This Week

Dear all

This weekend, as we gather for worship (online or in church) we do so against the backdrop of very mixed emotions in our communities, the church and the wider world. In this benefice we are about to celebrate William’s Licensing as Associate Priest – and rightly so, but as we do so we mourn the death of Tina Lyle who was such an integral part of the church in Boxford and beyond. As we celebrate greater freedoms, we stand with those unable to join in the exercise of them; as we mourn the death of people we love, we celebrate new life among us or expected soon. The church is used to this dichotomy – a method of execution is the symbol of our hope and Christ’s triumph. This is why, even at the grave, we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

This Sunday our main service of Holy Communion will once again be recorded, this week at All Saints’, Farnborough. The video will be available from 8.30am on Sunday, streaming from that time and then available at any time later for you to use in your devotions at this link. Services of Prayer During the Day and Compline for Ordinary Time for each day of the week are also available. The videos for all these services can be found on the benefice website, YouTube, and Facebook. As always, subtitles will be available.

Opening the churches This week we will also be holding one church service. At 9.30am in St. Andrew’s, Boxford we will be holding a service of Holy Communion. We will be operating under fairly tight conditions and in order to help with planning and logistics on Sunday morning it would be useful if you could please let me know by email or phone if you are intending to join us. Please also be aware that we will need to keep a list of those present to help with 'track and trace' should the need arise.

Five churches in the benefice are open for private prayer: the details are:
Boxford - Sundays 10am (following the service this week)-4pm
Chieveley - Sundays (10am-12pm) and Wednesdays (4pm-6pm)
Farnborough - Wednesdays (12pm-6pm) and Sundays (11am-4pm)
Peasemore – Open every day as previously.
West Ilsley – Sundays (9.30am to 6pm)

Also included in this along with the Weekly Sheet we have a sermon from Douglas for Trinity 4 and a sheet with notes on the Saints' days of the week. There is also another edition of a free sheet from the Church Times.

I am going to be taking some annual leave shortly and to avoid the temptation of work during that period I would like to have the online worship ready to stream before then. To that end, if any of you would be willing to record bits of a service - preferably video but audio would be fine - and then email them to me then I will do the editing. If you can offer a reading or a prayer, please let me know (edownlandrector@gmail.com)

Please do still encourage others to keep in touch with what is going on by signing up to these updates just cut and paste the link to them in an email:
https://mailchi.mp/d58d3b280189/east-downland-sign-up

Very importantly, if there are any people who you know would like a hard copy of this then please print it off for them or let me know, and I’ll take care of it.

For now, as always, all the best, God bless, and keep safe

John