From Father Iain, All Saints Chiang Mai
When the Saints go marching in…
Special Zoom Service at 7 p.m.!
Click here to join the Zoom service on Sunday
Dear Friends,
This Sunday we will celebrate All Saints Day, the Patronal Festival of our church! I am really excited to be preaching at both the 7 p.m. Zoom service and the 10 a.m. service in the church! The 10 a.m. service will see me preach via a recorded video (it will be 3 a.m. in the UK!), and then I will be leading and preaching live at 7 p.m. via Zoom!
The Zoom Eucharist will be at 7 p.m. Thai time, which is midday in the UK and 1 p.m. in Europe due to the end of daylight saving here! It will be at 7 a.m. on the East Coast of the US. Click here to join the service on Sunday and have your bread and wine ready if you want to share in the Eucharist.
All Saints, Chiang Mai, is called All Saints because that is who we are! Not that we are all especially good people, that’s not what saints actually means. Saints are people who have chosen to follow God and that is who we are, even though we often fall short in our ambitions.
Please join us at one, or better both, of our services this Sunday! I would love to see you! And by the way, singing is now allowed again in the morning service! Our scripture readings for All Saints Day will be Isaiah 56:3-8, 1 John 3:1-3, and Matthew 5:1-12, and our hymns will be For All the Saints, Sing With All the Saints in Glory, Let us Build a House, and O When the Saints!
Lots of things are coming up in November and December, so please read below!
November Services
On 8th November we will mark Remembrance Sunday, when we remember those killed in war. We will also join the wider Chiang Mai community on November 11th at the Foreign Cemetery to mark Remembrance Day.
Then on November 22nd we will be joined by people from MPlus and the Young Pride Club to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we remember the hundreds of Trans people from around the world who were killed in 2020.
Both services signify how we reach out in our concerns to those beyond the walls of All Saints.
The Christmas Season
Celebrations for Advent and Christmas begin on 29th November when we will mark Advent Sunday. This will be followed by decorating the church for Christmas and a potluck lunch.
Then on Saturday 19th December we will hold our Festival of Christmas Carols at Tham Pratheep Church. We will be led by Lannacapella and some of the children from the Youth Charity Foundation. The event begins at 7 p.m.
On Christmas Eve, Thursday 24th December, we will have Midnight Mass beginning at 11:30 p.m., and on Christmas Day we will have our Morning Worship at 10 a.m. followed by lunch!
Please join us if you can!
Our Harvest
Last week All Saints had a wonderful Harvest Festival at the Youth Charity Foundation. Video of the service can be seen here. Thanks to all involved in making this possible!
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Space
All Saints Mission Statement
Yesterday, Mark Crawford, Chris Tananone, Tarntip Aldis, and I, met to begin developing our Mission Statement. We will meet again next week to develop our Vision Statement. Both processes depend on your feedback – both from the survey which was taken over the last two weeks and from individual conversations.
Chris suggested that our Mission Statement should be based on the words which appear on our bulletins and website: An inclusive, liturgical community for all people!
The three suggestions are:
All Saints is an inclusive, liturgical community for all people!
All Saints is an inclusive, Christ-centred, liturgical community for all people!
All Saints is an inclusive, God-centred, liturgical community for all people!
Which do you prefer? Share your choice with Mark, Chris, Tarntip, or me! We want to decide this together!
All Saints’ Wednesday Lunch
The Wednesday Lunch this week
This is a weekly event! On Wednesday, a group from All Saints again gathered for lunch! Why not join next week? (You don’t need to be a member of the Gymkhana Club to attend!) We will be meeting at the Gymkhana Club at midday every Wednesday!
My News
I have now applied for a visa to return to Thailand. Please pray that this will be successful. Once I have my visa I can apply for a Certificate of Entry and then I can return!
I hope to be back in January. Until then I am continuing to work for All Saints: maintaining the website and Facebook page, writing the weekly emails, producing the bulletins, posters, and other publicity, choosing the hymns, and working with Mark and the Trustees to keep things going and plan our programmes, and, of course, praying for you all!
I am also helping out at my mum’s church, Carterknowle Methodist, and preaching there three times each month. They have a huge building, but fewer people than All Saints, and would value your prayers too, as they don’t currently have a minister.
Click here to watch me leading and preaching last Sunday!
The Degler Family
Meanwhile, the Degler family finally got their visas and certificates of entry and are now in quarantine in Bangkok. Please hold them in your prayers! They should be back in Chiang Mai in a couple of weeks and we look forward to welcoming them back to church.
So, whether you are worshipping face-to-face or watching online we will all worship God together and give thanks for all of God’s many blessings!
God bless,
Father Iain
All Saints' Chiang Mai 