Christmas - The Beacon: December 2024
Christmas - The Beacon: December 2024

Our focus over Christmas this year is ‘journeys of hope’. As you read the Christmas story, you’ll notice that most of the characters are travelling. Mary, Joseph and (of course!) the donkey take a long and uncomfortable journey because the government says they have to. The shepherds’ routine of keeping sheep is disturbed and they set off. Angels come from another realm as messengers. The star appears. Magi travel a long way, not knowing what they’ll find, only that it’s important to follow that star. Most importantly for us, God travels to earth and becomes like us.

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Les Allan
Remembering - The Beacon: November 2023
Remembering - The Beacon: November 2023

Every Sunday is a remembrance Sunday, for every Sunday we remember a dying and a death. "Do this in remembrance of me." It is individual and specific: one man's pain and darkness, one man's broken body and shed blood, one man's mother and best friend looking on in grief as his life ebbed away on the cross.

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Les Allan
Welcoming the Bishop Designate - The Beacon: September 2023
Welcoming the Bishop Designate - The Beacon: September 2023

Along with Bishop Anne, Bishop Designate Michael joined Anjani’s Living Well group yesterday afternoon. That group was looking with Sarah and Anjani at Act 2:42-47 and what it means to be church. They talked about how when we meet with God together we bring what we want to say to God and have expectations about what God will do. It looks like we’ll be starting church on a weekday afternoon around country music! Bishop Designate Michael said how welcome he felt, that he appreciated the work being done and looked forward to coming back. He really liked the dahlias too!

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Les Allan
Resting in God This Summer - The Beacon: Aug 2023
Resting in God This Summer - The Beacon: Aug 2023

I wonder what your priorities, your rocks, are? What 4 things do you want to make time for above everything else this Summer,? Add a 5th thing that’s about spending time with God – praying, reading a Bible, going to a Bible group, a Christian film club or something similar. Honestly, how much time do you give those 5 things? Hard isn’t it? When we fill life up with things that don’t matter, often there’s not room for the things that do.

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Les AllanSt Germain's Church
The Beacon April 2023
The Beacon April 2023

In April’s edition of the Beacon, St Germain’s thinks about Easter. We also take a look at whose talking as we learn about the story of how the church has helped Raphael and Seun settle into a new country as well as the complications of the link building, turning from a 12 week project into 2 years.

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Les Allan