This Week's News & Notices
Parish Eucharist
Our Parish Eucharist continues to be held each Sunday at 10am. If you you would like to attend you can do this by clicking on the link below, or by ringing the office and leaving a message. It’s helpful for us to know who’s coming in advance, but if you do just turn up on the day, we will always accommodate you if there is space. We must now wear face coverings so please don’t forget to bring yours with you. You can bring your Planned Giving envelopes to the service too.
Ben's Ordination
Ben will be ordained as priest on Saturday 10th October at 3pm. He will preside at the Eucharist at St Mary’s for the first time on Sunday 11th October at 10am and you can sign up for this service too using the link below.
View and sign up for our upcoming services, and view our online service, all via our Services & Worship page:
In light of the new local restrictions affecting the North East, we are responding to guidelines as soon as they are published to ensure that the church is as safe as it can be. Acts of worship are permitted. The rules remain unchanged, and we have a full risk assessment and safety measures in place. Certainly it is apparent that any form of socialising before or after the service with those outside your household or bubble is not permitted. It's not an ideal situation, but please move to your seats as soon as you arrive, and do not congregate after the worship has ended. As soon as anything changes, we will let you know, and act accordingly.
Morning Prayer and Private Prayer
The church is open from 9am for Morning Prayer through to 12 noon for Private Prayer - all are welcome. Again, don’t forget you mask.
The Parish Office
The Parish Office remains closed as Dot and Carol are doing most of the work from home. Phone messages or emails will be checked regularly and correspondence can be popped through the letterbox in the north door and will be responded to as soon as possible.
Good News from Susana & James!
We just wanted to let everyone know that our beautiful daughter, Zoe, was born on Monday 14th September weighing 7lbs 11ozs. Could we ask that any cards not be delivered to our old address at Alnwick Avenue, as in the Parish Directory, as we won’t have access soon. If you’d like our new address please contact the office who will be able to give the address to you. Susana & James
We send love, congratulations and best wishes to Susana & James and their new arrival from all at St Mary’s!
And very best wishes to the proud grandparents Pat and Julio Moran.
Birthday Greetings
Happy birthday to Marion Burton on your 90th Birthday next Thursday. Best wishes from all at St Mary’s.
Thanks
Edna Davis would like to thank everyone at St Mary’s for all the lovely birthday greetings she received for her 98th birthday.
Thank You
A huge thank you for your amazing generosity this Harvest. Even at this difficult time you provided 240 items plus cash donations which have been so welcomed by Walking With and the Bay Food bank.
Sharing Good News
Let us know by email if you have any news you wish to share or by leaving a message on the church office answerphone 0191 251 4216 or send in by post.
100 Club
The winners for October are: £50 Alison Telfer; £30 Tina Tompkins; £20 Margaret Evans.
Virtual Coffee Morning
Our next online Coffee Morning via Zoom will be on Tuesday 13th October so do sign up for it. If you are able to join us online between 10:30am and 11:15am we’d love to see you.
Click the link above, or go to ‘Events’ on our website to RSVP and get a link to join via Zoom. You would need to click on RSVP and enter your name and email address and click on ‘submit’. An email is then sent to you with a link to the Coffee Morning. If you haven’t already got Zoom, you can get it for free on your computer, tablet or phone. You could download it now from https://zoom.us.
For your prayers this week:
Your Prayers are requested for
Martin Cooper Olya Bouchard
Emma Campbell Jonathan Jackman
Michael Hampson Susie Brett
Jennifer Stephenson Rona Lawrie
Kathy Connolly Edna Davis
Christopher and Clifford Browne
Rest in Peace
Cathy Déal
Please also pray for Ben as he prepares for his ordination.
Don’t forget, you can add someone to the prayer list by emailing or phoning as usual, but you need to get their permission before adding them to the sick list. You can also use the form on the website here to submit a prayer request online.
This Sunday's Hymns & Readings
Collect
Almighty God, you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen
A reading from Isaiah
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watch-tower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! Isaiah 5: 1-7
A reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians
even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3: 4b-14
Offertory Hymn
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known, will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name? Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same? Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare? Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name. Let me turn and follow you and never be the same. In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show. Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me. John L Bell & Graham Maule
Prayer after Communion
Lord, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
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