We hope many will be able to enjoy holidays in the coming weeks and so our chosen text this month is from Isaiah 42:10. “Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them.” Don’t forget wherever you are, God is there too. He will be with you to praise in the good times and satisfy our needs better than we know how to ourselves. 

 As you possibly know, David Bennie will be retiring at the end of July. He will be sorely missed by all at St Mary’s and by the wider village community to whom he has contributed so much. 

On the 6th July we will be celebrating with the Forest Church Family. His final service will be on 27th July at 9.30. This will be an opportunity to celebrate David’s wonderful work as our Youth and Families Minister over the past 25 years and you are all welcome to this Family Service. After our positive meeting with Bishop Simon and his colleagues on 21st May, to discuss Youth and Family Ministry at St. Mary’s we are having discussions with those who have expressed an interest in continuing this important work for our families and young people in Leigh. 

As you can imagine, this is an evolving process and service patterns will be developed over time and adjusted as needed. We plan to keep both Forest Church and Family Services running on Sundays in the current pattern. However, the 8am prayer book communion will be reduced to 2nd and 4th Sundays only from now. 

 We are all aware of the Holy Spirit guiding us on this journey of development and are excited to be part of this process. Those involved all have different skills to bring to these discussions and we remain hopeful of a bright future for our Youth Ministry in whatever form evolves. 

 In May Geoff Dalby who served faithfully as Treasurer of St Mary’s for many years (about 20 I think) passed away. During this time he was key to several outreach and fundraising campaigns building up the reserves which we rely on to fund today’s activities. He was also an influential voice serving on the Diocesan Board of Finance.