up, bird, and spread your wings.
Wings I lovingly created to let you fly.
If you fall I'll pick you up,
and lift you back into the sky."
With trembling legs and unsure wings
the bird finally looked up to the sky.
It took a deep breath, and in a leap of faith.
The bird began to fly.

"Thank you, God, for believing in me.
Thank you for giving me wings.
Thank you for your protecting hands.
Your glory I’ll now sing."
The little bird, once so scared,
soared to a great new height.
The fear of fall no longer scared the bird,
finding its faith in Gods safe flight.

The next Discover & explore service is at 1.10pm on Monday 15th February and will explore the theme of Life using paintings from Alan Everett's 'Foundations of the City' exhibition.

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Orlando Gibbons - O Lord, increase my Faith.

Campaign for the Book

My nephew, Charlie Alcock, will be speaking at the Campaign for the Book conference in Birmingham on 27th June. Charlie will be speaking about his work on the CF celebrity cookbook and his own love of reading and writing. Examples of Charlie's stories can be found on the blog of children's writer, Alan Gibbons. Gibbons has been writing children's books for seventeen years and was the winner of the Blue Peter Book Award 2000 'The book I couldn't put down' for his best-selling book Shadow of the Minotaur.

The Campaign for the Book was launched by Gibbons in response to a number of challenges including the closure of some School libraries, statistics showing that only half of secondary schools have a school librarian and only 28% have a chartered librarian, a recent report which claimed that 20% of new Academies have been built without a designated library, and finally, devastating cutbacks in library budgets such as in Doncaster where £622,000 was cut and Wirral where eleven of the borough’s libraries are earmarked for closure. The Department for Media, Culture and Sport has been presiding over the erosion of public library services with 6.3% fewer professional staff and a book stock which is diminishing by two million copies a year.

Take Action for Seven Kings has its own local campaign for library services which has so far been responsible for the introduction of a range of new outreach services in the area. A report detailing the range of outreach services and their impact has recently been prepared by Redbridge Library Services and this can be found by clicking here and finding Agenda item 8.

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Don Byron and The Bang on a Can All-Stars - Credits.