Fancy yourself a bit of a photographer? If your answer is yes, then the Sporting Photoflashswap is for you! If your answer is no, then the Sporting Photoflashswap is for you!

Whether you use medium format, digital SLR, iPhone, Nokia, pin-hole, point and click, or the disposable cardboard camera from Boots that was left over after your cousin’s wedding, it doesn’t matter. Bring your photograph along to the Church and see it hung as part of our exhibition that will last till our Beer & Curry night in July.

Bring your friends to see your work, and eavesdrop as people try and understand your “motivation”. Then, on the final evening, watch as your fellow photographers fall over each other for the privilege of taking home your art and sticking it on the fridge. You bring a photo, you take one back. Simple. Inspirational.

In this Olympic year we wanted to have many ways for people to join in, here’s an opportunity to get involved without all the sweaty running around exertion of actually doing the sport.

Then on July 7th as part of our Beer & Curry night we’ll host a special photo flash swap event, when everyone who has work on display there can exchange it for one of the other prints in the show.

This is how it works :

• The flash swap is open to all ages and abilities.
• Take a picture with a Sporting related theme.
• It’s one print per person, so choose an image that you’re really pleased with.
• Mounted prints would be great, as that’ll make them easier to display, but unmounted work is acceptable. No framed pieces though, please
• All photos must be printed on photographic paper.
• Bring your Photo to the Church & peg it up on the exhibition boards. please fill out one of the name cards & peg it alongside too.
• Please also register your photo in the registration book & leave your email & phone number in case we need to get in touch.
• On 7th July we’ll host the flash swap. At the swap, everyone registered will be given a sticker with their number on it, and at the given signal you’ll be invited to go put your sticker on the print that you would most like to take away with you.
• Then once the dust has settled and the swapping’s all done, everyone gets to take their chosen photo away with them.

Tickets for this event are limited and are available for free from the church office.

There will also be an exhibition of local sports clubs so that you can participate in sport in this Olympic year.

The recital will be approx 45 minutes in duration followed be light refreshments. Entrance free, donations welcome.

For further information check out their website:

http://www.chinookclarinetquartet.co.uk/index.html

The churches in Watford, with the support of More Than Gold, will be volunteering, hosting and organising events to support and be relevant to the great sporting occasion going on during 2012.

Here at St Luke’s we are holding a number of events in support of this great initiative.

Celebration of Sport

On Saturday, 19th May at 6pm, Kieran West, Olympic Gold Medallist at the Sydney 2000 Games will be speaking about sport, training and the Olympics. There will be an opportunity to meet with Kieran and see his gold medal.

Tickets for this event are limited and are available for free from the church office.

There will also be an exhibition of local sports clubs so that you can participate in sport in this Olympic year.

See details of many more events by clicking the read more link.

Art Project

During the period between 19th May and the Opening Ceremony on 27th July we encourage anyone visiting St Luke’s to leave a photo showing what they or their family will be doing during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. These photos will be displayed in the church and on the video screens during events and there will be prizes awarded on the day of the Opening Ceremony. To submit photos and register for a prize check the details in the gathering area as you enter the church.

International Women’s Games Event

On Friday, 25th May, St Luke’s ladies group Cameo are hosting an international flavoured event of mini games, quizzes and chat along with nibbles from the countries represented at this year’s Olympic Games.

The evening begins at 8pm and is open to all ladies at a cost of £5. Tickets are available from the church office.

Flame Relay

On Sunday, 27th May (Pentecost), Christians Across Watford will be holding a Flame Relay from church to church. This will be followed by a family event. Tim Roberts and Chris Cottee explain more…

Multimedia Sports Quiz

On Saturday, 16th June at 7.30pm St Luke’s will host a sports quiz produced by Christians In Sport.

Participants will be in teams of 8 and the entry fee of £6 includes a fish and chip supper. Tickets are available from the church office.

Please provide your own drinks.

 Act 4: Star Citizen Going for Gold

Children aged between 5 and 11 are invited to join this theatre workshop hosted by Act 4 on an Olympic theme on Saturday, 16th June. The activities through the day will all be working towards a performance in the afternoon at 3.15pm for family and friends.

The day begins at 9.45am and will end after the performance at 4pm. A pack lunch will be required.

The cost for the workshop is £5 per child and registration is on the morning of the 16th June.

 Cycle Ride

Phil Boxhall, Church Warden at St Luke’s, will be leading a cycle ride on Saturday, 16th June along part of the Olympic road circuit. Please contact Phil for more details.

More Than Gold is an ecumenical faith organisation which has been involved in support at Olympic Games since 1996 when the games were held in Atlanta, USA.

Beer & Curry Evening

There will be a pizza/curry and beer evening on Saturday, 7th July at 6pm. From 8pm onwards a feature film will be shown for those who can stay. You are welcome to bring your own additional nibbles and drinks, though we do ask that no spirits are brought.

Tickets are available from the church office.

Everyone knows the week really starts on Sunday, so we’ll begin there.

I’ve set the alarm for 6.15am so that I can get up at 6.30am to give time to get ready and prepare for the 8am Communion service. I’m preaching twice today at both the 8am and the 10am morning services so I need to remember to take cereal bar to replenish my energy for 10am service. Preaching takes a fantastic amount of energy out of me as I’m running on adrenaline, and usually leaves me completely drained and in need of a nap.

This Sunday I’m preaching on death which is not something I’ve explicitly preached on before. We’re following the book: Words, words, words… by Jim Packer that studies the biblical meanings behind some of the words and big ideas we need to think about as Christians. The big problem I’ve had in preparing for this is that I’ve just spent the last 2 weeks in Mountain View, California where I had hoped to have the book delivered to me, as it hadn’t arrived in time for me to take. Unfortunately Amazon delivered completely the wrong book and by the time they delivered the right one I’d switched hotels! The best I could do was to write the majority of the sermon without the book and then corroborate it on the Friday and Saturday I got back. In the end I think the sermon was generally well received, there was certainly a lot more I could have added but when you’re trying to keep it to 15-20 minutes you run the risk of not doing any of the points suitable justice. It could easily have been a 45-60 minute sermon if I’d tried to cover all aspects of death, and I think that would have raised a few eyebrows (or drooped a few eyelids!)

I did get to have my nap as Louise took the kids out for the afternoon :-)

I’m just a couple of weeks into a new job, working as a Solutions Architect for a small American software company called Kaazing. The job mostly entails me presenting the technology we sell and educating customers on the technology. It’s a very exciting time for me as I get to know the new technology for myself and in this particular case I get to re-acquaint myself with some former colleagues.

On Monday I’m thrust straight into the thick of it, having to prepare for a conference call with a prospective customer based in Denmark. This preparation involves me having a number of calls and e-mail exchanges with the aforementioned former colleagues.

Conference calls are quite often scheduled for late in the afternoon to accommodate the 8 hour time difference with California. A call at 5pm UK time is a 9am call in California.

Kaazing does not have a UK office so the 6 of us that are based in the UK all work from home. For me it can be very convenient as it allows me to take Eva to school and pick her up if necessary. It also allows me to attend the Wednesday morning staff breakfast at St Luke’s and it lets me put in my marathon training at lunchtimes. The downside is that it can be quite isolating if you don’t make the effort to get out of the house. Louise works part time so she is at home on Mondays and Tuesdays and sometimes you might find me hunched over my laptop in the Presence coffee shop.

Tuesday sees more calls to Denmark during the day and I get the opportunity to install and run the software I’m trying to sell. Unfortunately the customer’s experience is not so smooth and he runs into some problems. Fortunately for me it’s not with our software but it does mean that I end up chatting on Skype with former colleagues in Chicago for assistance late into the night.

Louise works on Wednesday mornings so I usually take Eva to school and then dash up to the staff breakfast meeting at St Luke’s. Luckily the staff team have saved me some and Jenny has brought in my all time favourite cereal  Honey Nut Cornflakes! After the meeting and prayers there are more calls to Denmark before I quickly pop back to church to meet the IT installer with Tim Whittaker and get the low-down on the new IT infrastructure. On Wednesday evening I usually run with the Watford Joggers and this evening we do an 8.5 mile run. I usually get back between 9-9.30pm and then have my tea. This evening, after tea, I need to put together the order of service for the evening service next Sunday. I’ve also got to respond to an e-mail from a St Luke’s member regarding last Sunday’s sermon. As preachers it’s really valuable to get direct feedback good or bad and to have discussion on what we preach. I’ve also got to respond to an e-mail from a former colleague who is considering a position with my last employer.

Thursday: As Louise is at work all day I take Eva to school and then have more calls to Denmark. I have to write a requirements document for the prospective customer in Denmark. It’s the first time I’ve used Google Documents properly and find that it’s great. As I’m writing the document I can see who else is looking at it and can even see them editing it and adding comments and corrections in real-time, which is fantastic for collaboration especially when it’s over long distances and time differences.

At lunchtime I pop into St Luke’s office to get “Prayers for the People” on my way to lunch and end up staying far longer trying to recover some data from an obsolete database. I manage to get the data recovered but it now needs to be reformatted so it can be used to generate address labels for sending out copies of St Luke’s News. In the afternoon I have yet another conference call with colleagues in California and then in the evening it’s off to the Publicity Group meeting at St Luke’s. At the Publicity Group we discuss things like the church logo, the new church website, welcome packs, new resident welcome gifts, fridge magnets, noticeboards and more. With the new IT infrastructure in place there is a much better Wi-Fi signal in the building which means I can instantly get prices on custom fridge magnets that can be given out at events. It’s about 10pm when I get home and I update the church website with new diary dates and info on 75th anniversary celebrations (need some artwork for this, any volunteers?)

Friday: Take Eva to school, conference call with client in Denmark. Call in at Presence for lunch before heading off to Watford Junction and a meeting in London. I arrive a bit early for the meeting so I nip in to Starbucks and take notes for this article.

Usually on a Saturday morning a few friends do a CoD run – CoD standing for Crack of Dawn – we meet at 6.30am at the bottom of Langley Way and head off through the woods and into the fields around Sarratt and Chipperfield. It’s a great time, it’s still very dark so we have to have headlamps but we do get to see the sun come up and hear the birds chatter. On one run we even disturbed three young deer. However, this Saturday morning it wasn’t such an early start as I needed to get back promptly so I had a quick blast around the Watford 10Km (6.25 miles) course which takes you on the main path through Whippendell Woods, past the back of Leas Wood camping ground, around Rousebarn Lane, and back into Cassiobury Park by way of Gade Bank. I’m back in time to shower, have a 2nd breakfast and then drop Euan off at the Boys’ Grammar to get the coach taking the rugby team to their match away at St Columbus School. Eva then has a swimming lesson at the leisure centre that I take her to and then I walk her across to Cassiobury Junior school for her drama school.

As soon as Euan gets back from his rugby match (they lost) we all jump in the car and head up to Burntwood near Lichfield to spend a little time with my brother, Ed, and his three children. Ed’s boys are swimming in a gala that evening so Euan and I accompany them whilst Louise stays with Eva and her cousin Nalini. The highlight for the kids is their sleepover with the cousins (I’m not sure it was my brother’s highlight) and Louise and I stay overnight at Louise’s parents in Dudley before rejoining Ed and picking up the kids to return to Watford in time to lead the Sunday evening service.

A sermon preached by Rev. Grace Sentamu-Baverstock at St Luke’s Church, Watford on 4th December, 2011.

The lessons accompanying this sermon were:

• Isaiah 40:1-5
• Mark 1:1-8

The song used during the confession is:

“Why should You be like a stranger” by Godfrey Birtill from the album “Very God.”

and is used with permission.

An All-Age address by Rev. Dave Middlebrook during Upside Down Sunday on 20th November, 2011.

On Upside Down Sunday the youth of the church remain in the church for their activities whilst the adults leave to various activities in the meeting rooms and hall of the church. This year we had a talk by Erzsébet Komlósi of Scripture Union Hungary, a talk about the importance of reading the Bible, a talk about the work of The Gideons and a sharing in the experience of Lectio Divina – the meditative reading of a passage of the Bible.