6th February 2022

By Kevin Montgomery in Sunday Service on 6 February 2022

Hello everyone,

I am delighted to say that tomorrow in church at 10.30 we have a service of ALL AGE WORSHIP, with lots of involvement by the children and young people. I hope you will be there to join in, but if you can’t there is a version of the service online. Obviously it is impossible to reproduce the interactivity of a live service in a pre-recorded form, but it does feature some of the children and young people who were filmed last Sunday morning. There is also a PDF of the service here. 

The PCC met on Wednesday and decided that it was still sensible to maintain some Covid safety measures at the present time, while infections are still high. As a result we do encourage everyone to wear a FACE COVERING in church, we will keep the seats spaced out and will also continue to distribute Holy Communion by dipping the bread in the wine. All these are subject to review when the situation improves. We also decided that as both face coverings and social distancing are not possible while serving coffee we will not resume after service refreshments just yet. PCC also received the accounts for 2021 and while I don’t want to say everything James our treasurer will share at our Annual Meeting it is great to report that, in another difficult year when the church was closed for worship for 3 months and our Lettings income only half its pre-pandemic levels, we still managed to make a small surplus. This is primarily because of the generous and sacrificial giving of so many of you, for which I must take this opportunity to say THANK YOU. There will, as I say, be full details of our accounts at the Annual Meeting. PCC was also delighted to hear that work has continued to improve the Church Hall, with new windows being installed this week in the toilets, kitchen and Green Room. We hope to improve the church toilets as well, but need to do some more work to do before we have permission to do that work. If anyone would like to make a donation to help make that happen please speak to me or James, or simply put an envelope in the collection basket marked “Building Project”.

I do have some sad news to pass on to those who have not yet heard. Ges McCluskey passed away early last Sunday morning, at home with Maureen. Please do uphold Maureen in your prayers. Another matter for prayer is that the from the end of this month St Columba’s will no longer be open as a Foodbank distribution point on Wednesday mornings. We must give thanks for the huge number of people who have been helped with food parcels since the Foodbank first opened here, and for all the volunteers who have made that possible, and for all the donations of food that have been made. And we must continue to pray for the ongoing work of the Foodbank, based solely at St Peter and St Andrew on Beanfield Avenue, especially given the anticipated increase in demand following the energy price rises later this year.

PLEASE NOTE:

1. The Food bank will continue to operate from St P&A and volunteers from St Columba’s are being invited to join the team there.

2. Donations to the Foodbank will still be collected at St Columba’s, so please do bring your donations to church as usual.

3. There will be an emergency supply at St Columba’s just in case someone turns up and cannot get to St P&A. 

PRAYER MEETINGThe Hope into Action Prayer Meeting will be happening in church at 6pm again tomorrow, so do come along, especially as we now have a potential tenant for the house and the work is progressing to transform it into a home. Also do look out for details of a work party to help with the garden.

And finally a special MINI Scans prepared by Steve, linked to the 70th Anniversary of the Queen’s Accession to the throne in 1952.

Best wishes Ian

PS Please note I am away this coming week so if you need to contact someone from church please give Kevin a ring on 07512 822422.