2020 September 6 - Pew News

Worship for the week ahead

('remote’ through the medium of ‘Zoom’, except Sunday evening)

Monday 7 Sept 2020, Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9, Friday 11
08:30 Morning Prayer

Thuesday 10 September 2020
08:30 Holy Communion

Sunday 13th September 2020
09:30 Worship for Everyone, with Hymns and Address 14TH after TRINITY (Theme: ‘Open the Door’)

18:00 Holy Communion (BCP) in the Parish Church (for which it will be necessary to book in advance Bring your own Prayer Book, if needed - more details below)

The Rector is off duty on Saturday this week.

The Rector writes

Thank you for the continuing hard work of Churchwardens and Deputies, and the wider Standing Committee, as we navigate our way through our present challenges and seek to make good decisions for those who enter our buildings or access our activities. It is a far from easy time, and we find ourselves balancing competing interests and differing viewpoints among ourselves as well as the population of our village. I am always open to hear from any with a personal interest in what we may do; though I cannot always promise to deliver!

It was especially nice this week to have a visit on my doorstep from a lady who comes down to visit family in this part of the world, once or twice a year, and invariably attends any acts of worship that we can offer (in the Parish Church or Woodmancote). She demonstrated her continued affection for our churches and shared news of her own church up in the north-east. She was a socially-distanced reminder of all that unites us.

With this month of September we have undertaken a promised review of our opening arrangements, and have freed up our activities a little: too slowly for some, too fast for others, perhaps. I have held off sharing the following self-indulgent cartoon for a couple of months, but I think I can safely use it now to express wryly the process of weighing (and worrying) that has been going on across the parishes of this land. It’s a gentle joke: and I don’t underestimate the pains of those who suffer headaches more generally.

With this week, we have elected to extend the opening hours for the Parish Church; and also to put down a marker that we will have a physical service (Zumba praise?), or ‘gathered service’, on each Sunday that we can manage - which means 6th, 13th and 20th, in September. For arrangements forward into October, please watch this space. Amongst this, we can read some Banns soon, the first since March, as the joy of weddings is increasingly seen again in the churches of these islands.

A consequence of our decisions is that next week, we shall hold our first Communion service (according to the Book of Common Prayer) at 6pm. It will be a delight for me to offer this, though I know that it will poignantly have to take a markedly different form than it would have six months previously.

In reaching these decisions, it seems to me that we want to do three things. We want to be a community of expressive worship, providing that opportunity for as many as possible (including the disenfranchised non-Zoomers); we want to stay safe, but also to shift a little that responsibility onto you the participants in this: ‘Help us .. to help you’; and we want not just our worship, but our Parish Church itself, to be accessible again to as many as will want to step through its doors: accessible as a place of prayer, yes; but also, as a place of peace, and sanctuary, and gentle appreciation, to those of any faith or none: a truly public amenity.

Our epistle reading for today, reminds us ‘Love your neighbour, as yourself’. God grant us each the grace to do so.
Andrew Doye, Rector

Notices

Any gathered worship which we are to offer requires new and unfamiliar things of those participating. Please honour the constraints that apply, including the bringing of a face covering for any gathering indoors; and the use of Sanitiser as directed on entering and leaving the Church. For Prayer Book services, you are invited to bring your own copy of the BCP.
PLEASE HELP US .. TO HELP YOU !

Open Church - we are opening the Parish Church from today, throughout the week from 10am to 3pm. We anticipate this will be widely welcomed by our village. We continue to ask all who come to abide by present restrictions and advice, including our urging the use of face masks and your writing your details on the sheet to help us fulfil our Test and Trace responsibilities. Please enter by the North door, and leave by the West door, using sanitizer on entry and upon leaving. The toilet is not in use.

Morning Prayer by Zoom has been a numerical success during Lockdown, usually attracting at present 9-14 worshippers, and earlier in the summer (before the holiday season) around 13-17 people. We are a friendly group, and our 30-minute service offers the reading of Scripture, a reflection, and prayers for the world and for more local concerns. A variety of people lead it in the course of each week. It runs from 08:00 to 09:00, Mondays to Fridays. Anyone wanting to receive a daily invite, please do make yourself know to the Rector who will gladly include you in our distribution lists. It is a much-appreciated way in which to start the day.

Choir Practices. We are pleased to recognise that these are beginning again, with caution, this week after many months in abeyance. Our thanks to Stewart Taylor and others who have held things together in the meantime, encouraging the keeping up of human contact, and planning towards future possibilities. Potential new members of the choir should approach Stewart to explore this possibility.
6pm, on the evening of Sunday 13 September 2020 offers a spoken service of Holy Communion in the Parish Church. This will be a first gathered communion service for us since lockdown. Constraints will of course apply. The host will be shared in one kind only (wafers), face coverings will be needed, and please book your attendance in advance with the Rector (phone or email). Bring your own prayer book, if needed.

There are present concerns regarding the lychgate and the adjacent stretch of the churchyard wall. The lychgate has been secured with props, pending repair works, and is safe to pass through. Notices and cones ask drivers not to park alongside the section of the wall which requires a more complex and lengthy repair process.

Rectory Lawn - anybody wanting to make use of this space for a family or recreational event (that complies with latest government guidance), please have a word with Andrew or Karen Doye who would be delighted to make it available.

The Annual Church Meeting (‘APCM’) will take place at 11am on Sunday 25 October 2020, either by
 means of a physical gathering, or by electronic means, or through a combination of the two. An
 important element of this meeting is to elect new members to the Church Council (‘PCC’) and the
 Deanery Synod. If you are interested to stand, please convey this to the Rector, the Wardens, or
 PCC Secretary; or, if you would like to know more as to what the roles involve, please have a word
 with one of these or any existing member of the PCC.