Despite the ongoing restrictions, St Peter’s church will be holding its Harvest Festival service on Sunday 11th October at 10am.  It will look    different to previous years, as we won’t be able to have as many people in the congregation, and we are still not permitted to sing.  Even so it is an opportunity to thank God for his gifts to us all, and our many blessings.

We are unable to hold our community harvest lunch this year, because of the social distancing guidelines. However, any fresh food that is donated will be used by our senior citizens’ Tuesday lunch club, and any remaining tinned or dried food will be donated to either CAP Care in Wakefield which provides meals to the homeless, or St Catherine’s church food bank.

We will be serving refreshments after the service; people will be served where they are sat, rather than having to go up to the kitchen counter.

St Peter’s church is starting to welcome back some of its regular groups.  From September, Mini-Maestros children’s music classes will be     returning, along with the community choir, knit & natter and the lunch club. 

Next month, we hope the scouts will be returning, as well as Children’s Ark, the Rodillians choir, our coffee mornings and maybe the film club.  It will be a bit longer until the Rainbows and Brownies return, and the Alternative Care disabled adults’ drama group.

Before returning, all groups are having to think very carefully about their activities, and how to ensure social distancing and minimise risks to members.  It all takes a lot of planning, and St Peter’s church has produced some guidance for groups to help the process.

The “Rule of 6” didn’t bring any significant changes to Church services. Below is the advice from the Church of England:

Public worship can continue. There is an exemption that covers places of worship making it possible for more than six people to gather for acts of communal worship. However, it is not a blanket exemption. People must not be part of a group of more than six unless they are from the same household or support bubble. 

https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches

So we continue to meet in a COVID-19 secure way every Sunday at 10am.

Now we are back in our buildings for the Sunday Service we are adjusting our online services.

Every week either the service from St Paul’s or the service from St Peter’s will be filmed live and broadcast on the St Peter’s Facebook page.

There is now a service in both churches every Sunday.

We are also continuing our mid week online prayers at the following times:

Monday morning prayer at 9am with Glenn and Angela
Tuesday evening prayer at 9pm with Glenn and Angela
Wednesday morning prayer at 9am with Glenn and Angela
Wednesday evening prayer at 9pm with Vicky
Thursday evening prayer at 9pm with Glenn and Angela
Friday evening prayer at 9pm with Vicky

It was wonderful to have our first service since March in our church building and great to see so many people there.

Although we were sat apart from each other, it was lovely to be together and to worship. We are taking lots of sensible precautions to keep the risk as low as possible.

Remember that we do now have to wear a face covering to attend church services so please bring a face mask or scarf unless you are exempt.

• Sunday 23rd August, Trinity 11: Rev Glenn Coggins will be leading our service and preaching
• Sunday 30th August, Trinity 12: Rev David Teece will be leading our service and preaching

During the lockdown we are keeping updated with all the churches in our benefice using a new benefice website.

Our services will continue posting here and our facebook page remains our primary source for service and information in Stanley.

See this page for all updates