St Thomas

Services in church during October given the current situation of increasing Covid infections: it is planned that services will continue in St Andrew's starting at 10am and St Peter's starting at 11.15am unless further restrictions are imposed. Some reminders to follow please: Keep a 2 metre distance as you approach Church.

Inside Church - you need to wear a Face Covering, sanitise your hands, go to the seats which are allocated and are 2 metres apart, follow the signs and markers,

The doors will be left open to keep a flow of air through the building.

The service will be 30 minutes - no sharing of the peace or shaking hands, no singing

Toilets will be closed as will the kitchen so there won’t be refreshments

As we are in Tier Three ...please remember no households should mix so please leave Church directly, observing the 2 metre distance. Thanks...

St Thomas and St James PCCs are considering whether to reopen for services in November. Janice will send an email if they are to open next Sunday 1st November with booking information.

The Church to You online service continues. Remembrance Sunday Services 8th November will take place at the usual times 10am St Andrews and St Thomas and 11.15am for St Peters and St James ….after these 30 minute services we are asking everyone to go home immediately and not mix with other households. For those at home and those who will have returned home - you might want to observe the Silence at 11am on your doorstep.

It might be some time before we have a service of Holy Communion . Church services will need to be very different so I have prepared a leaflet outlining the changes which we are in the process of getting to you. Services might be so different that it is unhelpful for you and you may wish to continue to use our Church to You service which will continue indefinitely and the link will be emailed as usual on Saturday as well as being available on A Church Near You. You can also search for Maghull and Melling on YouTube and choose the appropriate date. Please don’t feel any obligation to come to Church when we reopen ….we have prayed and worshipped in our homes for so long it is okay to continue to do so for as long as you want to. The Government guidance is that some people at risk should not come and others at risk should be advised not to come. Government regulations are such that face coverings are compulsory for all those attending a place of worship, including ministers, worshippers, staff, volunteers, contractors and visitors, where there may be other people present.

We are still finding that some people haven’t heard about our weekly bulletin or our online service Church to You on YouTube so please do spread the word ….

You can download the Bible readings for October for Church to You and the services in church from the News and Notices page.

And please remember that we have created a new email address for you to get in touch to send us prayer requests, song requests or just to get in touch…...the email address is churchtoyou@gmail.com

Please contact Dave or Simon or Gordon or myself, Janice …

If you know anyone who would like to receive this email

If there is anyone who needs prayer

If you know anyone who needs a phone call

Reminder about the Annual Church meetings-

We are conscious that we need to be as safe a possible and reduce paper so please click here for a link to the Parishes Resources website to download all of the nomination forms and electoral roll forms. There will also be a link on St Thomas' website.

We need to display the Electoral Roll so that will have to be in Church and limited copies of other paperwork will be available for those who don’t have access to the internet.

If you wish to stand for PCC or Deanery Synod or as a Churchwarden it would be helpful if you printed and completed the form at home. Please see above for the link.

We are planning to hold the meetings in Church and will need to abide by the capacity of Church with social distancing so we will have to have a booking system and details of how to do that are on the events page.

Due to COVID 19 we will have to keep the meetings brief to limit the time we are together ….

St Peters Annual meeting will be on 25th October after Church 11.50am. St Thomas Annual meeting will be on 28th October in Church at 7.00pm

Please note we have vacancies for Two Churchwardens at St Thomas, One Church Warden at St Peters - please contact Janice if you are interested in standing for these vacancies. We are grateful to the Churchwardens, PCC members and Deanery Synod members for their service to the Church. There are vacancies on PCC and Deanery Synod members at each of the Churches. Remember if you wish to stand for Churchwarden the nomination form must be submitted before the meeting starts- please contact Janice if you are considering taking on this very important role in our Church.

Churchwardens at St Thomas, Sandra Luckett and Albert Sumner, have decided to stand down - we are grateful to them for their many years of service

Churchwarden at St Peter's, Tom Roby, has decided to stand down but wishes to continue as a Deputy Churchwarden and we are grateful to Tom for his many years of service and are (relieved!) thankful that he wishes to carry on as a Deputy Church Warden.

COMING SOON - we are looking at new ways of doing worship for those who don’t have internet access…

Telephone Worship - A Church Service over the phone - if you know anyone who might like to join a service through a free telephone call then please contact Dave- we are hoping to start this in November.

Church to You on disk - we are looking into copying Church to You onto a disk for those who don’t have internet access- if you know someone who might like to trial this let me know

DAILY PRAYER CYCLE - we plan to start a Daily Prayer Cycle in our own homes across the Maghull and Melling Team. This will involve reading through the set Psalms for each morning, as found in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, (and naturally you can add the Venite or Benedictus from Morning Prayer, or anything else you might feel is helpful to you from it, or elsewhere), and then praying for the areas we have identified for each day using the prayer diary which we will circulate each quarter. We aim to identify people to be contacts when issues within our four parishes arise, so that they can contact others to ask for these issues to be prayed for and added to the prayer diary. If you do not have a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, then please contact Gordon on gordonimacleod@gmail.com or on 07876 352156.

RED ALERT - I have been contacted by a representative from the Blundellsands local group, Red Alert, who are trying to set up a sub-group in Maghull. They are looking for people who would be interested in helping with red squirrel conservation and grey squirrel control, ideally one or two who would run a local group with help from the Blundellsands group initially. Contact me, Janice, and I can put you in touch with them if you are interested Here are some notices from Revd. Dave …

* ALPHA is back -We started a Zoom Alpha on a Thursday evening on 24th September. You can read more about this in its own news item on the News and Notices page. If you've missed out this time don't despair: we hope to hold another next year!

* The BEREAVEMENT group has started again and will be the third Thursday of each month at St Andrews 2-15 to 3-45 pm. Please see the regular events page.

* If anyone is interested in volunteering here is information about local volunteer roles

Sefton CVS – Hospital Discharge Volunteer To enquire about this role, contact: Gina Harvey Email: gina.harvey@seftoncvs.org.uk

Formby Library – Volunteer Driver lTo enquire, contact: Lesley Davies Email: Lesley.Davies@sefton.gov.uk

Sefton Carers’ Centre – Shopping Volunteers To enquire, contact: Mandy Case Email: Mandy.Case@carers.sefton.gov.uk Direct Tel: 0151 288 6067

Brighter Living – Shopping Volunteer Email: matty.smith@brighterliving.org.uk

Brighter Living – Telephone Befriender To enquire, contact: Matty Smith Email: matty.smith@brighterliving.org.uk

Emmaus – Volunteer Cook To enquire, contact: Anne Marie Hughes Phone Number: 0151 928 4775 Email: Annmarie.hughes@emmausmerseyside.org.uk

A new session of the Book Club started on the 6th October. You can read more about this in its own news item on the News and Notices page but it is not too late to join in.

A four week Bible study is planned to start on Monday 19th October at 2pm via Zoom. We will use “Heart and Soul” , a study written by Jon Birch during lockdown. The study looks at worship and why we worship, how scripture shapes our acts of worship and why worship is a vital part of our daily Christian life. If you would like to join in please email Pat or one of the clergy and she will forward the Zoom link nearer the time and also provide the study notes. There is no video this time, but the booklet has some information to read before each meeting and questions to be explored.

Morning and Night prayer : Claire has taken the Church of England worship at home services and created two booklets for you to use at home - let me know if you find these useful and how you use them

There is a possibility we might be able to do a booklet of Reflections on Lockdown - how has God has helped and blessed you during lockdown…if you want to write a short paragraph then please send it to me (see my email on the Get in touch tab).

Someone from one of the churches speaks on Maghull radio most Sundays just before or around 9am (Check the website for details: and you can click on the ‘Listen Live’ button at the top of the website http://maghullradio.co.uk/).

It looks as if the Sunday morning services have come to an end on BBC One but Songs of Praise is still on at 1.15pm and the usual service on BBC Radio 4 at 8.10am plus don’t forget the Christian radio channels and TV stations and the Daily Hope free phone number (details in theseparate news item)

Please see the separate news items on the Community Craft and Chat (it's so good to read about what's happening) , Team Prayers , prayer gates and the prayer trail at St Andrew's, Daily Hope and how to help the foodbank under the notices tab.

We are continuing to monitor our financial situation …there are still bills to pay and our Parish Share contribution to make even though we are not meeting in our Church Buildings - so please consider giving though the Parish Giving Scheme to help our regular income. Like many other charities we are facing significant financial difficulties. Our treasurer has more information about different ways to give - please see the 'get in touch' tab to ask for contact details and St Andrew's and St James have a donations page on this website too.

St Thomas

News and notices

Latest News!!

Readings for the services in October

New morning and evening prayer resources

Part-time Vacancy

NEW ALPHA COURSE STARTING: ALPHA ZOOM

Zoom Book Club on Tuesdays October 7.30 - 8 pm