Dear Parishioners,

This week we have a full complement of services in our benefice with Holy Communion at Laddingford at 0900, followed by All Age worship in Yalding at 1000 (breakfast and refreshments from 0930) and Holy Communion in Collier Street at 1100.

If you are not taking a break for half-term or queueing for the channel tunnel, please come and join us in our worship in one of our churches. The theme for the All Age worship is discipleship, which the children have been learning about in Junior Church for the last three weeks, and the readings in our Communion services are a reminder to us of how we are loved by a God who longs to bless us if we ask him to. Blind Bartimaeus shows us the way in calling out for help from Jesus so that his life might be transformed.

As Autumn makes its presence known with early frosts and colourful leaves, we start to turn our attention to the prospect of darker days and the festivals of the season. The last Sunday in October is also when we put the clocks back and thrifty vicars are more easily persuaded that we really should put the heating on. With harvest festivals now past we look to the celebration of Hallowe'en and All Saints, the festival which reminds us of the essential goodness of our human nature and the light of Christ which shines in all our hearts with the power to banish evil from our lives. This, of course, will be our theme for next week when we celebrate all the saints in church.

The following Sunday, the first in November, we shall remember All Souls and there will also be an evening service in Yalding church at 1800 to remember all those whom we have loved who are now no longer with us, especially those whom we have lost in the past year.

The second Sunday in November is Remembrance Sunday when we shall have our acts of remembrance in the morning in church and then in Yalding at the war memorial in the village with those who gather to show their respect and thanksgiving for the sacrifices made by others to preserve the freedoms we enjoy today. There will also be the first of our Taize services for the season in the evening in Yalding at 1830 on Remembrance Sunday.

With rising numbers of coronavirus infection in the community and in the country at large, please remember to follow all the rules about keeping our distance from one another and sanitising our hands where possible. If you have any symptoms, please take a test to check, wear a mask, and book your booster vaccine at the earliest opportunity. If you decide that you would be wiser to stay at home, then do avail yourself of the resources on our website so that you can still worship with us as a part of our wider community:

With every blessing for the week ahead.

Fr. Paul Kish, vicar
Justin Elks, licensed lay minister
Margaret Tate, licensed lay minister, emerita
Peter Hungerford-Welch, licensed lay minister (Paddock Wood)
Rachel Curley, benefice ordinand.