Bowland Benefice Pews News 7 June 2026 First Sunday of Trinity – Collect God of truth, help us to keep your law of love and to walk in ways of wisdom, that we may find true life in Jesus Christ your Son. Amen. This week in the Benefice Saturday 6 June 10.30am - 12.00noon Call in for Coffee in The Parish Room, White Ladies Aston Sunday 7 June 10.30am Family Service in Upton Snodsbury 11.00am Holy Communion in Peopleton 6.00pm Songs of Praise at White Ladies Aston Saturday 13 June 10.30am - 12.00noon Coffee Morning on the lawn at Jim Crow Corner, Peopleton 5.30pm - 6.00pm start Broughton Hackett Quiz Night in The Parish Room, WLA Sunday 14 June Trinity 2 10.30am Holy Communion in Upton Snodsbury 10.30am Family Service in White Ladies Aston Please support the events taking place in the Benefice this week – they are all raising funds for our church communities. This Saturday, 6 June a Coffee Morning with cake and bacon baps in The Parish Room. If you have donations for the Annual Fete – jigsaws, books, toys, bottles, fashion accessories, bric-a-brac, jams etc please bring them along with you. There will be a sale of fresh produce too, proceeds of which will be included in the fete takings. Next Saturday 13 June, a Coffee Morning at Jim Crow Corner in Peopleton with homemade cakes, a bring and buy stall and a raffle. On Saturday evening Broughton Hackett is putting on a Quiz Night with a raffle in The Parish Room. The cost is £5.00 per person which includes a buffet. Please bring your own liquid refreshments. Team size limited to 6. Please book your table by contacting Andrea on 01905 381637 or [email protected] Dare I mention Arsenal again?................. Not football this time……….the power of Music! I wonder if you caught on the television news pictures of the streets of Paris and London on Sunday evening? -both cities honouring their football teams? Paris ended up with fires and police clashes……and in London about one and a half million people singing together as a focused community the Arsenal anthem North London forever with collective fervour and joy. On Sunday evening I was lucky enough to be singing too – evensong for The Elgar Society’s annual celebration in Worcester Cathedral. At the end of the service the congregation moved from the Quire to the West End to lay a wreath on the Elgar Memorial. 70 or 80 people walked the length of the Cathedral whilst the organist played a wonderful arrangement of Nimrod. The choir then sang unaccompanied a short anthem called They are at rest. Deceptively simple but fiendishly difficult to sing and to keep in tune. During both pieces of music you could hear a pin drop. The feeling of something else and somewhere else was palpable. That is power of music. This country has an amazing tradition of sacred music from Purcell, Byrd and Tallis through Handel, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Stanford (to name but a few) – the list is long and is still growing with modern composers such as Rutter, Macmillan and Kendrick. Music can be our companion in the depths and at the heights; it can carry us to new places, somewhere outside of ourselves to intense spiritual experiences and freedoms of expression. It touches our very soul. It is an amazing tool to access our very self. .Music can bring a community together with shared experience of joy or sorrows. So on this note (!!!)……Music for Worship More of our churches now have to rely on technology to supply the music for their services. The Pershore and Evesham Deanery has organised a practical workshop to help gain the confidence needed to use this ever-developing technology. At 7.30pm on Tuesday 16 June in St Barnabas Church, Drakes Broughton, the Bishop’s Worship and Liturgy Adviser, Don Chaplin will lead an evening providing information and practical help including good practice, copyright etc. Take along your laptop. For more information and to book: https://cofe-worcester.org.uk/calendar/2937 Dear God, thank you for the beautiful gift of music. Thank you for melodies that lift our spirits, rhythms that bring us joy and lyrics that comfort us in times of sorrow. It is a universal language that connects us, heals our hearts and reminds us of the beauty all around us. Amen.