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Wildlife Wanderers Holiday Club
Cirencester Ashcroft Church & Centre
A prayer for St Valentines Day (from Gregory Coles, crosswalk.com). Every blessing, Andy Rickell
A Valentine's Day Prayer for True Love
Dear God, Help me today to understand what love really means.
I need a love that’s big enough to include all of us. Big enough for the dating and engaged couples, of course, with their giddy daydreams of a future together. But also big enough for the married folks, whether their passion for each other is still blazing brightly or barely more than a smoldering wick. Big enough for the singles toasting their independence, and for the singles wishing someone would come along and make that independence disappear. For the lonely and widowed and brokenhearted, I need a love that understands, a love that welcomes in hurt and sorrow instead of excluding them.
The love I need more than anything is Your love. Without Your love, no other love will ever be sufficient. And with it, every other love becomes richer and truer and more life-giving than it could have been otherwise. We have learned all our best loves from You: the love of faithful friends, of spouses and significant others, of parents and siblings and children. Love that commits. Love that sacrifices. Love that lays down its life. You authored each of these loves, taught us how to recognize them and long for them and give them away. Our best efforts at Valentine’s Day are just a fraction of the wholeness of love.
Today, let everything I see remind me of Your love. Let today be a day for love. Real love. Big love. Your love. Amen
A Valentine's Day Prayer for True Love
Dear God, Help me today to understand what love really means.
I need a love that’s big enough to include all of us. Big enough for the dating and engaged couples, of course, with their giddy daydreams of a future together. But also big enough for the married folks, whether their passion for each other is still blazing brightly or barely more than a smoldering wick. Big enough for the singles toasting their independence, and for the singles wishing someone would come along and make that independence disappear. For the lonely and widowed and brokenhearted, I need a love that understands, a love that welcomes in hurt and sorrow instead of excluding them.
The love I need more than anything is Your love. Without Your love, no other love will ever be sufficient. And with it, every other love becomes richer and truer and more life-giving than it could have been otherwise. We have learned all our best loves from You: the love of faithful friends, of spouses and significant others, of parents and siblings and children. Love that commits. Love that sacrifices. Love that lays down its life. You authored each of these loves, taught us how to recognize them and long for them and give them away. Our best efforts at Valentine’s Day are just a fraction of the wholeness of love.
Today, let everything I see remind me of Your love. Let today be a day for love. Real love. Big love. Your love. Amen
Cirencester Ashcroft Church & Centre
A prayer for today (taken from The Methodist Church Facebook page). Every blessing, Andy Rickell
God of all understanding,
the more I learn about your holy justice
the more I realise that even my prayers can be
riddled with sin.
In praying for other people
I have thought that I know best what they need.
I have taken the seat of judgement
and found others wanting.
I have not challenged the ground
of my own understanding,
allowing prejudice and stereotypes
to flourish unchecked.
Forgive me.
Help me to kneel before your throne of grace
with both confidence and humility.
Remind me to leave the judging and directing to you.
Enable me to pray for others
not by way of the gulfs that divide us
but via the love in which you hold us all in common,
revealed to us in Jesus. Amen.
Find more ways to pray at methodist.org.uk/prayer.
God of all understanding,
the more I learn about your holy justice
the more I realise that even my prayers can be
riddled with sin.
In praying for other people
I have thought that I know best what they need.
I have taken the seat of judgement
and found others wanting.
I have not challenged the ground
of my own understanding,
allowing prejudice and stereotypes
to flourish unchecked.
Forgive me.
Help me to kneel before your throne of grace
with both confidence and humility.
Remind me to leave the judging and directing to you.
Enable me to pray for others
not by way of the gulfs that divide us
but via the love in which you hold us all in common,
revealed to us in Jesus. Amen.
Find more ways to pray at methodist.org.uk/prayer.
Cirencester Ashcroft Church & Centre
A prayer for today (taken from The Methodist Church Facebook page). Every blessing, Andy Rickell
If we see the world through your eyes, Lord,
then we see a vision of our world as your love would have it:
a world where all who are weak are protected and none go hungry;
a world where your riches of creation are shared for everyone to enjoy them;
a world where mutual respect is expressed between different races and cultures and harmony descends;
a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love.
Give us the inspiration and courage to build it how you see it Lord!
That all may praise together and the only power exerted is the power of your love. Amen.
Find more ways to pray at methodist.org.uk/prayer.
If we see the world through your eyes, Lord,
then we see a vision of our world as your love would have it:
a world where all who are weak are protected and none go hungry;
a world where your riches of creation are shared for everyone to enjoy them;
a world where mutual respect is expressed between different races and cultures and harmony descends;
a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love.
Give us the inspiration and courage to build it how you see it Lord!
That all may praise together and the only power exerted is the power of your love. Amen.
Find more ways to pray at methodist.org.uk/prayer.
Cirencester Ashcroft Church & Centre
CIRENCESTER ASHCROFT WORK CLUB
WEEKLY UPDATE - UPDATED AT 11TH FEBRUARY 2025 (with updated next 6 weeks’ sessions)
(Written unusually whilst on leave)
**NEWSFLASH**
Monday sessions have moved to St Lawrence’s Church, Chesterton, Cirencester from 4th March 2024 as part of building Cirencester Ashcroft Church’s partnership with St Lawrence’s. The Tuesday sessions will continue at Cirencester Ashcroft Church, Ashcroft Road, Cirencester, as usual.
The work club will continue to operate on most
Mondays - 9.00am to 11.00am at St Lawrence’s Church Centre
and
Tuesdays – 12.00pm to 2.00pm at Cirencester Ashcroft Church & Centre
(but not on Bank Holidays).
We are now usually open for confidential one-to-one face-to-face support at these times. We also provide one-to-one phone and online support at these times too.
We also work in partnership with Cirencester Jobcentre to support referred jobseekers who would like some extra assistance.
You can contact me at the usual work club times by :-
- Face-to-face;
- Email : workclub@ashcroftchurch.org.uk;
- Phone or text : 07951439302;
- Sending a message through the Cirencester Ashcroft Work Club Facebook page.
We can then have a chat face-to-face, by phone, by message, or by video link if we can set one up, and I will do my best to help you.
You can also contact me at other times and we will then agree an appointment time to have a proper conversation.
Specific opening times over the next few weeks are below. Later opening times for the period up to the middle of AUGUST 2025 are in the Events section (which is itself sometimes in the About section) of the Cirencester Ashcroft Work Club and Cirencester Ashcroft Church and Centre Facebook pages. To access those later times, you will now need to be signed in to Facebook yourself, as Facebook recently “upgraded” so that Events data cannot be accessed by internet search alone (at least that seems to be what’s happened). Also Facebook only lets us select a maximum of about 50 future dates for an event at the time it is first published, hence why it appears to stop at a random date.
Monday 17th, 24th February, 3rd March (CLOSED - VOLUNTEER ON LEAVE)
Tuesday 18th, 25th February, 4th March (CLOSED - VOLUNTEER ON LEAVE)
Monday 10th March 9.00 - 11.00 (AT ST LAWRENCE’S CENTRE)
Tuesday 11th March 12.00 - 2.00 (AT ASHCROFT CENTRE)
Monday 17th March 9.00 - 11.00 (AT ST LAWRENCE’S CENTRE)
Tuesday 18th March 12.00 - 2.00 (AT ASHCROFT CENTRE)
Monday 24th March 9.00 - 11.00 (AT ST LAWRENCE’S CENTRE)
Tuesday 25th March 12.00 - 2.00 (AT ASHCROFT CENTRE)
(For those who are interested, I normally highlight the opening times for the next 4 weeks. However sometimes I increase this when they include a break, in part to make sure that the last week I show is one when we are open. This is to emphasise that any closure is only temporary. The work club is a key part of Ashcroft’s mission and outreach project until at least June 2027. After that date I intend to continue to run the work club indefinitely, whether or not part of a larger project.)
Andy Rickell, Cirencester Ashcroft Work Club Manager
WEEKLY UPDATE - UPDATED AT 11TH FEBRUARY 2025 (with updated next 6 weeks’ sessions)
(Written unusually whilst on leave)
**NEWSFLASH**
Monday sessions have moved to St Lawrence’s Church, Chesterton, Cirencester from 4th March 2024 as part of building Cirencester Ashcroft Church’s partnership with St Lawrence’s. The Tuesday sessions will continue at Cirencester Ashcroft Church, Ashcroft Road, Cirencester, as usual.
The work club will continue to operate on most
Mondays - 9.00am to 11.00am at St Lawrence’s Church Centre
and
Tuesdays – 12.00pm to 2.00pm at Cirencester Ashcroft Church & Centre
(but not on Bank Holidays).
We are now usually open for confidential one-to-one face-to-face support at these times. We also provide one-to-one phone and online support at these times too.
We also work in partnership with Cirencester Jobcentre to support referred jobseekers who would like some extra assistance.
You can contact me at the usual work club times by :-
- Face-to-face;
- Email : workclub@ashcroftchurch.org.uk;
- Phone or text : 07951439302;
- Sending a message through the Cirencester Ashcroft Work Club Facebook page.
We can then have a chat face-to-face, by phone, by message, or by video link if we can set one up, and I will do my best to help you.
You can also contact me at other times and we will then agree an appointment time to have a proper conversation.
Specific opening times over the next few weeks are below. Later opening times for the period up to the middle of AUGUST 2025 are in the Events section (which is itself sometimes in the About section) of the Cirencester Ashcroft Work Club and Cirencester Ashcroft Church and Centre Facebook pages. To access those later times, you will now need to be signed in to Facebook yourself, as Facebook recently “upgraded” so that Events data cannot be accessed by internet search alone (at least that seems to be what’s happened). Also Facebook only lets us select a maximum of about 50 future dates for an event at the time it is first published, hence why it appears to stop at a random date.
Monday 17th, 24th February, 3rd March (CLOSED - VOLUNTEER ON LEAVE)
Tuesday 18th, 25th February, 4th March (CLOSED - VOLUNTEER ON LEAVE)
Monday 10th March 9.00 - 11.00 (AT ST LAWRENCE’S CENTRE)
Tuesday 11th March 12.00 - 2.00 (AT ASHCROFT CENTRE)
Monday 17th March 9.00 - 11.00 (AT ST LAWRENCE’S CENTRE)
Tuesday 18th March 12.00 - 2.00 (AT ASHCROFT CENTRE)
Monday 24th March 9.00 - 11.00 (AT ST LAWRENCE’S CENTRE)
Tuesday 25th March 12.00 - 2.00 (AT ASHCROFT CENTRE)
(For those who are interested, I normally highlight the opening times for the next 4 weeks. However sometimes I increase this when they include a break, in part to make sure that the last week I show is one when we are open. This is to emphasise that any closure is only temporary. The work club is a key part of Ashcroft’s mission and outreach project until at least June 2027. After that date I intend to continue to run the work club indefinitely, whether or not part of a larger project.)
Andy Rickell, Cirencester Ashcroft Work Club Manager