Church at Home – 26 July 2020
Normal service resumed. Here is the recording of this morning’s Church at Home Sunday Worship for Swithland & Mountsorrel. Thank you to Olga for leading and Colin for preaching.
New Wine – United Breaks Out
Normally some of us would be off to the New Wine United Conference at about this time of year. Sadly this year both national gatherings have been cancelled. Instead, the conference is going online under the heading of United Breaks Out. Watch the video to find out a bit more about how we are getting involved here in Swithland:
United Breaks Out will run from the evening of Thursday 30th July through to Midday on Monday 3rd August. A full programme of events can be found here
If you want to know more, please head to the New Wine website: www.new-wine.org/breaksout
Church at Home – Sunday 5 July 2020
Here is this morning’s offering of Sunday Worship from the Churches in Swithland & Mountsorrel.
St Leonard’s to remain closed
The Parochial Church Council (PCC) of St Leonard’s Church met this week (1st July 2020) to consider the feasability of re-opening for public worship under the government’s guidlines which come into force on 4th July. After careful consideration, it was the view of the PCC that, for the time being, we would not be able to open for public worship in a way that can safely accommodate all those who would like to attend. Therefore, we will be remaining closed for both public worship and private prayer throughout the whole of July and August. The PCC will be meeting again in August to give further consideration to the matter with a view to re-opening in September.
During the continued closure we will, of course, be continuing with our daily online services of Sunday Worship and Morning Prayer. Information on accessing these services can be found on the events & services page of our website. https://stleonardsswithland.org/events/
We will be able to offer small weddings (with a maximum guest capacity of twenty). In order to safely accommodate these weddings, the Church building will be placed into 72 hour quarantine periods both before and after the wedding takes place.
We would like to thank the congregation and the community for their continue support of the church in these difficult and unprecedented times. As you can imagine, this has had an impact on our financial situation too and we would like to thank all those who have been able to contribute to the ongoing mission and ministry of the Church during the Covid pandemic. Further donations can be made by visiting our donation page. https://stleonardsswithland.org/donate/
Church at Home – 28 June 2020
This morning we remembered St Peter in our Sunday Worship for Swithland and Mountsorrel. I hope you enjoy the recording of our service. As always, the hymns have been omitted for copyright reasons.
Church at Home – 21 June 2020
This morning Revd Colin Resch led us in our Church at Home service of Sunday Worship on Zoom. He tackles a difficult passage of scripture. Here is the recording of the service. The hymns have been removed to avoid copyright issues.
Bell Ringing Customs and Traditions
An interesting evening looking into some of the customs and traditions surrounding bell ringing with particular interest in Leicester and Leicestershire featuring our very own Richard Bimson.
Church at Home – 14 June 2020
Here is this morning’s recording of our Sunday Worship. The service is led by Mrs Olga Harris and the preacher is Revd Darren Walker. Darren’s service reflects a little on the Black Lives Matter movement and is well worth a listen.
Church at Home – Trinity Sunday
Here is today’s recording of our Sunday Worship. In his preaching, Gary Lee unpacks something of the Trinity and encourages us in our belief of a triune God who loves us and has answers for us in these difficult times.
Are Churches really opening for prayer?
It was announced (without prior warning) in the late night news on Saturday 6th June, that Churches would be allowed to open for Private Prayer from Monday 15th June. and further guidance from the government will follow during the week. At the moment, our beautiful St Leonard’s Church remains closed under instructions given by the government, the Church of England and the Diocese of Leicester.
Assuming that the govermnent guidance is received by Wednesday/Thursday, the bishops will then need to issue Church and Diocesan guidance for local clergy and churchwardens to act upon. This will no doubt include risk assessments and appropriate measures for cleaning the Church and supervision of visitors.
Many of our regular congregation, because they’re good at living, fall into the more elderly category and several have underlying health conditions which require them to continue shielding for the time being. We are going to be short of the necessary volunteers required. It is worth bearing in mind that our Church is not normally open for private prayer during the week anyway. Why would we do so now, when the risk of covid19 still remains? Far better to find a quiet space in your own home or garden and establish a place for private prayer there than risk entering our Church building where there is the possiblity of cross contamination.
We are certainly looking forward to the time when the Church can be open for public worship, for weddings and funerals, but that time is not yet. Until that time, we will continue to meet together virtually and individually for prayer and worship. We will continue to pray for our communities in which we live and work. We will continue to read and study scripture online together and alone. We will continue to be the people of God loving and serving our neighbour. We will continue to be Church.
For the time being our building may remain closed, but the Church is still at work. God bless.