Dear Friends
I hope this letter finds you well. Hopefully we are all now moving forward as we slowly emerge from a time of lockdown. At present in the Felixstowe Mission Area we have on offer three acts of Worship per week.
- On Sundays, 11 am – 12 noon @ Trinity.
- Followed in the afternoon by a 4 pm Service at Kirton either in the garden or in the Chapel. For the last two weeks we have held a Service of Holy Communion following Methodist Guidelines and both times the Service has been very well attended.
- On Thursdays at Seaton Road, the Church is open from 10 am to noon, with a Morning Prayer Service offered from 10.30 – 11.00. I am grateful to the Rev’d Jo Jacobs who is currently jointly leading this time with myself. If any of our other supernumerary Ministers would like to lead an occasional session, this would be much appreciated, just let me know.
In September a further opportunity for Worship and Bible study will be offered as a Zoom meeting by me, further details to follow shortly.
On Saturday August 29th from 11am – 4pm there will be a range of stalls set up in the Manse Garden. Keeping to social distancing rules it will be possible to enter by the side gate of the Manse and leave your donations for the items in the box on each stall. All money raised will be going towards our Circuit Assessment for the individual Churches in the Felixstowe Mission Area.
I will closely monitor the numbers coming, but I don’t think we will have an issue as open-air Markets have been permitted by the Government for some weeks now. Do come if you can and support our local Methodist Churches.
On Bank Holiday, Monday the 31st August, I will be doing a sponsored Run which will encompass Kirton, Trimley, Seaton Road and Trinity churches. A sponsorship form is attached to this letter (Download by clicking here) , again any money raised will be going towards our Circuit Assessments. If you wish to sponsor me, the easiest way would be to make a cheque out for your individual Church or you could make a donation at the Open-Air Market at the Manse on Saturday 29th. A Donation Box will be available.
At present I am also running a 10.00 Zoom coffee morning each Saturday for 30 minutes. Not many people have joined the meeting so far, it may be that you are all “Zoomed out” with other meetings. I will continue with this for now, but review it regularly.
If you don’t feel able to enter a Church building just yet, maybe coming to the Manse garden will help you in this time of transition. We are all at different stages and we respect each other’s differing needs as the Body of Christ.
The set Epistle reading for this coming Sunday 23rd August is Romans 12 v 1-8. A reading all about transformation in Christ and respecting each other’s different gifts and talents. In this reading Paul emphasises the great value of generosity, diligence compassion and cheerfulness.
May God in the richness of his grace and Mercy help us all to nurture and develop such attributes.
God Bless Rev’d Diane