Keep in touch 07-06-2020

Hi all,

How has your week been? Hope it has been a good one, the weather has certainly cooled the last few days and the rain has been good for the new grass seed I am trying to grow. Fingers crossed on that. It's been a busy week of work this week and we haven't been out for our usual daily exercise over the past few days as a result. That made today's trip even more enjoyable, despite the drizzle. I hope like me you are looking forward to Tristan's service tomorrow morning, you will find it on our website as soon as it is uploaded.

I found the prayer time on Wednesday really useful and even managed to get the children involved briefly. I hope you found the concept useful as well. I would love to hear if you would like to join together again this Wednesday at 7, or if you'd rather we joined on Zoom, or we provided a video or something else. Your thoughts on that would be very welcome, for now lets aim for 7 and replicate last week. More details can be found on the Prayer page on our website. http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/Prayer This page also contains some ideas to help you pray at home.

Simon has drawn our attention to a prayer event taking place on Monday the 8th of June at 13:00. Over one Billion Roman Catholics will be joining in one minute of prayer and I would encourage you to join in that same event. Prayer is a powerful gift. God has given us a great capacity, the capacity to talk directly to him anywhere and anytime we want, more over we can hear his voice. There are lots of stories of the power of prayer in action. If you have one do share it with me and I will share it on our website.

We hope you will have a blessed and happy week, God bless you and fill you with his spirit of pure love.

Jon, Helen, Josh and Beth xx

A few other notices for you this week....

Doreen Sparey-Delacassa

I received this wonderful notice from Doreen Sparey-Delacassa this weeks, and with her permission I share it with you, should any of you remember her do let me know :-)

Back in 1972 my husband Roger and I moved to Plymstock and became members of your congregation. Revd Charles Holgate was the minister then. It was an exciting time of great growth and action. My eldest son was baptised there in spring 1975 (April?) and then the navy moved us on. Therefore I was very thrilled to be asked by MWIB to lead your worship next Sunday and am disappointed that I can't be there. Please accept my blessings and prayers. Maybe, when they 'let us out' I can drive down and see you - if I have a Sunday when I'm not preaching somewhere.

May God be with you all

Doreen

Revd D M Sparey-Delacassa

(I was just Sparey when I was there. Roger died in 1985.)

A little quiz for you from Helen....

There are 30 books of the bible in this paragraph. Can you find them? This is a most remarkable puzzle. It was found by a gentleman in an airplane seat pocket on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu, keeping him occupied for hours. He enjoyed it so much, he passed it on to some friends. One friend from Illinois worked on this while fishing from his john boat. Another friend studied it while playing his banjo. Elaine Taylor, a columnist friend, was so intrigued by it she mentioned it in her weekly newspaper column. Another friend judges the job of solving this puzzle so involving, she brews a cup of tea to help her nerves. There will be some names that are really easy to spot. That’s a fact. Some people, however, will soon find themselves in a jam, especially since the book names are not necessarily capitalised. Truthfully, from answers we get, we are forced to admit it usually takes a minister or a scholar to see some of them at the worst. Research has shown that something in our genes is responsible for the difficulty we have in seeing the books in this paragraph. During a recent fundraising event, which featured this puzzle, the Alpha Delta Phi lemonade booth set a new record. The local paper, The Chronicle, surveyed over 200 patrons who reported that this puzzle was one of the most difficult they had ever seen. As Daniel Humana humbly puts it, “The books are all right here in plain view hidden from sight.” Those able to find all of them will hear great lamentations from those who have to be shown. One revelation that may help is that books like Timothy and Samuel may occur without their numbers. Also, keep in mind, that punctuation and spaces in the middle are normal. A chipper attitude will help you compete really well against those who claim to know the answers. Remember, there is no need for a mad exodus. There really are 30 books of the bible lurking somewhere in this paragraph waiting to be found. God bless.

Courier

AH YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL!

Hello, everyone, hope you are all well and coping fairly well with the present situation. A small

“Courier” will reach you soon, but we are looking to having a regular issue when things get more

normal. Before “lockdown” we were looking to have a feature for VE Day, but events overtook us.

We did though, have an interview with our two veterans, Ivor and Bill which were in the last

publication. We cannot let such an important anniversary pass without some sort of recognition. It is

therefore intended to go ahead with our original plan and we need your help. Please think about

letting us know these three things. On the day it was announced that the war was over 1) where you

were 2) what you were doing there 3) how you were told the news. There may not be many of you

who remember, but we would all love to hear your experiences of that special day. If you need help

with writing it we can arrange that. Please send, or contact Liz or myself with your contributions.

Keep safe, keep healthy, keep smiling and look forward to when we can be together again.

Jean

Contact Details

07884 232829

01752 480319

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https://www.facebook.com/ElburtonMethodist

https://www.facebook.com/PDMethodist

https://ww.elburtonmethodist.org.uk

Please remember you can get these notices via our notices blog on this page of our website: http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/index.php/notices-blog so if you don't get this email do check there, anytime.

From Brenda

Brenda has sent me to documents to share with you, and I’d like to do those by sharing scanned copies via our website. So please find those documents on the links below…

http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/Notices/Brenda3.png

http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/Notices/Brenda2.png

Services

You can find all our services on our Church website here….

http://www.elburtonmethodist.org.uk/index.php/video-services

Re-opening the Building

Simon and the stewards have been in discussion around the question of re-opening our building for worship. Many of us are longing for the day when we will be able to do so, but equally appreciate the need for caution at these times. EMCC has decided that we do not think opening our building makes sense until September, at the earliest. Clearly we will continue to seek advice from government and the connexion.

This will doubtless be disappointing for many, but the decision is based on the need to protect all of those in our Church and community. I would emphasize our Church is not closed. In fact, our Church is fully active, but in new ways. We are still the Church of Christ, just a little dispersed.

Please do let me know if you know of others who would like to receive these notices or our on-line services. Equally please let us know also if folks are not receiving Simon’s weekly notes.

For now our building remains closed, except for the weekly maintenance visit and when it re-opens new procedures and processes will doubtless be needed.

JAM & IMPACT

Please do remember these both take place via Zoom each Sunday at 10:30. Please contact me for joining details.

Getting Help

Rachel has shared with me the details of how you can get help from the NHS responders if you need to do so, here are the details...

NHS Responders can be contacted for shopping, collection of medicines and driving to hospital appointments. They can be contacted between 8am and 8pm on 08081963646 Find out more on Portal for NHS Volunteer Responders | Royal Voluntary Service

Thy Kingdom Come

In this week's service we made us of some of the Thy Kingdom Come resources. TKC suggests 5 activities Churches can do to pray. One of them is agreeing a time when we will all pray for a few minutes and optionally follow the guidance in the TKC document. If you think it's a good idea we could start one week day evening next week perhaps? Thoughts welcome.

Here is the website.

https://www.thykingdomcome.global/stories/5-ways-your-family-and-church-can-be-involved-years-thy-kingdom-come

Coffee Mornings

Also do remember we have our coffee morning hosted by Denise, every Saturday at 10:30 am. So there is still lots going on at EMCC.

Performing Arts Mission

As mentioned in our service today you can find out more about the Performing Arts Mission here on the Facebook page ….

https://www.facebook.com/performingartsmission