St Mary's Notices

Church is open for private prayer on Sunday afternoons between 3 and 4pm for the foreseeable future. The sessions will be carefully managed based on Church of England and Government guidelines. Face coverings are required now please.

Adele encourages us to ‘stay still’ – enjoy some rest and the opportunity to ‘waste time with God’ and rest in Jesus. Such time is never really wasted, it strengthens our faith and gives room for God so that we are better ready to follow when the time comes to move on.

“O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him, and he will give you your heart’s desire.” from Psalm 37

As we continue to navigate the strange times, I wanted to give you another update on how St Mary’s finances are going. Firstly, thanks to all who continue to support us with your generous giving, and a special thanks to those who have recently started to give online or by bank standing order. This makes it so much easier for our hard-working administrators. If you normally give cash via envelope or plate, would you please prayerfully consider changing to use one of these means.

As I have said before, we continue to experience a reduced income, from plate collections, envelopes, Chapter House lettings and wedding income. A survey from the diocese shows that we are not alone in this. We are fortunate in having sufficient reserves to fill the gap for this year. Assuming that these unusual conditions will continue for some time, we will need to consider how we balance the books going forward. Let us all pray that God will supply all our needs, as He has promised to do.

Adele considers the unknown's of our current plans, as a society can we build back better with the deeper changes we have been discussing over recent weeks and what does church look like in the future?

Thank you to those who responded to the survey. Overall, there was a very positive response to the online services we have been able to do and I’m grateful for your encouragement and support. I still need to phone a few more people and will then discuss the responses with standing committee before reporting back to you all in my letter next week.

Open for Private Prayer - It was lovely to welcome a few more people for private prayer last week in small numbers that felt we could operate safely. We will be opening the Church building and woodland again this Sunday from 3-4pm and hope to give priority to those who have not been before. Therefore, can I ask that if you came last week and would like to come again, please come prepared to use the woodland in the first instance.

We will be opening the church building for private prayer this Sunday June 28th at 3pm for an hour. We have thought very carefully about how to manage this as safely as possible and a separate letter will be sent out giving details. Please be aware that the number of people we can accommodate is extremely restricted.

Adele introduces the Valuing Life sunday service and talks about how we might open the church for private prayer.

Our advocate slot this month is the Laura Centre and there will be an update during the service on Sunday. The prayer pointers can be found below.
1. Please pray for all families directly affected by bereavement at this time.
2. Please pray for the healing work of the Laura Centre, helping bereaved families and individuals as they come to terms with their loss.
3. Please pray for the Counsellors -for their wisdom in supporting each person and each family and give them the strength to continue with their important work.
4. Please pray that, through God's grace, the ongoing fundraising needs are met this year and into the future.

We are hoping that we may be able to open on Sunday afternoons, from Sunday 28 June, at 3pm for 2 half hour slots. The 2m rule means there will be 6 spaces in the pews in the first half hour - (a space is for an individual or 2 members of a household) and 4 spaces in the second half hour (because the designated spaces move forward a pew to avoid using the same area twice). If necessary, people will be asked to wait outside and we hope to be able to open the woodland as an alternative place to pray, with a one-way system in place.

Loughborough Churches Partnership has produced a video of church leaders praying an amplified version of the Lord's Prayer for Loughborough. It will be shown at the end of Sunday's service and you can followo the link below to watch it. Please share the link with local friends and neighbours.

This week we continue our series based on the Tearfund video 'The World Rebooted' - this Sunday exploring the second strand 'Valuing Life' with some challenging Bible passages which I think raise lots of questions.