Notices for the coming week

ST MARY & ALL SAINTS WITH ST JOHN NOTICES 

Weekly Notices, 22nd  December 2024

4th Sunday in Advent 

 

Rossendale Team Ministry: Making Jesus Known

Our vision is to follow Jesus by learning His ways and sharing His love  

We seek to enjoy fellowship together as we worship God, grow in discipleship, develop in ministry and reach our community with the gospel.  

We value welcome, worship and witness.  

 

Please Continue to Check the Prayer and Worship section for the readings and sermon for each week. The 4 week rota schedule for worship leaders, readers, intercessors and sidespeople is live on the website. We also have produced a copy of the Morning Prayer Service and a copy of the service of Holy Communion. Please select the appropriate link for the service.  

 

•  These are the last notices of 2024. We’ll be taking a break next week, but will be back to normal the following week, when we celebrate the feast of Epiphany on Sunday 5th January 2025. I’d like to wish all our readers a very happy and blessèd Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.

  • The readings for Christmas Day and next Sunday are included in the Prayer and Worship section this week.

• This Sunday  22nd December, is the fourth Sunday of Advent. Our morning worship will be a service of Holy Communion at the usual time of 11:00am. Rev Samuel Hameem will preside and preach. The service will be streamed live on Zoom.

• Next Sunday, 29th December, is the First Sunday after Christmas. Our morning worship will be Cafe Church with Carols at the usual time of 11:00am. Rev. Denise Smith will lead and preach. The service will not be streamed live on Zoom.

•Christmas Services are as follows :

  • Christmas Eve at 5:00pm : All-Age Walk-In Nativity Service with Carols by Candlelight. Do tell your friends, families and neighbours. Come along dressed as characters from the Nativity story ! (If you missed out on being Mary or Joseph at school, this is your big chance !!)

  • On Christmas Day at 10:00am there will be a short Family Communion to celebrate this wondrous day. Do bring along one of your presents !

  • On Sunday 29th December at 11:00am our Morning Worship will be a “Café Church” with carols.

• On Sunday 5th January, when we celebrate the Feats of Epiphany, we look forward to welcoming back Rev Laura Brinicombe to lead us in a service of Holy Communion. Rev Laura will be with us on the first Sunday of each month.

• The Duty Rota, covering the months of December through to April is now available. It will be emailed to those with email, copied for those with no email access and posted on the notice board in the Parish Room and the Vicar’s Vestry. If you are unavailable on any Sunday for which you have been allocated a duty, please arrange to swap with someone else for that date. 

•  The Well is a monthly prayer and worship group organised by Rev Derek Allen on the last Saturday of each month on Zoom. The next meeting is Saturday 28th December at 7:00pm The Zoom Meeting Number is : 875 3406 1730, and the Password is 167677

•  Please contact us via email - stmarygoodshaw@yahoo.com if you wish to join the services or if you wish to receive a recording of the service.  

Although we’re broadcasting our services on Zoom, there are still other places to take part in worship, if you can’t make it to the Zoom service . Here are just some of the other options

•  At 08:10am, the Sunday worship on BBC Radio 4. and at 9:00am, on The Church of England’s Facebook Page and live streaming on Facebook and YouTube as well as on the CofE’s website, both live and recorded.

•  Please check out the Rossendale Team YouTube channel also https://www.youtube.com/@RossendaleTeam316 where a different member of the clergy team leads a short act of worship with contributions from different church members from across the team

• If you are unable to join us in church or on Zoom on a Sunday morning, but would still like to join in some worship on a Sunday, St Anne’s hold a service at 6:30pm each week. This service is also streamed live on Zoom. The Zoom Meeting Number to join this is 810 2414 1313, and the Password is 362633. These numbers are used every week. 

• Also, DON’T forget to follow the Facebook page set up by our Family & Community Worker, Claire. – Search for ARK – Anglican Rossendale Kids on Facebook. It’s GREAT !!!

• The Valley at Prayer

  • The Rossendale Mission Community Prayer Meeting met on 7th October 2024 at 7:00pm on zoom. Please check the page under 'prayer and worship' for details of what we need to pray about this quarter. 

  • The next meeting is February 3rd 2025, praying for St Paul's, Holy Trinity & St John's Facit.
    These prayer meetings are held on Zoom
    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82033803875?pwd=bmk4Y21ycUhrQkVOTDBNb0hqeElTUT09;
    Meeting Number 820 3380 3875
    Password 795620

• Our weekly service of Morning Office is taking a break until 07/01/25 and then will be every Tuesday morning during term-time at 9:00am.. Please stay afterwards for...

•  Café On The Hill which is taking a break until 07/01/25 then will re-open at 9.00am on Tuesday Mornings with delicious tea and coffee plus toasts and cakes. The ladies would love to see you.

•  Little Angels are on their Christmas break and will re-start on Wednesday 8th January continuing on Wednesdays during term time.
•  Our annual Gift Day this year was on Sunday 27th October, but it's not too late to make a donation. This is an opportunity to dig just that little deeper into your pockets and make an extra donation to church funds. As you know, we are facing some hefty bills over the coming year to cover

  • The repair to the wall in the graveyard (~£11 000+VAT)

  • The serious leaks which have developed over time at the northwest turret of the church building (~£11-15 000+VAT)

  • The East Window (over £30 000)

  • While we are applying for grants towards these costs, we will still need to raise £30-40 000 to get all the works done, even if all our grant applications are successful

  • If you cannot make it to church on this day, please make your donation by bank transfer - details of our account follow later in the notices. 

  • Gift Day donations to date amount to £2370.00. Many thanks to those who have already donated.

•  AN URGENT APPEAL :The PCC is seeking a replacement for Heather, who has a demanding full-time job, to take over the vital role of Treasurer to the PCC. Please contact Mike or Lorraine if you would like to discuss this position.

• Community Lunch, We will be taking a break over January and February and will resume on Thursday March 6th

 Did you know? That the charity Open Doors has been publishing a list each year since 1955 of the 50 countries in the world, where it is most dangerous to be a Christian. What can we do about this? Well, the main thing we can do is pray and that is why we are going to start listing the countries week by week on the notices so that you can include such persecuted Christians in your prayers. We can also pray specifically @missionEnablers every Thursday. We will add a country to the notices prayer list every week until we have 10 on the list before deleting the first while adding the next – hopefully this process will become clear, as we go along. There will also be more information on the notice board at the back of church if you interested in seeing the list in its entirety.

  • Qatar
  • Democratic Rebublic of Congo
  • Indonesia
  • Cameroon
  • Brunei
  • Comoros
  • Tajikistan
  • Kazakhstan
  • Jordan
  • Turkiye

  • Lord, I pray for those for whom sharing Your gospel may mean going to prison or being killed. Holy Spirit, strengthen and help them, just as Jesus promised, fill them with the joy and courage to keep telling people of Your love. In His name I pray. Amen

• Calling all Eco Warriors!

  • We have achieved the Bronze Award as an Eco church and are now looking for volunteers to share ideas and help develop our resources to express our care for God’s world in this place. There is still much to be done to achieve the Silver Award. There are five areas to work on:

    • Worship and teaching;

    • How we look after our building;

    • How we look after our land;

    • How we engage with the local community and the wider world;

    • Personal lifestyles

• Connect with God’s creation

  • Bulbs have now been planted in the lower graveyard, focusing on the areas around the Commonwealth War Graves..

  • Following the recent Eco Art Exhibition in church, a donation of £180 has been sent to the A Rocha organisation who co-ordinate the Eco Church movement.

• Flowers in church : Jean Ellison has asked me to remind everyone that there is a calendar-type of list on the notice board for members of the congregation to add their names if they would like to donate money for flowers in church on a given date in memory of someone or a special anniversary etc. Please see Jean for further information. God makes the flowers grow, but we do have to pay those who labour to get them to the flower shops !!

•  Prayers for members of our extended church family:If you or any of your loved ones are in need of prayer, please do contact the church via the contact us page or email - stmarygoodshaw@yahoo.com We cannot list names on the website but we will pray for these people in church and at home.

  • If you, or any of your loved ones, are in need of prayer, please do contact the church via email or phone.

•  A message from Lorraine regarding Home Communion:"I have now restarted Home Communions. If you would like a visit, please let me know. Thank you." If you don’t have Lorraine’s contact details, but would like home communion, please use the contact us page, or email - stmarygoodshaw@yahoo.com

•  Do you shop online? If so, there is a way to raise funds for church while youre doing so. The church is now registered with easyfundraising.org.uk In logging in to this website and following their links through to such online stores as Amazon, Currys, Argos, Marks & Spencer or Dominos Pizzas and many more, you can help raise up to 2% or even more of your spend for our church. This does not affect such things as Amazon Prime membership or delivery benefits. For details, contact the church via the contact us page or email - stmarygoodshaw@yahoo.com  The website address is https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk 

•  A note to those members of the church, who make their donations in cash 

We would be most grateful if you could : 

  • Use cash, rather than cheques.  
  • Use one envelope for each week.  
  • If this is not possible, please write clearly on any envelope with money for several weeks, which weeks the contents of the envelope cover.  

We would also ask you to please consider switching to donating through standing order. If you wish to do so, here are the bank details :

  • Account Name : St Mary & All Saints with St John's  
  • Sort Code : 09-01-53  
  • Account Number : 75875484  

 •  Date of Next PCC Meetings to be held at 7.15pm in the parish room:

  • 14th January

  • 11th March

•  Pastoral Care Matters : The pastoral team work hard to stay in regular touch with our house bound church members. However, if you know of anyone who would benefit from a telephone call or a home visit, especially if they are ill or recovering, could you please let Elaine know so that something can be organised. Thank you.

  • On a similar note Janice has asked that if any one knows of a member of our church family who is celebrating a milestone birthday to let her know so we can recognise the occasion appropriately.

  • If you feel the need for support, please email us on stmarygoodshaw@yahoo.com, We will be able to pass your details to the appropriate people.

•  If you have any Notices to be shared, please email them to stmarygoodshaw@yahoo.com by Thursday evening, so that they can be included on the Sunday Notices circular. If you wish to receive the notices electronically each week, please speak to Mike or email the above address.  

 

 

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