Physical church: staying safe

Our physical services have restarted. Mark has written a blog piece which is available here with everything you need to know. Some headlines:

• We can fit 75 people in the building, and will need to turn people away once we're full - sorry. (Last week we said 30 but this has been corrected since.)
• Don't come to church if anyone in your house has a temperature, persistent cough, loss of taste or smell, or if you're shielding and have been given medical advice not to be in public meetings.
• Please observe social distancing and stay 2m away from other households.
• You must sanitise your hands on arrival.
• There's a one-way system: everyone enters via York Road and exits via Mount Hermon Road.
• We have no Bibles or refreshments in church, so please bring your own.
• Our welcomers/stewards will register you when you arrive. We'll need contact details for anyone who's not on the SMOB address list.
• You may want to wear a mask but these are not compulsory.
• There's no singing in church; we will have songs on screen.
• There are no groups for children or young people, so if you bring them, please bring something for them to do. Weekly resources for them continue to be shared by our team.
• We'll be sharing Communion, distributing bread only, and taking appropriate precautions.
• The service is being live-streamed online, so if you're in the building you may be seen online. The recording will be available for 24 hours, with just parts like the sermon left up after that.

Please pray for all of us as we meet together in person again and are online too.

Sunday services online

This Sunday we have a live stream of the service at 10.30am available on our Facebook page or our website here: https://stmaryofbethany.org.uk/services. You don't need to be a Facebook member to watch.

The Church Office is back

Jess is back covering the Church Office Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.30am-12.30pm. She is working remotely most of the time, but can arrange to see personal callers - please call or email first. The phone and email continue to be covered Monday to Friday during office hours. This means that Jess is working part-time and Sharon remains on furlough until the end of August, although we can review this before that if necessary.

This week on the blog...

...Mark's reflections on how the first service back in church felt. Visit our team's blog here.

July's Prayer Diary is out now

Pray with the SMOB family every day with our July Prayer Diary, in its handy print-it-yourself format. Download one here.

Online prayer meetings

We are praying together at 9am Monday-Friday on Zoom. You can join us by following this link.
Here are some instructions on how to download and use Zoom. You don't need a zoom account to join a meeting and you don't have to download the program either.

Foodbank collection on Sunday 26th July 

There will be a Foodbank collection on Sunday July 26th, from 12-2 pm. Please bring any of the following to the church car park:
Spam, brown sauce, chocolate, teabags 40s and 80s, tinned potatoes, cereal but not porridge.
Please note there is no drop off on Saturdays now and we won’t be having a collection in August. We shall restart in September. Once again the Foodbank is very grateful for all your generosity.

Shopping online and helping SMOB for free

A big "thank you!" to those who shopped online in June through easyfundraising. Your activity has raised £46.60 in June for SMoB. This income is very welcome during these uncertain times. Nick Mendham.

As all of us are probably shopping online more we thought it was worth highlighting a couple of ways you can help St Mary's at no extra cost to yourself.

1. Easy fundraising. Using a free and easy app, you can collect donations for us every time you shop online at many retailers, with Easy Fundraising. It’s a really easy way to help us raise funds and we’d really appreciate your help so please register to support us at: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/stmaryofbethany/ – It’s fundraising for FREE!



2. Amazon. You can also help us when shopping through amazon, follow this link to setup SMOB as your amazon smile charity: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1128813-0 then use smile.amazon.co.uk to shop with amazon, if you use the app on your phone you can also setup your smile settings there so all purchases help SMOB. 

New Wine Breaks Out online 30 July - 3 Aug

New Wine United is online this year from 30 July - 3 Aug with a full programme for all ages. We would normally have a group going from church; this is a perfect opportunity to get the New Wine experience without the camping, rain etc! Find more information and a programme here.

Listen to Mark's gospel

One of our homegroups has recorded the whole of Mark's gospel, which is now available here. Do listen and pray as you follow our current sermon series in Mark.

Collect used stamps and greetings cards for church

SMOB has collections for used stamps (which contribute towards mission in the Middle East) and greetings cards (which we recycle for use with CAMEO). Please save them up and bring them to church when you're allowed to!

Free meals for those in need

Foodwise is now feeding local people each week with freshly prepared meals from their new base at St Andrew's Goldsworth Park. If you want to refer anyone to this service, or can volunteer to help cook or deliver food, please go to their website.