An update from St Mary’s Church (23.03.20)

Further to our update posted on 17th March 2020, we have been busy adapting so as to become a “different sort of church”.

As a result of public worship being put on hold, prayer is now being offered on behalf of others at the church and in our homes.

On Sunday (22nd March) the eucharist was celebrated in church and we offered a short time of prayer from home via Facebook Live (a Facebook account is not required to view this). We also took up the Archbishops’ invitation to display a lit candle in our front rooms at 7pm as part of a national day of prayer and action.

At the moment we are looking at ways we can share in times of prayer and reflection (either online or at designated times offline), and also offer some helpful resources. Please keep an eye on this website, and on our social media. You may find us on Facebook here, and our Twitter and Instagram accounts may be found here and here, respectively.

As we said in our update from last week, you may still contact us in the normal way (please see here), and a dedicated email address has been set up as part of our efforts to serve our parish and congregations.

Please use this new email address if you have requests for prayer (please indicate whether this a prayer that you would like us to offer privately or not*), would welcome some form of contact (by email or telephone) or have an urgent need (we might not be able to help ourselves in every instance, but we might be able to make suggestions).

This email address is: [email protected]

As a reminder, our bishops are keeping in touch via the diocesan website (and now also a Facebook page), and the mission team at the diocesan office oversees the production of weekly written homilies and accompanying prompts for reflection and prayer that are based on the lectionary readings for each Sunday. These may be found here.

In the meantime, please keep safe, and we offer you our prayers and all best wishes.

*Please note that members of our ministry team and our churchwardens may have access to this email account.