10th October 2021
By Kevin Montgomery in Sunday Service on 10 October 2021
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Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another Saturday email.I am pleased to say that the Montgomery household is returning to normal after Ciaran’s 10 days of Covid isolation, shared by Kate and Kevin as a precaution. We look forward to Kevin preaching at our service tomorrow, in a service led by Rosie and featuring prayers by Sheila and a Bible Reading from Louisa, all of which can be viewed online, read here or in person at St Columba’s on Sunday morning at 10.30am. NEXT SUNDAY ‘s SERVICES On Sunday 17th October, for one week only at the moment, we are going to have services at 10.30am and 5pm. These will be identical services but the 5pm is designed for those who find it difficult to attend at 10.30 or who want to avoid being with too many people. Having said that there is plenty of room so if you enjoyed coming to church at 5pm, or just fancy a change, why not join us at that time next week.
HOPE INTO ACTION (HIA)
The 5pm service does flow into the HIA Prayer Meeting at 6pm in church. As I mentioned last week, now we have completed the purchase of the HIA house we need to prepare a Friendship and Support Group ready for when the tenants move in. With this in mind Matt Morton from HIA will be joining our Prayer Meeting on Sunday 24th October at 6pm – so if you are at all interested, or just want to find out more do come along that evening. There will also be a TRAINING DAY on Saturday 4th December for those who would like to pursue this further.Our usual PRAYER MEETING will be happening this Sunday, 10th October, at 6pm in church.
PCC NEWS
Our PCC met in person for the first time since March 2020 this week, although some people were still able to join the meeting by Zoom. We heard of plans for a weekend visit by Bishop John sometime after Easter next year and also began to think how we might celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June. We heard encouraging reports from our Churchwardens, Treasurer, Safeguarding Officer, and about Hope into Action. The most significant item on the agenda was the allocation of most of St Columba’s charitable giving for the year, with significant amounts being given to HOPE FROM ABOVE where Tim & Carol Derbyshire work in Australia and to CHURCH MISSION SOCIETY. We are on the look out for someone to be our church contact with our new CMS mission partners in North Africa, and if you think that might interest you, please do speak with me (it would be helpful if our contact was comfortable using Zoom). There were smaller donations to a number of different causes, some local and some overseas. The full list is:Toilet Twinning, Christians Against Poverty, Tearfund, Word for Today, Waverley Abbey, World Vision, Corby Deanery Youth Project, Rooted in Jesus, Hope into Action, Penn Green, Home Start, Children’s Society, Safe Spaces, Barnabas Fund, Operation Christmas Child, and Scripture Union for “It’s Your Move” books for children moving to secondary school.
Finally we pencilled in some dates for social events later this year and early next:
Saturday 20th November – Tearfund’s BIG QUIZ NIGHT
Saturday 27th November – CHRISTMAS FAYRE
28th and 29th January 2022 – PANTO: “Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood”
Do ask if you would like to know more about any of these, especially if you can help at the FAYRE. They are, of course, all dependent on there being no change in the COVID rules. When they have been prepared the PCC minutes will be displayed on the Notice Board at the back of church, or you can ask me for a copy by email.
PUZZLES
Please find here the latest Puzzles from Steve (sorry about not attaching them last week).
On page 4 there is a list of the other groups that meet at St Columba’s. There are a couple of changes I will pass on to Steve for the next edition, but just to clarify the Romanian and Zimbabwean churches have not yet started meeting again (although I did see Pastor Gabriel in the week so the latter may start again soon).
ENERGIZE
The latest ENERGIZE resources for children are available here.
May God bless you all in the week ahead.
Ian
01536 400225
07903 644609