As a pupil and then as a teacher I was never enamoured with the phrase “BACK TO SCHOOL”, as it screamed to be noticed from the high street store windows in an attempt to encourage parents to purchase school uniforms prematurely.  Then there’s ‘back to work’ after a holiday and ‘back to the grindstone’ after a coffee break.

But I would like to draw your attention to ‘Back to Church Sunday’, to be held on 28^th September, when churches of all denominations will be encouraging former members to attend a service and find out what the Church has to offer today.  When a similar scheme was piloted in 2007, people in over 2000 churches invited and welcomed 20,000 friends.

In our Parish of All Souls we will be holding services at 10.30 am in Warton and 6.00 pm in Newton Regis, both with a Harvest theme.  It doesn’t matter whether you used to attend one of our five village churches or a church in another part of the country, you will find a warm welcome from today’s church family. Indeed, it doesn’t matter if you’ve never set foot in a church before!  Family Services in particular are informal and with a wide range of ages attending, whilst Evening Services tend to be more traditional.  The music varies accordingly, played either by The Way (our younger musicians), our worship group and one of several organists.

I started to attend church again regularly shortly after the birth of our daughter and after an invitation to a candle lit carol service.  I had stopped going to church as a teenager and Lyn (my wife) had never been a regular churchgoer.  But one invitation made a big difference to both our lives.

Invitations will be distributed in September.  I hope that someone will personally ask you to come along with them to church. But if not, here’s my invitation.  Please come on Sunday 28^th September.  See you there! 

 Trev. Henderson