Weekly News

Dear all

This Sunday there is one onsite service of Holy Communion at St Mary's, Chieveley at 11am. I will attempt to live stream the service but, if this fails, can I recommend the Diocesan service to be found via the ‘Church at Home’ section of the Diocesan website.

The videos for all benefice services can be found on the benefice website, YouTube, and Facebook. As always, subtitles will be available.

For those who are missing Evensong can I recommend the services being broadcast on Radio 3? Each Wednesday at 3.30pm and repeated on the following Sunday at 3.00pm (with occasional variations in timing) are some excellent sung services to listen and join with. They are also available on the BBC ’Sounds’ App/website following the Wednesday broadcast.

If you are coming to a service taking place indoors in one of the churches, please be aware that we will be operating under fairly tight conditions and in order to help with planning and logistics you will need to book a place - let me know by email or phone if you are intending to join us. Please also note the requirement to wear face coverings in church.

In the days to come we have the following services:
3/1 - 9.30am - Eucharist, Chieveley
3/1 - 11.00am - Eucharist, Boxford
3/1 - 6.00pm - Evening Prayer, Peasemore
10/1 - 8.30am - Holy Communion, Oare
10/1 - 9.30am - Eucharist, Winterbourne
10/1 - 11.00am - Morning Prayer, Stockcross
10/1 - 11.00am - Eucharist, Boxford
10/1 - 4.00pm - Evening Prayer, Beedon

Watch this space for further announcements about services .

We now have six churches in the benefice open for private prayer. The details are:
Beedon - Sundays (10am-12pm ), Wednesdays (2pm- 4pm)
Boxford - Sundays 10am-4pm
Chieveley - Wednesdays (11am-12pm)
Farnborough – by arrangement with the churchwardens
Peasemore - Open every day as previously
West Ilsley - Sundays (9.30am-6pm)

We are not yet able to offer general opening for Oare, Stockcross or Winterbourne, but please contact the Rector for details if you would like access to any of the churches in the benefice outside the above hours to discuss availability.

Also included in this along with the Weekly Sheet we have a sermon from Douglas for Christmas 1- The Impact of the Incarnation and a sheet with notes on the Saints' days of the week. Also there is a copy of the Diocesan course book for the coming term. There are some excellent courses on offer so please do have a look.

Finally, the current issues of the Benefice Magazine and the Diocesan Magazine are available here.

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