Thank you to all those who helped to make our Platinum Jubilee thanksgiving service and big lunch such a success. It was a great celebration with St. Luke’s and St. George’s coming together and welcoming other visitors as well, especially Ramsgate’s mayor, Raushan Ara. Check out this video which features our service on Ramsgate Town Council’s YouTube Channel:
During the service children read six quotes from the queen over the years that spoke about how her faith had inspired her to service. Petra, our organist, played for our first hymn, Praise my Soul, the King of Heaven. The St. Luke’s music group also sang a modern song: Great is your faithfulness, celebrating God’s faithfulness, but very appropriate as we gave thanks for the queen’s faithfulness. We also had interviews with three people who grew up in different commonwealth countries (Brenda from Jamaica, Malcolm from India and Sue from Australia) and sang the great hymn, All People that on Earth do Dwell.
The main theme of our time, though, was ‘SERVICE,’ as we gave thanks for the queen’s 70 years of service to our nation and reflected on this as a principle taught and lived out by Jesus, himself (Luke 22:24-30). We then sang, the Graham Kendrick hymn, Servant King.
Our service finished with everyone writing some prayers and placing them in a balloon. The balloons were then blown up and tied to the gate outside the church (thanks to Bruce and Loise for helping with this). We finished the service, by singing the National Anthem, which is itself a prayer that God has wonderfully answered: “…long live our noble Queen…”.
You can checkout the order of service at the end of this post…
After the service we went out into the church grounds and enjoyed, a treasure hunt (set up by Claire and Amanda), a BBQ funded by a grant from our East Cliff Councillors (and run by Richard and Luke) and lots of cakes made by members of the churches (thanks especially to Pauline for making and decorating the featured cake). As well as people in the service others joined us for the lunch, including local resident and those who attend St. George’s Tuesday Community Meal.
We are grateful to all those who worked so hard behind the scenes to plan and set everything up, especially to Mark and Sue the church wardens at St. George’s, but also to Andrena, Oliver and Alice and Gemma and Gus, Giny, Brenda and Margaret and also to those who helped clear away afterwards, including Peter, Brenda and Derek.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 