Dear Friends,
I wanted to write to you all in the midst of all that is going at present
as we respond to a constantly changing situation.
The Archbishops have this afternoon called on the Church of England to put
public worship on hold and become a different type of church at this time.
In the next few days I will be trying to see if it possible for us to live
stream a ‘service’ on Sunday using either You Tube or Face Book live. Here is
the link to the St Paul’s You Tube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHK8EZFozeGcWE3mQpTVYJw which you can subscribe to.
Last Sunday we gave out an updated Address/Contact list and I can email you
one if you missed it. Firstly, this acts as a prayer diary so we can pray for
one another on different days of the month, do use it in this way. But it also
helps us to be in contact with one another. Do use it for this purpose too! A
call, text or email to check in with one another or to offer help and support
can go along way. Please especially pray at this time for our many doctors and
those involved in frontline health care in the busyness, pressure and
uncertainty. If you are unwell or have decided to self isolate do let me know
(email oadbyrector@gmail.com or 0116
271 0519). If there is anything we can do to help please be in touch. I would
sooner hear from several people than not at all about a need and hope and pray
that as the body of Christ we can help and serve one another as we are
able.
All of our Home Groups have decided to suspend meeting together and I have
written to the leaders this morning encouraging them to keep functioning without
the face to face meeting using technology. If you are part of a home group do
keep looking out for each other and try and be in touch via video call/skype.
Just because services have stopped does not mean that the church has shut up
shop. Now more than ever is the time for us to care well for one another and for
our local community.
Whilst we can not meet together we can still feed and nurture our faith.
All our sermons are available to listen to online using this link http://www.buzzsprout.com/55355/ The
Church of England has a free app you can download called ‘Daily Prayer’ which
provides liturgy, prayers and Bible readings for Morning, Evening & Night
prayer. Another good app is the ‘You Version’ of the Bible which will send you a
verse a day and also has hundreds of free Bible reading plans on it. Or ‘The
Bible in One Year’ app will send you readings and a commentary daily, I have
used this for the last 5 years and recommend it. Then there are a number of
prayer apps, Colin mentioned in his sermon ‘Lectio 365’ which comes from 24/7
prayer or ‘Pray as you Go’ which is from a Jesuit community. There are also lots
of worship songs and hymns as well as sermons freely available on You
Tube.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:
13
This comes with my love and prayers
Steve
