St Mary’s & St Luke’s News and Information for 30 August 2020 Trinity 12
Sunday
30 August 2020
Trinity 12
Please note: For September we will be moving Online Worship, on a temporary basis, to 11am to allow us to transition services back into St Mary’s.
This Sunday
Live Streamed Worship
After Church Refreshments on Zoom
Join us on Zoom for after service chat and mayhem! For extra security there is a Waiting Room in place, please use a name we will recognise and wait to be let in.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/75021313429
Meeting ID: 750 2131 3429
Our thoughts and prayers are with the pupils and staff of all schools and places of education as they restart for all pupils this week. Difficult times for all and we pray that it may be a positive experience for all concerned.
We pray for the young people from our church as they return to school and especially for those who are starting a new school or moving to a new school or college. May God’s love be with you all.
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Message to members the Ladies Afternoon Group
It is with regret that owing to the Covid 19 situation we have had to cancel our Autumn Programme. We have contacted our speakers who have told us that they will be happy to join us at a later, safer date.
God bless you all. Audrey and Marian.
We’ve Simplified Our Blogs – hurray!!
To simplify things moving forward, we have archived our other Blogs: Church at Home, News and Info and (soon) the Magazine and brought them altogether on to this Blog. This way you only need to look at one Blog for all the latest resources and info. You can use the menu bar at the top to look at all the posts for a particular category, including past posts.
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The Magazine is still at it’s old home for now as it’s taken a bit longer for it to pack everything,
it will be on here very soon Until then you can say hello to it here.
Reopening Our Churches Safely – a road map
Details of how to book will be on our website and Social Media from Monday 31 August. As space is very limited we wish to give priority to those who haven’t been able to access online worship. The Rector has sent a letter to those who fall into this category to give them a chance to book. If you do book, you may be asked to give up your space for the aforementioned category, this is voluntary and up to yourself.
In the meantime we will continue to open for Private Prayer. Here are the dates/times for this week. Face Coverings are mandatory by law in church buildings unless you have a valid medical exemption.
St Luke’s will remain closed for the time being and will be assessed
with a Risk Assessment due to be carried out in September
Message to members the Ladies Afternoon Group
It is with regret that owing to the Covid 19 situation we have had to cancel our Autumn Programme. We have contacted our speakers who have told us that they will be happy to join us at a later, safer date.
God bless you all. Audrey and Marian.
News from St Paul’s Pantry Food Bank
148 people were fed in July providing 1,332 meals. Donations of food received in was 1740.44 kgs. We are currently out of sugar and decaffeinated coffee and low on sweetcorn, meat pies, long-life cakes, tins of potatoes, soups in a cup and savoury snacks.
We are open Mon- Fri 10-2.30. for you to drop of donations at our rear gates.
Thank you for those who have donated toward our roof repairs, we are still awaiting a full report from a roof specialist, meanwhile towels, buckets and the wet floor sign are being well used!
Please continue to pray for us as our Trustees seek a way forward to our new normal in our project areas.
Take care, Cheryl
https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/StPauls
From the Rector
The past few months have challenging for all of us in so many different ways. For businesses and charities finance has been a very serious challenge. It’s sad to see all the redundancies that are taking place in our country and I can’t help but think that this is only the beginning.
Of course churches are not exempt from the financial difficulties and, I’m afraid, that includes our own church. Our Treasurer, Daphne, has alerted me and the PCC to the fact that, if our finances continue as they are, we could potentially run out of money in the next seven months. We will not be alone in this and many churches and charities will be facing the same issue. Our main issue is that our fixed costs have remained the same whilst our income has plummeted. We have lost a considerable amount of income from lettings and the issue of people not finding it easy to give, either practically or through personal financial pressure. We have done all we can to keep expenditure down to a minimum and I’m aware of very generous giving that has already happened (I don’t know the people, just the figures) to enable us to do what we’ve done during the past few months.
How can you help?
- Please remember our church finances in your prayers
- Many people haven’t been able to give as we haven’t been able to deal with cash – we can now, please speak to our wardens Joy or Sue and see how you can give by cash
- It may be that as you haven’t physically been to church for a few months you’re not sure how to give and what is the best way, please see further down in this Blog on how you can give online
- Remember the church in your will through a legacy, whilst this is not immediate giving, however it is an effective way to give to the church and sustain it for future generations
- If you can, please respond to this appeal by making a one-off donation on top of your normal giving – this would have an immediate effect on our finances
- If you shop online, including Click and Collect, enrolling with Easyfundraising – click here to find out more and enrol – we’ve raised £1,652 though Easyfundraising so far – join in!
As a reminder, please see further down in this Blog on how you can give online
I am sorry to hit you with this, but it is only correct that I share this with you now so you are fully aware of the situation.
With prayers and blessings for you and your loved ones. Mike
The latest Information on the Reopening of our Churches and Church Hall
An Update for St Mary’s, St Luke’s & The Church Hall
- Public Worship will resume on Sunday 6 September at St Mary’s at 9:30am (prebooking only), please don’t just turn up as you may not get in! Due to the very limited space we have available you need to book in advance – click here to see details of how to book along with other important information
- Face Masks are mandatory in Church for all services and the Church Hall excluding those with a valid exemption or who are taking part in or are leading the service (as long as physical distancing can be observed)
- Private Prayer in Church: St Mary’s offers times in the week for Private Prayer, these change each week please see below for this week’s times/dates. We are now Covid-19 Secure having followed the government and Church of England guidelines.
- Funerals are permissible in church and we will conduct them at St Mary’s on request. Funerals in church buildings are severely restricted at the moment. As per government regulations immediate family only are allowedand no hymns may be sung. Please discuss options with a Funeral Director to see what’s best for your family and loved one. We continue to conduct funerals at the Graveside and the Crematorium. Please see the CofE guidance on funerals for more information.
- Weddings are permissible in church. They are limited to 30 people in total (including the minister) and hymn singing or an organist is not permitted at the moment. Please see the CofE guidance on weddings for more information. To find out more information on booking a wedding at St Mary’s please click here.
- Baptisms can go ahead providing appropriate steps are taken to minimise risk and are limited to 30 people including the minister. At the moment we are working with families who had Baptisms cancelled to rearrange dates. We will not be taking any new bookings at the moment until we have rescheduled those that were cancelled. It will be 2021 before we take new bookings. Please see the CofE guidance on baptisms for more information.
- The Church Hall is Covid-19 Secure and will reopen on 07 September 20 – you can read our Covid-19 Secure Policy and Interim Booking Procedures here
- St Luke’s, worship and lettings: We are conducting a new Risk Assessment in the light of recent guidance and will update this post as soon as possible.
- As changes to the guidance happen we will update this information accordingly – you can see the full guidance on all of the above at: https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches
From:
If you have an article for the September Magazine you can submit
it at magazine.stmaryswistaston.blog Or email to editor@magazine.stmaryswistaston.blog
Funerals
Funerals this past week
None
Funerals still to take place
Gillian Margaret Booth
Please keep their families in your prayers.
Giving to our church Online or by Phone Banking
It’s simpler than you may think
A message from Revd Mike.
May I thank everyone who has kept their giving going during the past 3 months, it has been a challenging time and also challenging financially. From a church perspective, most of our outgoings remain the same whether the buildings are open or closed, so the challenge has been keeping the cash flow going to cover these costs. I am grateful to those who have been able to give extra and have given extra to the church.
Handling cash and cheques has caused us an issue during the pandemic and will continue to do so. Cash as we’ve not been able to allow anyone to process cash giving during this time, not that we’ve had much given in this way and cheques mean me having to visit the bank with them.
Joy & Sue attended an online Webinar about encouraging and managing giving during this time which advised that we should encourage people to move away from giving via cash & cheques and ask them to give via online or phone banking.
If you normally give via the plate each Sunday you can give securely via Give a Little by following the link below. If you’d like to give via online banking, which means we don’t lose the Fees, the details are below. You can set this up on your own online or phone banking unfortunately, we can’t process paper forms at this time.
Thank you for your support. Mike (Rector)
Online One off giving
You can give via our very simple online giving partnership with Give a Little and Sum Up. Simply click the button below. Sum Up take a small transaction fee from what you give.
Giving via your bank
You can give via your bank via online banking or telephone banking. If you do it this way we receive 100% of the money you give, there is no transaction fee. Here are the details you need to make a payment directly into the church bank account. For phone banking you may need to take a look at a statement from your bank and it normally has the details of how to do this on the back. You can give once or set up a monthly payment. Please remember to never give passwords over the phone and only call the official number on your statement.
Account Name: St Mary’s Wistaston PCC
Sort Code: 08 92 99
Account No: 65067004
Ref: << your initial & surname>>
Easyfundraising
A very simple way to give, if you shop online or do click and collect, is through Easyfundraising – it doesn’t cost you a penny as by using Easyfundraising a percentage of what you but gets given to the church.
In total we’ve raised over £1600 through Easyfundraising. For more information on this please click the button below.
Ways to Keep in Touch
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