St John of Jerusalem

Collect & Readings for 24 January

Collect & Readings

Order of Service for 24 January

Order of Service

Sermon for 24 January

Shana's Sermon

Dear all,

I wrote during the week to explain that with a communally heavy heart, the Parish Council decided on Tuesday that church will need to be done in different ways for the next few weeks as the church building will not be open. If you would like to read why that decision was made, please see the email I sent out during the week which I've also included at the bottom of this email.

Here are a few different things which you might like to follow up tomorrow as a way of celebrating the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany:

A. We have recorded an act of worship today (Saturday) which will be available on our church YouTube channel from 6am tomorrow (Sunday 24th).

You will find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFC-cFhoROFFMNrA2HAz-cw?view_as=subscriber

B. At 10am tomorrow, do join us for Zoom Church if you would like to. We will start Morning Prayer at 10.05am and once that has finished there will be a chance to catch up with one another. If you would like a link, please get in touch.

C. I'm very aware that not everyone will want to be part of Zoom church, or their computers way not be set up for that. If it's helpful, the readings and the text of the sermon will be available here from early tomorrow:
https://www.sjoj.co.uk/
If you would like to be part of Zoom church but don't know how to use it, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

D. Aware that some of our church members are not on email, we have produced a booklet with the Collect and Readings for the Sundays up until 14 February and sent it out by post. If that's something you would like to use at home, please click on the link below:
https://mcusercontent.com/f1aed0c9db5318c18134049a0/files/bcc83954-09bf-46e8-bb81-a80863823c12/Jan_FebBooklet.pdf

E. You may remember that an email was sent out recently about the 'Week of Prayer for Christian Unity'. We have had a good week of services hosted by different churches. The last two are this afternoon at 3pm and on Monday at 6pm. If you would like join either of those on Zoom, please get in touch.

Please can I encourage you to reach out to other church members mid-week if you're able to, especially if you sense that there are particular people in need of support. Needless to say it's a challenging time for everyone and it would be great if we could all make an extra effort to support one another, especially during this period when we are not meeting in person. One recent ray of light is that I have been thrilled to hear that there are some church members who have already received their vaccine. I look forward to hearing about many more people in the next few weeks and months.

Every blessing to you all.

with love and prayers,

Andrew




Mid-week email

Dear all,

I wanted to write with an update about getting together in person for worship at St John of Jerusalem.

The Parish Council met this week and the decision was made that for now we will keep to recording worship and sending it out via the church YouTube channel, running Zoom church and sending out booklets to people who don't have access to email. We will review this decision in four weeks' time. If there is a significant change in our sense of how things are going with the pandemic in this part of London before those four weeks are up, we'll review the decision earlier.

A number of factors has informed this decision:

1. The enormous strain that our local hospitals are under. We have members of the congregation working at the Homerton Hospital and at Whipps Cross, so we have first hand information about conditions in those two hospitals. The BBC website Coronavirus page has some heartbreaking accounts of what's happening at the London Hospital right now. We've had members of the congregation with Covid. It's not impossible that we could end up adding to those numbers and we want to avoid that.

2. The fact that the new strain of the virus has spread so much faster than its predecessor in London and the South East, and now throughout the country.

3. Specific pleas from the Mayor of London and the Mayor of Hackney to churches to remain closed. The Mayor of London has declared a 'major incident', based in part on an estimate that 1 in 30 Londoners has the virus.

4. A direct appeal from our MP, Meg Hillier, herself a committed Christian, for churches to remain closed. Some quotations from a longer letter to us:

"There are serious concerns about communal worship... The Mayor of Hackney has advised faith leaders to close to communal worship, advice endorsed by the Director of Public Health in Hackney.

I understand that many have now taken the voluntary decision to close for communal worship. For those who haven't, I urge you to consider the clear advice you are receiving from public health professionals... Please consider carefully your own local responsibility and the very real impact that Covid could have on your worshippers.

With the NHS in London and locally under such pressure that the Mayor of London has called a major incident, the more we can do to keep people at home, out of circulation and prevent the virus from spreading, the more chance we have that the NHS won't be overwhelmed and those who do need life saving treatment will be able to get it in a timely way to the standard that we expect."

5. A general sense that at a time when everyone is being told to stay at home we should do the same, even in relation to something that is so precious to us.

I send this out, of course, with a very heavy heart. I know that closing the church hits some harder than others. I think especially of people living on their own. I think of everyone's spiritual and mental health. I think about the sadness of not being able to receive Communion. I know for sure that some church members will disagree with the decision that we should be closed for now.

One consolation is that things are changing. While death rates are alarmingly high and our hospitals are clearly under huge strain, case numbers have been coming down over the last few days. The vaccination programme is underway and I am thrilled that some of our church members have already received their vaccine. I feel confident that the situation will improve, even though we don't know exactly when.

Do please support other church members in any way you can - I know full well that this will be your natural instinct. Join us on Zoom, or listen to our worship at home, or use the readings that will be on the parish website (www.sjoj.co.uk), or create a quiet moment in the day for your own prayers - far from the computer. We most certainly don't all have to do the same thing - but we can be bound together in prayer, and by the power the Holy Spirit.

Knowing that I was writing today, Shana has written a message to you all which you will find below.

Every blessing,

Andrew

Message from Shana

Friends - Peace be with you!

At the time of writing, it has been 7 months since I have been with you here at St John of Jerusalem and together we have now entered our 3rd lockdown.

Even in these strange times I have enjoyed getting to know you, worshipping, and praying for one another digitally and in person.

For those I have not met, please know that you are in my prayers and I look forward to meeting you.

I write to briefly update you on one of our church projects that we pray will meet the needs of our community. After some prayer and careful reflection, we have decided to explore the need and importance of a foodbank for the community/our parish. I am continuing our research of the various models, the area of need and our capacity to help. I look forward to updating you with more in the coming weeks/month.

I look forward to the day when we can meet, pray and eat together. Until then, you will continue to be in my prayers, and I send very best wishes to you and all those you hold dear.

God Bless.

Shana.