07.01.2020
In light of government advice and the need to protect the NHS and the most vulnerable in our communities, we will not be holding physical services this month. During January we will continue to connect and worship online. There are still plenty of opportunities to get involved in church life. We would love you to join us for Church Online.
We will continue to review our service provision as government and Church of England guidance dictates.
9.00 am – YouTube Service of Holy Communion
10.15 am – Zoom All Age Service
7.30 pm – Zoom Evening Praise
For help with Zoom, check out out our ‘quick guide’ or get in touch and we will do our best to help you.
If you or anybody you know requires pastoral and practical at this time, please do get in touch via the ‘Stay-Connected’ page.
If you have any prayer requests we would love to be able to hold those for you. You can get in touch here.
05.01.2020
After yesterdays government announcement we are awaiting guidance from the national church and from the diocese. We will then make a descision as to how best we proceed to ensure that we keep everybody safe at this time.
We continue to provide pastoral and practical help to people across Walton at this time. Please do get in touch if we can offer any kind of help or support or if you are able to join our ‘action’ team please let us know via the form on the ‘Stay-Connected’ page.
29.09.2020
We continue to provide pastoral and practical help to people across Walton. Particularly as things seem to be changing on almost a daily basis. Please do get in touch if we can offer any kind of help or support – Visit our ‘Stay-Connected’ page.
We will continue to review our service provision as we head into autumn.
9.00 am – Service of Holy Communion at St. Mary’s and on YouTube.
10.15 am – Zoom All Age Service
10.30 am – Service at St John’s – 2nd Sunday (Holy Communion) & 4th Sunday (Morning Praise)
11.15 am – Zoom Coffee & Chat
7.30 pm – Zoom Evening Praise – 1st & 3rd Sundays
Update 24.07.2020
When will the church be open for worship?
We are delighted to announce that we will be opening the church doors for a service of Communion at 9.00 am on Sunday 2nd August for anyone who would like to worship in person. There will be strict guidelines to keep us all safe, such as booking your place, keeping distance, no singing, no books and at this stage there will no provision for children. It will be a learning curve for us over the Sundays in August. The recorded service will also be available to watch at the later time of time 9.00 am to accommodate those who prefer to continue to worship at home. We will then continue with Zoom coffee at the usual times of 10.30 & 11.00.
The All-age Zoom service will be at 10.15 am during August.
There will be no 7.30 pm evening service during August.
Please keep an eye on the weekly email as we will review our provision of services over the summer as conditions change. We would ask that as we try to establish what this looks like, that you pray for us and for the safety of those attending our services.
Service Pattern for August
9.00 am – Service of Holy Communion at St. Mary’s and on YouTube.
10.15 am – Zoom All Age Service
10.30 & 11.00 am – Zoom Coffee & Chat
Update 12.06.2020 – Will our churches open soon?
Following the latest Government announcement that churches may open for private prayer from 13th June, we want to keep you up to date. We are currently looking at the measures that we will need to put in place in order to be able to allow people to enter the church in a way which puts nobody at risk of infection. We are looking closely at the National church and Diocese guidelines which will help us to formulate a local plan. There are a number of aspects concerning cleanliness and personnel which are involved. Our churches will not be opening this weekend or for several weeks. Please be assured we will keep you informed. Meanwhile, we continue to be “the church in the community” and to be the living, breathing church because “the church is not the building”.
Yours,
In Christ,
Jonny and Cathy
Update from Vicars Cathy & Jonny Blair – 14.05.2020
Update 27.03.2020 – READ HERE
Your wellbeing is of the highest importance – which is why, due to the threat of the Coronavirus the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have instructed all clergy to suspend public services from today for the foreseeable future and we will be honouring their request.
In these difficult times, we want you to know that we are praying for ALL of you. We are especially praying for all those in key roles who are keeping our health service and food production going and those for whom uncertainty and loss of employment gives particular concerns.
Here you will find all the up-to-date information regarding how St Mary’s & St John’s are responding to Covid-19. This page will be regularly updated as more information is released, so please do keep checking here for information you may need.
We have moved many of our church activities online but sadly there is a lot that we have had to put on hold. It has been so encouraging to see how everybody is embracing this new norm, learning new skills, engaging in new technology and being so very supportive.
We are in the midst of transforming as a church from the church which gathers to the church in the community. It would appear to be an ever evolving process so please stay with us as we figure things out. Please do join us on Facebook where we have groups set up for the children, youth and adults. This is where we will be sharing our thoughts and general chat and other things such as the daily Bible study.
Go too www.facebook.com/WaltonParish/
We have teams working hard to provide pastoral and practical help for people, if you are able to volunteer you can. We don’t know exactly how this will look but it’s still good for us to know who is available. We have an amazing response and Alex is doing a great job of linking up volunteers with those requiring any kind of practical help.
Volunteer here.
We would also like to hear from you so we can keep in touch. Please do let us know if you are self isolating, sick or have any other needs. Jonny is coordinating teams of people who can offer telephone support. Be it a prayer, a friendly voice, or a simple hello please let us know.
Get in touch here.
New ways present themselves at the moment to live out our Vison Bible verse from Matthew 22: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbour as yourself.” This message from Bishop Andrew picks up these very themes. Read it here.
We are all encouraged to pray and give practical help where safe to do so. We will be sending out regular emails of encouragement and important updates and on Sunday we will share with you some online worship. This is new territory for us all and we would value your prayers. You’ll also find regular updates and useful information on our Twitter – @WoTParish and Instagram – wotparish. You can also follow Jonny & Cathy on Twitter – @waltonvicars
You’ll find our updates, bible study, prayers and all other news here.
