Dear friends in the Parish and Church Family of Brindle St James,

Good morning and a very warm welcome to our Mothering Sunday service from our beautiful St. James Church in Brindle today - by video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sZZZinbWT7g

If you have been following the news, you will be aware that the government guidelines changed with regards to our national response to the coronavirus. The recommendation now is that everyone should stop non-essential contact with others, and should avoid places like pubs, clubs, theatres, and other social venues. This does include churches and the Archbishops have written to say that all public worship will be suspended.

Our usual pattern of Sunday services and other mid-week gatherings must be put on hold. 

There will be no services at 9.00am, 9.15am or 10.30am on Sundays. The 7pm Evening Prayer on Wednesday during Lent is suspended. All church groups are suspended.

We intend to open the church for Private Prayer between the hours of 10am and 2pm each day of the week with effect from Monday 23rd March.

To recognise Mothering Sunday, the church will be open between 2pm and 4pm. To those who wish to use this opportunity, please do respect the social interaction criteria of keeping a safe distance from others, use of hand sanitisers and should you or members of your family have any symptoms of COVID 19 please self-isolate.

Please do continue to receive our weekly notices sheets as a download. Our weekly notices for the fourth week of Lent are here on this link.

For the present time, funerals, baptisms and weddings may proceed but under strict social interaction criteria. Each event will be risk assessed to ensure compliance.

What this means for us here at Brindle St. James' Church is that everything has to change, and yet nothing changes. We continue to be a community that is formed by God's unceasing love for us. We are still called to share God's heart and so in this period of time, we are going to be exploring new ways of being 'church'

We are all responding to this rapidly developing situation and we will be in touch with further details. We will use Social Media and 'A Church Near You'.

For those who cannot access these resources we will do our very best to keep in touch with you! 

To those members of our Parish Family who require a signature to support their application to Faith Schools, we are unable to do this during the time services are suspended. I have spoken to St. Michael's Church of England Academy and they are looking at how to make an exceptional provision for those children who are seeking admission in September 2021 and September 2022. They have noted the church services are suspended with effect from the 22nd March 2020.

The Archbishops are also inviting us to make Sunday 22nd March a day of prayer and action, and have encouraged us all to light a candle and put it in our windows at 7pm 'as a sign of solidarity and hope in the light of Christ that can never be extinguished.'

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Much love, 

David