Latest news from St Mary's

The latest news from St Mary's is below, use this link if you would like a RSS feed of our news.

Living in Love and Faith

We launched this resource to help us think about issues of identity and sexuality at our recent Homegroup Central meeting. You can access all the material as an individual at churchofengland.org/llf by signing up for a free account. Have a look, explore, download the book, watch the videos and listen to the podcasts. The videos are a good starting point and can all be watched in less than 90 minutes. If you would like to do the LLF Course as part of an existing homegroup or a new group, contact the Office, Bekah or Sarah.

Vicar Mark is going on leave...

...on 28 May, returning 13 September. You can read more about this in his blog post here.

Church wide Questionnaire - Emerging from Lockdown

As we emerge from lockdown and get back to what will be a new normal, we would be very grateful for your responses to our church-wide questionnaire. Please follow the link below and have your say. Many thanks.
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=3LRnzbo3mE-nc_kJktUY5vbAc59L6R5Nhxlj24drh_ZUQUc1NlZQWEhTQThZUTUzWEVFVUVNMU9JTC4u

Alice's Greatest Adventure Trail

Caffein Hideout (1)
Join us for an adventure trail on Friday 21 May! The trail is open to people of all ages, not just families. Slots available every 5 minutes from 8.50pm-9.10pm and they are going fast, so make sure to book as soon as you can!
Although the event is free there is a suggested donation of £5-£10 per group.

Family services

We are inviting all our families to a Sunday afternoon Family Service on 20th June and the 18th July. Both these services will start at 2.30pm and we would love to see as many of our families as possible for these services, so please do put the dates in your diary.
Booking for the June Service will open on 22nd May via this link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/family-service-tickets-155620183157. Love and blessings Kate and Tina

Flat Roof recovering

Work on the flat roof has started and is scheduled to last 4 weeks to Friday 4 June - subject to the weather. There is some scaffolding to support a guard rail. There will be no restriction on the use of our three entrance doors.
A compound for contractors' equipment is in the car park, outside the office door so please park on the left-hand side of the car park. There will be no Sunday working.
The toilets nearest the offices will be out of action for part of the time, please use the toilets near the kitchen.
If you have any queries before or during the work, please contact John Brooks (and not the contractors).

Looking for a cleaner

We are looking for someone to clean the Church building, 6 hours a week.
Our previous cleaner worked on Friday mornings when the building is quieter ensuring it looks its best on Sundays, this is flexible around events like school services, working the same hours every week which gives time to tackle less-regular tasks during school holiday times.
We are open to a mutually acceptable pattern of work.
If you are interested or know someone who is interested, contact Office Manager, Jess McNutt, either by email at office@stmaryofbethany.org.uk for further information.

Physical services

We have restarted our physical 10.30am services!
Our services will still be streamed online via Youtube, which is easier to manage for our tech team and more accessible for people who don't like to use Facebook. Some people have struggled to find the services; if this is the case then it will help you to subscribe to the St Mary of Bethany feed - this will make our content appear more prominently. For one-to-one tech help, email us here.

8am Communion

Our physical monthly 8am Communion service has restarted and the next one is 6 June!

Prayer

We are still praying together at 9am Monday-Friday on Zoom. You can join us by following this link.
SMOB has started a prayer list. We will pray for everyone on the list each Sunday in our intercessions, and during the week in Morning Prayer. You can add someone by first name, full name or just an initial; you don't need to give us any details. We will pray for people for three weeks and then ask whether they need to continue. To add someone to the list, please contact the Church Office.
May Prayer diary is out now! Download your copy from here. You can download a copy of the Diocesan Calendar of Prayer here.

Shopping online and with Amazon can help SMOB

A huge thank you to everyone who raised donations through easyfundraising and AmazonSmile. It would be so helpful if you could be mindful of the benefit to St Mary's of raising funds in this way, as you start to shop.

We have two ways that you can help SMOB when you shop online which are at no 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/

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 their app on your phone you can also setup your smile settings there so all purchases you make on your phone help SMOB, check under "Settings" -> "AmazonSmile" in the app.

Thy Kingdom Come

Thy Kingdom Come started on Thursday and we are excited to share the Thy Kingdom Come app. This is a wonderful discipleship tool for all ages, with content for adults, youth and children, created to spiritually nourish and encourages prayer during the eleven days of Thy Kingdom Come.
All of the key resources are featured on this free app and is a wonderful and accessible way for individuals and families to journey through this time of prayer.
You can download the app from the google play store here and the app store here.

The Useful Wood Company – can you help?

A social enterprise company based in Woking are looking for volunteers. We are looking for people of 18 or over, from any background to help our customers in the wood store. You don’t need any previous experience and can work part-time. All potential volunteers are invited for an initial conversation at our premises to find out what we can do for you, and what you can do for us. Contact details email info@usefulwood.org or telephone 01483 714362.