I never thought  back in March, when we started to work at being Church Together at home, that we would be where we are today. However needs must  and I want to assure you that we are still here and that we want to keep in touch with you as best we can. We can’t do all we would like to do as you will realise.

    Back in March, I was encouraging us all to remain together, if not physically, then in prayer. That plea continues. The longer things go on, the more we are realising how important our relationships are. I know for many that their relationship with Jesus and their church is such an important relationship: prayer is the way we do have that can’t be taken away to enhance those relationships.

   What’s been happening of late? Quite a lot:

• We have been holding services in our churches, 3 a Sunday, going round the Team of 8 and that seems to working OK. Do check church magazines and notice boards, as well as this site, so you can track where there is a service.
• Measham Church hall has re-opened for hirers and we hope Appleby hall will follow when some necessary works have been carried out. We haven’t forgotten Swepstone but the number who can use the hall when socially distanced is so few as to make us wonder what we can do there.
• Revd Joanne Dyer has been seconded to the Whitwick benefice so we have lost her. Ceriann Kelly, our children’s worker, came to the end of her contract so we have lost her too. This means that the Team staff numbers are down.
• We still provide audio services and twice mlonthly Zoom services.
• We're wrestling with how to mark Remembrance Sunday and Christmas with the present restrictions. Watch out for the Remembarcne video though! A new venture into the unknown.

All of these things do help us to be together as Church Together. There is more happening but that’s the outline.

   The next schedule of readings for morning and evening prayer can be found here /content/pages/documents/1604089413.docx  Do join in if you can (9am and 5pm or to suit you) as we still aim to keep us as Church Together at Home as well as in the church buildings.   If it would help to use a set form of prayer, then there is one form here for morning prayer  /content/pages/documents/1588165657.pdf  and /content/pages/documents/1588165683.docx for evening prayer

    As I have said before, if you need practical help, or simply a chat, then let us know. If you need to speak to us, do ring. It’s so much easier if you make contact rather than us having to guess you need to talk.

 In all of this, I pray that we may all know God as our rock and Jesus as our hope. May we see God’s blessing and know his compassion.

Vivien Elphick (October 2020)