Dear friends,

Sittings in both Houses begin with prayers. In the House of Commons the Speaker’s Chaplain usually reads the prayers and the form of the main prayer is as follows:

“Lord, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her government, to Members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of your Spirit. May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind; so may your kingdom come and your name be hallowed. Amen.”

Please pray at this time for our Members of Parliament.

With love and my prayers,

James.

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For a PDF file of the Parish Magazine for this month please click the button below.

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Our weekly service times are:

Sunday 10:00am Eucharist
Tuesday 10:00am Morning Prayer (BCP)
Thursday 10:30am Holy Communion (BCP)

The weekly online service is now a livestream of our Sunday Morning Eucharist Service (please see below). It will continue to be made available to those who, for whatever reason, are unable to attend church.

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From Peter Lamb

My family and I thank everyone at St. Mary’s who sent their condolences following Carol’s death. We very much appreciated your thoughts, prayers, and attendance at her funeral.

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Autumn Concerts

This Autumn we are having a weekly series of Autumn organ recitals on Wednesdays, continuing with David Cook on November 3rd. Where Wednesday 10th coincides with our regular Monthly Lunchtime Concerts we will also be having the usual coffee and cake before the concert. The programme is as follows:

November 3rd: David Cook – Organ (All Hallows by the Tower)
November 10th: Keith Beniston – Organ & David Gladstone – Oboe (St John’s, Boxmoor)
(Coffee/tea and cake costing £2.50, served at the back of the Church from 11:30 onwards)
November 17th: Terence Atkins – Organ (St John the Baptist Parish Church, Chipping Barnet)
November 24th: Pavlos Trinitarias – Organ & Maryily Kritikou – Voice

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Coffee Mornings

another successful, happy morning was held by Pam & Vic with the usual chat & lots of laughter. 16 people attended with quite a few others sending apologies. I think about everyone won a raffle prize!! & there were some lovely things on the Bring & Buy table together with lovely cakes which soon disappeared. We managed to raise £125.00 & with Gift Aid added that will come to £156.25 so a big thank you to Pam & Vic for doing this.

Our next morning will be held by Gill & David Bird on the 16th November so please make a note of that date in your diary.

Around this time of the year I normally try to arrange the schedule for the following year – i.e. 2022 but I have now lost 10 people who used to help before SO I would be delighted to hear from some new people to come forward – it is for your church after all. If you can help please contact me on ritaontour@gmail.com.

thanks to everyone – Rita.

Tuesday 16th November – Gill & David Bird
Tuesday 21st December – Rita Barker

Best wishes to all – keep safe/keep smiling & keep carrying on – God bless – love & thanks Rita

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Harvest Festival and Gift Day

We have raised an amazing £5,755 which is going towards a defibrillator and the much-needed repairs to the Choir Vestry and Small Kitchen. A big thankyou to everyone for your generosity.

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Advent Carol Service Sunday 28th November 6:30pm

We are hoping to hold our Advent Carol Service once again this year. Please make a note of the date and time.

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Fellowship

Postponed to November 17th – ‘20 questions for James, our vicar’ Please write your question on a slip of paper and pass to the chairperson on the day.
December 15th Fellowship Christmas Lunch at Enfield Golf Club starting at the earlier time of 1:00pm.

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Livestream Service

The PCC has agreed to livestream the Sunday Morning Eucharist Service on a trial basis for three months. This is not a replacement for attending the Sunday morning Eucharist as I’m sure we will all agree. We are a family at St Mary Magdalene, a family who cherishes our communal worship on a Sunday, an online service cannot compare with the joy of singing hymns and breaking bread together in one place.

So, who and what is an online service for? If anything, the lockdowns have taught us not only how precious our time together on a Sunday morning is but also there are those in our community who, for whatever reason, are unable to attend on a Sunday. There are also those who are looking for a church or want to discover more about Christianity and this is an opportunity to share our faith and form of worship with those who might want to see what it is like at St Mary Magdalene before they walk through our door. So, it is pastoral and a form of outreach.

We are only filming what is going on at the front of church. For safeguarding reasons no one is being filmed taking Communion and no children are being filmed when they go up to the front of church.

What does this mean for the online audio service we have been running for the past 17 months? It has provided a lifeline to many during this time with many visitors weekly but is replaced by the livestream service which is available now. We hope it will also be as well received and provide a stronger link with St Mary Magdalene going forward. The link for the livestream page is https://stmarymagdalene.church/livestream-service/ the Service for the coming Sunday is listed on this page on a Friday. The page includes a video that will go live at approximately 9:55am on Sunday, it also has the words to the hymns, collects and readings and has a downloadable service booklet.

The service will not only be livestreamed on the Sunday morning, but it will also continue to be available on the website and our YouTube channel.

Which leads onto…

Website

If you follow the links to the livestream service you will discover a new look to the website. I have been working in conjunction with James to present a fresh, new look for our online presence. The ‘old’ website was created towards the end of 2017 and went live early 2018. A lot has happened in the world of web design in the past 3 to 4 years, I felt it was looking a little tired and time for a new ‘fresh’ look. It has been rebuilt from the ground up. There are more things to do, we hope to upload some more recent photos and possibly short videos at the top of some of the pages showing who we are. The domain remains the same: https://stmarymagdalene.church and I have tried to lay the new look website out in an orderly and logical manner that is easy to use.

I welcome your comments, thoughts, and constructive criticism on both the livestreaming and website.

God bless, Ken