I hope you and your family are all well. I gather I caused some confusion the other week when I mentioned a change of number for the telephone version of the Sunday morning service, I unwittingly gave the impression that the phone number for the Vicarage was changing. It is not! I can see how that confusion arose, so my apologies! It’s that word ‘service’ which has a particular meaning in Church life! So, for the avoidance of doubt the telephone number for those of you who would like to listen to the Sunday morning 10.30 service the number is 01925 980054. Please publicise this far and wide, especially to those who you know maybe do not have the internet but would be interested in hearing the Sunday service. We have the option with this new number to provide more services, available at the touch of a button. Just like one of those annoying menus you get when calling you call a business! We could add, for example, audio versions of the Sunday afternoon traditional service of Evensong. Please let me know what you think, and I’ll see what we can do. I can’t guarantee anything since it all depends upon someone being available behind the scenes doing all the technical magic. We would like to build up a team/rota of volunteers who can help with this and other aspects of our online streams so that it doesn’t fall on the shoulder of one or two. If you would like to help, please let Mark Longstaff know – warden2@daresburycofe.org.uk. This week the Bible Study Group came to the end of its study of Esther. During Lent it will be looking at the USPG study course on climate justice which I sent out last week. The first session will be on 24<sup>th</sup> February at 7.30pm. You’ll need the Zoom meeting details:- Meeting ID: 873 0988 5456; Passcode: 011017. Incidentally, we have started to look at our response to the challenge set by the Church of England that all churches should be carbon neutral by 2030. We already use green electricity but there is a lot to do, not least with regard to the heating system. As an initial step, we have commissioned an energy audit which was one of the actions coming out of our recent Quinquennial Inspection. If you would like to delve a bit deeper into how the Church of England is supporting parishes on this please click here and follow the links. Don’t forget to order your Ash Wednesday packs here. Please do so by 11<sup>th</sup> February at the latest. We’ve already sent out 25 and have just received a new supply of ash! This Sunday’s service is attached. It will be led by James With God’s blessing, David
Dear All,I hope you and your family are all keeping well.Prayer lies at the heart of our Christian faith. Prayer is the way in which we both talk to God and God talks to us.Prayer can take many forms and it doesn’t have to have to be in a particular form or use special words. It is a conversation, and conversations include listening to someone else. Conversations also include times of silence when no words are used. It is enough to be silent and just enjoy the presence of the other.There have been a number of different requests this last week. With the number of deaths due to COVID passing 100,000, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have written an open letter calling upon us all to pray. They ask us to pray for each one of us, as in one way or another we are all affected by the virus. Their letter can be found here:- https://mcusercontent.com/50eac70851c7245ce1ce00c45/files/c04ce5c3-bbc7-459b-ac6e-63aef1f1f31d/20210126_Letter_to_the_nation.pdf?mc_cid=5d6c6a5473&mc_eid=c3af48e8a6. They are encouraging us to set aside time each evening to pray, preferably at 6.00pm. Please join in this example of corporate prayer.This Sunday is Candlemas which marks the end of the Epiphany season in the Church’s worshipping prayer life. So Lent, 40days of penitence when we pray for forgiveness of our sins and failures, is just around the corner. It starts with Ash Wednesday on 17 February. As I mentioned last week, we shall be having a special live service on the Church’s Facebook page. We have already had a number of requests for the special worship pack which includes a palm cross, ash and a special book of prayer and readings. We shall be beginning to post these out during the coming week. It’s not too late to place your order here:- https://daresburycofe.org.uk/ash-wednesday-pack/ or by emailing vicar@daresburycofe.org.uk or by telephoning the Vicarage 01925 740348.Studying our faith is also part of prayer. Our Bible Study group is going to follow a special Lent study course produced by USPG. The course booklet can be found here https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/uspg/content/pages/documents/1605634745.pdf. Please do have a look at it over the next few weeks and join our first session on 24 February at 7.30pm. The Zoom details to join are:- Meeting ID: 873 0988 5456 Password: 011017 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87309885456?pwd=UFJwVkhSc0NkR0lYSFY0b3NaMHplQT09One of the special prayer spaces in the Churchyard is the Cenotaph. Here we remember those who have died in both World Wars. Thanks to the Daresbury and District Heritage Group, and the Parish Councils for Hatton, Moore, Preston Brook, Daresbury and Sandymoor for arranging for it to be cleaned and the pavement stones relaid. Please have a look at the attached photograph. Unfortunately the wind kept blowing the wreaths around!The final request for prayer is for ourselves as a Christian community. You will have received yesterday an email from Gill, Steve and Mark about our future direction. It mentioned Thursday night’s PCC meeting when the Archdeacon came to talk about a possible link with the parish of St Berteline, Norton after my retirement in the summer. I left the meeting part way through and before any decision was made. The Archdeacon emailed me after the meeting and told me he was very impressed by the discussion and the constructive way the PCC approached the suggestion.The PCC unanimously agreed to look into this very exciting possibility and asked Gill, Steve and Mark to take the next steps by meeting with their counterparts in Norton, following which they will report back to the PCC and Archdeacon. I know that you can be sure that they will explore every avenue as wisely and prayerfully as possible.Please pray for them as they take on this heavy burden and responsibility. They will need a great deal of support and prayer and I know they will be very grateful for it. There is a great deal of ground to cover before any final decision is made which we all must approach with an open mind and heart. I was very struck by Simon’s sermon last Sunday when he looked at Paul’s First Letter to the Church at Corinth. They were grappling with change, something of which Paul had a great deal of experience. Simon pointed out all Churches are part of the body of Christ and that if a body doesn’t move, it is dead. I shall have you all in my private prayers over the next few months as you reflect on how you are going to move forward to the next phase of your life together as part of the body of Christ.Finally, tomorrow’s service is attached. It will be led by Gill and she asks that if possible, could you have a candle, a lighter or matches and a cup or small bowl of water to hand. Interesting!With God’s blessing, David
I hope you have had a good week and that you and your family are all well. The snow this morning was quite a surprise, as it was on Wednesday evening. Sally and I went for a walk with the dog at lunchtime. Have a look at the attached picture of the village looking down from the woods by Daresbury Hall. Quite the ‘chocolate box!’ With the days slowly beginning to lengthen, our thoughts and plans are starting to turn towards Lent, Holy Week and Easter. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to celebrate Easter in Church, but let’s just wait and see and not count our Easter chicks before they’re hatched! Easter this year falls on 4 April, which means that Lent starts with Ash Wednesday on 17 February – only 3 weeks away. Building upon our experience of the virtual Christingle, we are going to have a virtual Ash Wednesday service at 7.30pm. We are creating an Ash Wednesday pack that will be posted to your house in time for the service. It will consist of the Live Lent book for this year, a palm cross and a small bag of blessed Ash. If you would like a pack please fill in the form on our website here: -https://daresburycofe.org.uk/ash-wednesday-pack/<span style="font-size: 1rem;"> . If you know of anybody who is not online, please ask them to telephone me and we’ll send on out to them. Obviously, they won’t be able to join us ‘live,’ but we’ll arrange for it to be available on the telephone by midday the following day.</span> Speaking of the telephone service, we are in the process of changing our provider. This means that the telephone number is changing to 01925 980054. This is now live. The old number will continue to be available until 19<sup>th</sup> February. The new provider will enable us to develop the service to suit our needs better, as well as giving improved quality. One of the immediate improvements is that once connected you will get a recorded greeting from me rather than having to listen to silence for a minute or so and thinking something has gone wrong! During Lent, the Bible Study group will be focusing on a special study course on climate change produced by USPG, the international Anglican mission organisation. We have supported USPG for many years. Gill worked for them for a number of years, and Revd Peter Povey who was Associate Priest here in the early 2000s was a medical missionary with them in east Africa shortly after he qualified as a Doctor. More details next week. Tomorrow’s service will be led by Simon. Sheet attached. With God’s blessing, David
Dear All,I hope you and your family are all well.Signs of spring have appeared this week in the Churchyard as the photo shows.Life appears to be settling down to a new rhythm. We are getting used to and adapting to this latest lockdown. I know that a number of you have already had the first vaccination and some their second. It seems to me that it is our Christian duty to have the vaccine if you are able. The ‘neighbour’ principle, which is fundamental to Jesus’ teaching, extends to our duty to protect everyone from harm whenever it is possible and despite our own feelings. If there is anything we have learnt over the last 9 months, it is that loving our neighbour pervades our whole life and is without exception.Parish life is beginning to return to the pattern we had before Christmas. Zoom choir practice began again on Thursday. The Bible Study group on Wednesdays at 7.30pm (Zoom Meeting ID: 873 0988 5456 Password: 011017) is having great fun looking at the Old Testament book of Esther – not a book I know particularly well! The Thursday Zoom Coffee morning at 11.00am is certainly helping to blow away the January blues (Zoom Meeting ID: 830 5926 6740 Password: 791441). Do please join us whenever you can. Both are so arranged so that it doesn’t matter if you can’t come every time. Please do not hesitate to contact me if there is anything of concern or whether you have any fresh ideas as to what we could do. In the meantime tomorrow’s service is attached. It will be led by James.With God’s blessing,David
