Welcome to the website of St James, Bramley. We hope you will find it helpful and informative, and would be delighted to welcome you to come and worship God with us on a Sunday soon.
To find the church with a SatNav, use the postcode RG26 5DF
This Week’s Services
Sunday 22nd April – The Fourth Sunday of Easter
These are our services this Sunday:
- 8.00am: Holy Communion – St James
- 9.00am: Sunday@nine – Cross House
- 10.30am: Holy Communion – St James
This Sunday, we continue our series in the Acts of the Apostles: how the early church grew and developed vigorously around the Mediterranean – and what we can learn from their experiences for our own church life 2,000 years on.
Following our 10.30 service, we shall be holding our Annual Parochial Church Meeting over in Cross House (at approximately 11.45am). Do come along and join us, as we thank God for the past year and look forward to what He will be doing in our church over the coming year. We shall be electing church wardens, members of the PCC, and commissioning people to serve in various roles. We’d be glad of your company!
Word for the Week
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we’re free at last.”
Martin Luther King quoted the words of the old Negro spiritual in his wonderful “I have a dream” speech, as he painted a stirring word picture of a world where racial prejudice and hatred would be no more, where “my four little children will… live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”
A glorious vision, but still unrealised in many parts of our world, including places in the UK and the USA.
At the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus read aloud the words of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the LORD has anointed me… to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” Over and over, as Jesus healed people in the course of His ministry, He described it as “setting them free” from whatever held them imprisoned. To a woman who had been crippled, bent over, for 18 years, he said, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity,” and when people questioned why He healed her on the Sabbath, He asked why this woman, “whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, should not be set free from what bound her?”
Jesus went to the heart of the problem, when He told people: “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin… If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And still today, when we are set free from the fear of death and judgement by putting our faith in Jesus, then we are truly free, whatever our physical state.
| Monday | Isaiah 61:1-3 | |
| Tuesday | John 8:31-42 | |
| Wednesday | Acts 13:36-43 | |
| Thursday | Romans 6:15-23 | |
| Friday | Colossians 3:1-11 | |
| Saturday | 1 Peter 2:11-17 |
Other Services in our Benefice
Our parish of Bramley and Little London is part of a group of parishes known as a Benefice. We work together, sharing resources and helping one another out when needed, while also retaining our individual styles and preferences as we worship the living God.
These are the services at other churches in our benefice this Sunday, 22nd April:
- 8.30am – St Mary’s, Hartley Wespall: Holy Communion
- 10.00am – St Leonard’s, Sherfield-on-Loddon: Together in Worship
