St Mary's Burgh Heath

09 May 2021

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Welcome to St Mary’s. We are a friendly and lively church for all ages, getting to know Jesus better through his Word (the Bible) and his Spirit, together on a Sunday and throughout the week.

WEEKLY MESSAGE FROM OUR VICAR, ALEX - 6th May 2021

Dear Church Family Members and Parish Friends,

Hoping this email finds you well and enjoying a good week.

This news email contains information on the following:

1) Booking links for the services for this weekend (Sunday 9th May)
2) Dates coming up in the next couple of weeks (with a May, June overview to follow next week)
3) Christian Aid Week
4) Our next food bank collection
5) Our parish walking group & the next walk
6) The sermon link from the service last Sunday, on Jonah 2

Love and prayers,
Alex

07312113019

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1) Booking links for the services this weekend (Sunday 9th May)

To book to attend the service at St. Paul's at 9 am on Sunday, please use this link: https://forms.gle/dk9FuKRy69h3WhTF7

To book to attend the service at St. Mary's at 11 am on Sunday, please use this link: https://forms.gle/sfsmPLNNB7CsuFzN7

Please book for both by Saturday 10th at 9 am, to enable setting up of the churches.

It will be possible to Zoom into both services as well, and the links and information needed for this will be sent out on Saturday.

2) Dates coming up in the next couple of weeks

An overview of the whole of the remainder of May and June will follow next week, but here are some dates you may wish to be aware of:

Parish Prayer will be on Tuesday 11th and Tuesday 18th May, both at 11 am (these are revised times from previous publications, due to other parish events which have arisen since they were put in the diary). Further parish prayer dates for the rest of May and June will be published next week.

Thirsty Thursday (a group for men in the parish to meet, have a bible study and enjoy fellowship together) will be meeting on Thursday 13th May. Please contact Simon Parnall: simon.parnall@me.com if you would like to attend.

Our next Food bank Collection will be on Wednesday 19th May, from 2-4 pm, outside St. Paul's, please see further information below

Our Parish Walking Group's next walk will be on Saturday 22nd May, please see further information below.

3) Christian Aid Week

Next week is Christian Aid Week, running from the 10th -16th May.

We are collecting for this as a parish, and the focus for our parish prayer meeting on Tuesday 11th will be on this theme.

If you are currently attending services in person, you will be given a Christian Aid collection envelope at church.

If you are not currently attending services in person, you will receive a Christian Aid collection envelope via the post, with some other items which are being sent out to everyone in the parish in the next couple of weeks.

If you would like to make an offering to this very good cause, envelopes can be put through the vicarage door, or brought to either church when attending the services.

We will be collecting until Tuesday 1st June, before sending all of the collection funds off to Christian Aid.

Thank you to Deirdre Jackson for leading this initiative in our parish.

4) Our next Food Bank Collection

Our next parish Food Bank Collection will be on Wednesday 19th May from 2-4 pm, outside St. Paul's.

We are so grateful for the wonderful support from church family and community members of these collections - thank you!

The items currently needed are as follows: Long life sponge puddings, rice pudding, ketchup, powdered milk, UHT milk (semi skimmed and full fat please), bars of soap, long life fruit juice, treats for children, rice, sugar (500g bags only please).

They do not currently need any more pasta, following the great response in recent weeks to their need for this!

5) Our parish walking group & the next walk

Simon & Jane Morrison, Parish Walking Group Co-ordinators, write the following:

With restrictions easing, the parish walking group is now planning to get started again. There will be monthly walks of 3 - 4 miles on Saturday mornings, normally followed by a picnic for those who wish, devised and led by those members who feel able. The walks are an ideal opportunity not only for our own fellowship, but also to draw in friends and neighbours. The first walk will be on 22 May but walks will then be on the third Saturday of each month.

If you are interested in principle, and are not amongst the 17 people who are already on the circulation list, please get in touch with Simon and Jane Morrison (020 8643 0338 / Simon.R.Morrison@btinternet.com) so that we can keep you informed. Please could you also make contact if you might like to join us on 22nd May and have not already been in touch.

We are greatly looking forward to these walks.

Thank you so much to Simon & Jane for setting this up - the walk planned for the 22nd May is a lovely one - please do join in if you can!

The sermon link from the service last Sunday, on Jonah 2

The link to listen to the sermon from last Sunday is here: https://youtu.be/bWOV_dFxd84 and can also be found on our parish Facebook page.

Love and prayers,
Alex

Rev Alex Stevens
Vicar
Parish of Nork with Burgh Heath

We will continue to upload sermons, week by week in our ‘Talks at Services’ section on this site.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR NEWS PAGE WITH OUR VICAR'S WEEKLY UPDATES

Plans for our Parish for the Coming Months

We are delighted to be able to let you know that from Easter Day we will be re-opening our churches - with a service at 9 am at St. Paul's and a service at 11 am at St. Mary's (both of which will be available by Zoom as well, for those who are not able to or do not feel ready to return). The plan is for the churches to then remain open for Sundays, but also Zooming, from then.

We made the decision, back at the beginning of January, to close our churches to most people - live streaming on Zoom from them on alternate weeks, due to the national lockdown, the very high infection rates in our local area and the many folk in our church family who are elderly, vulnerable or both.

Now that the Government has published the plans for emerging from lockdown 3, the infection rate nationally and locally is much lower, and many in our church family have received their first vaccine, we had decided that it is the right time (from Easter day) to open again for Sunday services - with all the safety measures in place: socially distanced 2 metres apart in household groups, wearing masks, hand sanitisation and no singing (plus quite a few other things behind the scenes, but this gives you the basics!)

In the event of any backwards step - emergence of new variants, local infection rates rising again... anything similar in the coming months we could need to review this again... but we are in a good position to be ready for any eventuality should this arise!

This is wonderful in many ways - our churches being open makes them more available for those in the community who may wish to join us and gives the option for those who wish to be there in person to do so.

This is also sad in some ways, because we have come to love being together as both churches, but one family - and most days one or even several of you mention this as something you have been enjoying in the last year, such is the joy which getting to know and love each other has given us all.

Therefore, in addition to opening the churches, we are putting in place the following to help us continue to grow in our love and fellowship with one another across the whole family.

From April, once a month, usually on the fourth Sunday of the month, we will have a joint parish service at 10 am instead of the 9 am and 11 am services in either church. Initially these will be via Zoom - livestreamed from the churches (taking it in turns as we have been). Eventually, when it is safe to do so, we will move into doing this together in person.

We will be continuing to put on a range of Zoom events, which are open to everyone in the church family (from both churches) - and indeed, to anyone else who wishes to join us. In the coming months (dates attached in a PDF which you can print out) these will include:

*    Running the Bible Society's Bible Course - building on having run the prayer course. This is an 8 week course and will be on Tuesday evenings again at 7.45 pm, commencing Tuesday 13th April (A sign up link for this will be sent out next week)

*    Running the Prayer Course a second time for those who would have liked to join in but couldn't on a Tuesday evening. This will be on Wednesday mornings, at 11 am, commencing on Wednesday 24th March. (A sign up link will be sent out for this next week)

*    Continuing our parish prayer meetings (approximately fortnightly, but depending a little on the Vicar's diary)

*    On Tuesday 23rd March (a year since the first day of the first national lockdown), we will be holding 2 identical reflective events at 2 pm and 8 pm on Zoom,  to give anyone who wishes the opportunity to pray and reflect on the losses of the last year - and also to give thanks to God for His faithfulness and provision through this time

*    Our next parish APCM (annual parish council meeting) will be on Monday 19th April, on Zoom, where we will celebrate God's goodness to us and the progress in our parish in the last year

*    During Holy Week (commencing 28th March) a range of Zoom & YouTube services will happen throughout the week - please see the dates overviews

*    We are working to provide other one-off events for the parish - some details still being confirmed!

We are in the process of joining together & reforming our online presence. Thanks to Michael, we now have a parish Facebook page, a parish YouTube channel - and we are working on (but it is a huge task) a parish website. (More information about these will be in the other vicar updates)

Over the next few months we plan to put together (when we have sought permission and checked details with everyone) a parish directory. So many of you would like to contact each other to send good wishes, share news etc, having got to know each other and this will make it so much simpler for everyone to do so. Please be patient with us, but we hope that we will be able to publish this in May.

Gradually, when it is possible to do so, we hope to resurrect the parish walking group (we did manage one walk between the lockdowns!) - and there are other possible shared group opportunities in the pipelines as we move forward together. I am so looking forward to sharing more in coming weeks... but have a lot to write today!

Rev Alex Stevens
Vicar
Parish of Nork with Burgh Heath

Telephone: 07312 113019
Email the church office

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