Tori is being licensed as Assistant Curate to our benefice at All Saints, Mattishall on Tuesday 9th May in a service starting at 18:00. The Bishop of Lynn, Jane Steen, and the Archdeacon of Lynn, Catherine Dobson, will be with us. Do please come along to support Tori and her family as they start their life with us in our benefice.

There will be refreshments afterwards, so do stay for a while afterwards if you can.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

One of ASM's prayer partners is Open Doors, an organisation that supports persecuted Christians around the world. North Korea is generally recognised as the most difficult place in the world to be a Christian. Below are some details of support given to some of those fleeing that country to China and some of the major problems that still face them there.

www.opendoorsuk.org/news/latest-news/north-korea-refugee-interview

Open Doors, one of ASM's mission partners, has just published its World Watch List for 2023 at www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/world-watch-list. If you click on any of the country names you will get to see something of the cost of being a Christian in that country. May this inspire us to help our brothers and sisters through Open Doors itself or in whatever other way we can.

Diocesan Digital Advent Calendar 2022

Transformed by Christ: Prayerful, Pastoral, Prophetic

This coming Advent Sunday (27^th November), we move into the second year of our Diocesan Vision and so the second of our three ‘P’ words – Pastoral – becomes our focus.

To tie in with this, 2022’s diocesan digital (but downloadable) Advent Calendar explores pastoral care, each ‘window’ celebrating a different way of reaching out in loving concern. Contributors have been drawn from all over the diocese and showcase a wide range of ways of responding to many sorts of need… Running a school uniform bank, hosting refugees, visiting the lonely, and offering warm spaces to those who can’t afford to heat their homes are just a few of the 28 different examples of pastoral care which come under the spotlight... 

It's easy to subscribe at http://dofn.org/advent and then, every morning of Advent, each new calendar entry will ping into your email inbox. We hope this year’s calendar will provide a rich and inspiring way of setting out together on our journey into deepening the pastoral life of this diocese. Please encourage everyone in your faith community (and perhaps those on its fringes too?) to subscribe.

Susanna Gunner

Diocesan Adviser in Spirituality and Discipleship

As we celebrate the life and mourn the loss of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and pray for King Charles, our services on Sunday will be reflecting those themes.

The service times will stay as expected, but Hockering and East Tuddenham, which were not expecting services this week will have them. For each service we have invited members of the parish council for that village to attend, and of course will welcome any from our communities who wish to join us in commemoration.

The service times are:

Please note that the service time for Mattishall remains at 10:00 this week.

The churches will be open daily for prayers, people to come in and reflect and for people to sign the condolence sheets. Please do encourage people from our village to come in and use the churches for this purpose, as the Queen’s death has touched many people, often in ways that they were not expecting.

It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Parish churches will be open for prayer and books of condolence will be opened tomorrow Friday 9th September. Other arrangements will be announced in due course.

Please pray for the King, the Queen Consort, the members of the Royal Family and our nation.

The Village Green service will now be at All Saints, Mattishall. Still starting at 10:30am.

The Rootham family have created a wonderful video of the carol "O come, O come, Emmanuel". Sit back and enjoy... and worship with them.

Click here

Bishop Graham has written a letter to us all asking us to continue to wear masks in services, including when we are singing, and to do lateral flow tests beforehand.

https://www.dioceseofnorwich.org/news/latest-covid-guidance-a-pastoral-letter-from-bishop-graham/

I have added a resource which gives details of what is needed when requesting something to be added to this website. Details can be found HERE.

A simple service of Remembrance for HRH The Duke of Edinburgh is being held at All Saints, Mattishall on Friday 16^th April at 6pm, the time many such services are happening across the country. This service is open to all, but we hope will be of relevance to anyone who has felt the Duke’s loss personally or who has been influenced by his life of service and charity work. 

The service will include a few personal tributes to Prince Philip. If you have any that you would to be considered for inclusion, please pass them onto to Mark. 

It is with sadness that we announce the death of Prince Phillip, and offer our condolences and prayers to Her Majesty The Queen and all the Royal Family.

A special prayer for the Prince.

God of our lives,
we give thanks for the life of Prince Philip,
for his love of our country,
and for his devotion to duty.
We entrust him now to your love and mercy,
through our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you wish to offer your condolences you can do so here: Remembering his Royal Highness Prince Philip.

Local arrangements will announced as soon as they have been made.

The Roothams have created another video of a worship song. This time it is "King of Kings" and can be seen HERE. Do take a look. Enjoy it and worship with them!

Dear all,
With the next stage of lockdown easing due on 17th May, we have only planned services up until 16th May. From the Sunday after Easter, we will be having services in 2 churches each Sunday (one at 9.00 and one at 10.30) as well as continuing with the Zoom service at 10.00. Current plans are as follows:

Please note that we intend to have the annual Parker Sermon service in All Saints, Mattishall at 18.00 on Sunday 9th May. More details on that later.

Over the next couple of months we have our annual meetings around the benefice. Each parish has its own meeting, when churchwardens are elected together with other lay people who serve as part of the leadership of their parish and the wider church. There are two annual meetings, often run together, one which just elects the churchwardens, called the Annual Parochial Meeting (APM) and the other that looks at the financial health of the church, and conducts the other elections, called the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM).

Covid-19 restrictions means that we will be doing things differently this year. For the parishes of East Tuddenham, Mattishall, North Tuddenham and Yaxham, we will be running them online using Zoom. For Hockering and Welborne we are splitting the two parts onto two dates - the APM after a church service and the APCM in May.

The official notices are uploaded onto the resources section of this website here, but here is the summary of what they say:

East Tuddenham: APM & APCM on Tue 20 Apr 21 at 19:30 at tinyurl.com/MATV-APCM. There are elections for 2 churchwardens and 6 PCC members.

Hockering: APM on Sun 18 Apr 21 at 09:00 at St. Michael's, Hockering & APCM on Wed 19 May 21 at 19:30 at St. Michael's, Hockering. There are elections for 2 churchwardens, 5 PCC members, and 1 Deanery Synod representatives.

Mattishall: APM & APCM on Wed 21 Apr 21 at 19:30 at tinyurl.com/MATV-APCM. There are elections for 2 churchwardens, 6 PCC members, and 3 Deanery Synod representatives.

North Tuddenham: APM & APCM on Thu 22 Apr 21 at 19:30 at tinyurl.com/MATV-APCM. There are elections for 2 churchwardens, 4 PCC members, and 1 Deanery Synod representatives.

Welborne: APM on Sun 25 Apr 21 at 09:00 at All Saints, Welborne  & APCM on Mon 17 May 21 at 19:30 at All Saints, Welborne. There are elections for 2 churchwardens, 6 PCC members, and 1 Deanery Synod representatives.

Yaxham: APM & APCM on Mon 19 Apr 21 at 19:30 at tinyurl.com/MATV-APCM. There are elections for 2 churchwardens, 5 PCC members, and 1 Deanery Synod representatives.

Churchwardens are elected every year, but because we missed out elections last year at all the parishes except East Tuddenham, we have elections for Deanery Synod Reps and two years worth of PCC members as well. If you would like to consider election for any of these important roles, or would like to suggest to someone else you know that they consider it, please find nomination forms also in the resources section of the website here.

Everyone in the benefie should have received their Easter booklet by now, but a downloadable copy is available from HERE too.

The last year and a bit have been hard for many, many people. Even for some of us oldies (I’m pushing 63 myself), it has been a time unlike any other we can remember. The huge change since early 2020 has been a shock to the system. Early on things were changing rapidly, but as the months wore on, so many of us became tired, so very tired. Now, there is hope that the darkest days are generally behind us, though thousands upon thousands of families have lost loved ones and many who have had Covid-19 are still struggling with ongoing symptoms. For some, such difficulties are still to come.

So where has God been in all this? For Christians, this sort of question is difficult to answer. I don’t think any Christian can honestly say they have the complete answer.

However, we do know someone who does and it is someone who has suffered immense pain and suffering himself. The bible teaches that Jesus was “in very nature God”, yet was born as a human being into this world where there was so much pain and suffering. He knew and knows what it is to suffer.

There was a state-sponsored attempt on his life as a baby, he was a refugee as a baby, he was brought up in an ordinary family in an occupied country and when he began his public ministry around the age of 30 he had “nowhere to lay his head”. He was betrayed by a close friend, arrested, beaten, scourged and then nailed to a cross to die a horrific death. On top of that was something that we struggle to understand, his abandonment by his Father. On the cross Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!” Those words are the opening line of Psalm 22, one of the psalms that he, as a Jewish man, would have known by heart. It was this psalm, which Jesus prayed on that cross.

Yet, the day Jesus died, the day we call “Good Friday”, was followed by Easter Sunday. Jesus had died on the cross to pay for our sins (the actions and attitudes that separate us from God), to make a way back to God for us. His Father demonstrated his acceptance of what Jesus did by raising him from the dead early that Easter Sunday. There was an end to the darkness.

Those who love and follow Jesus Christ, who know his forgiveness, have a hope that God has given us. If you read the whole of Psalm 22, you will see that despite the horror of the first verses the psalmist (King David) is able to trust God through that horror and have hope. It isn’t a wishful thinking, but a hope based on the God that David knew. For Christians, things are clearer than they were for the David, who lived hundreds of years before Jesus did. For Christians we can see that Jesus conquered death and promised the same for those who turn to him.

Maybe we will get back to some sort of normality this year, but there will always be things that life will throw at us, things we can’t handle. Yet there is a God who loves you, who wants to be with you through those bad things (and in the good things too). In the relatively comfortable West, we so often ignore him, yet elsewhere in the world many people are driven by their circumstances to look at what is really important in their life. They have come to the conclusion that what matters above all else is knowing the God who loves them. Covid-19 has turned our lives upside down. May it lead to us knowing that what matters above all else is the same for us too, knowing the God who loves us, both now and for all eternity. Want to know more? Grab yourself a bible and read about what Jesus said and what Jesus did in the New Testament. Maybe you heard about some of it when you were young and in Sunday School and have distant memories of it. If you look again now and dig deep, you’ll meet the Jesus who has been through it all himself and wants you back.

The recordings of the Remembrance Sunday service are now available. The audio recording can be heard from the Resources section of this web site or directly from HERE and the video recording is available from our YouTube channel HERE.

With the new lockdown now in place in England, there are restrictions on how worship can take place. Basically, we cannot hold our normal services inside our church buildings and most are reluctant to hold entire services outside due to the complexity of ensuring (= policing) social distancing, particularly if there are large numbers of people involved. For example, Mattishall normally has about a couple of hundred people involved in the first part of the service on the village green, finishing off the service inside All Saints. Mattishall Parish Council had cancelled the outside part of the service because of the problems involved in social distancing and how that would detract from the atmosphere of a respectful act of remembrance.

Before the new lockdown was announced last weekend the benefice staff team had organised local services, but on Monday afternoon started organizing a suitable Zoom service. Just after we finished the organisation, the Prime Minister announced that outside services could be held under certain stringent, documented conditions. With the problems with outside services under lockdown mentioned above we decided to proceed with the Zoom service this Remembrance Sunday as planned (apart from a short service totally outside at Yaxham, which had been the original plan there anyway).

This Sunday's Zoom Remembrance Service will include the reading of the names from all our benefice parishes who fell and thus the timing of the service is a bit more complicated than usual. We are still working out at what time we will start the service, but will let you know soon.

So, please do join us for our Remembrance Service on Zoom on Sunday and invite those you know who would normally come to Remembrance Services in our church buildings. The Zoom connection details are the usual details for each Sunday, but I have put them below anyway.

When the time of the start of the service is known we will put it on this website and email those on our distribution lists. If you are not on our distribution lists and only receive weekly email updates from this website, please check this website.

For those who join us on Sunday, please do join the Zoom meeting in plenty of time so we can try to avoid having to let people in during the actual service itself. The Zoom meeting will be open to join at least 15 minutes before the start of the service itself.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83401400096?pwd=REJTTmlPUHlveHhSbmhBQURucHJnZz09

Meeting ID: 834 0140 0096

Password: 858873

One tap mobile

+442034815237,,83401400096#,,1#,858873# United Kingdom

Dial by your location

        +44 203 481 5237 United Kingdom

Meeting ID: 834 0140 0096

Password: 858873

Hope to see you on Sunday.

Alan Cossey

Under the proposals announced by the Prime Minister on 31st October, church services are to be severely restricted for some weeks. The proposals will be voted on in Parliament before implementation, but if they are passed unamended it will mean we cannot have Remembrance Services in our churches as planned on Sunday 8th November.

There is a benefice staff meeting on Monday 2nd November and shortly after that we hope to have more information on what we intend to do on 8th November. 

Details of the government's intended lockdown rules for churches can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-national-restrictions-from-5-november#weddings-civil-partnerships-religious-services-and-funerals

We now have a YouTube channel where we are starting to add some videos. To get to it, please either go to www.youtube.com and search on "Mattishall and Tudd Valley" or go directly to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vlLiqkyImh3iiloD4Mm9w. If you want to be notified when new videos get added, please subscribe there to our channel.

Please do take a look and let us know what you think.

Please note that as we expand our use of Zoom for services and meetings we are having to alter some of our connection details. The new connection details for our services are as below. Connection details for home groups and other meetings will be sent by email to those due to take part in them.

Morning Prayer Mon-Fri and Informal Prayer Sat
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83513925378?pwd=QnZEK0lQTmF3ZEQycTJQb21LV1JQUT09
Meeting ID: 835 1392 5378
Password: 858873

Sunday Morning Services
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83401400096?pwd=REJTTmlPUHlveHhSbmhBQURucHJnZz09 
Meeting ID: 834 0140 0096
Password: 858873

To join a Sunday morning service by phone, please ring one of the following numbers. When prompted,
* enter the meeting ID followed by #,
* when prompted for a participant ID just enter #,
* then finally when prompted enter the password followed by #

0203 481 5237
0203 481 5240
0131 460 1196
0203 051 2874

Mid Norfolk Foodbank

Can you help?

Foodbanks are now feeding many families with basic essential foods.

A collection of non-perishable, non-alcoholic items can be donated at 4 Mill Road, Mattishall.  Please leave your bagged items on the doorstep and ring the bell to alert us a package has been left.

All items will be donated to the above foodbank on a weekly basis. All donations will be greatly appreciated and much needed.

         Many thanks.

Please note that the day of the week that weekly email updates are sent out from the benefice website will be changed from Fridays to Saturdays from w/c 4th May 2020. This is because we are doing fewer things on Saturdays that people need reminding about and it is more important that they are reminded about the Sunday service near enough to the service date to not then forget!

Over the last three weeks (22nd, 29th March and 5th April) we have found Zoom to be an effective way of bringing us together in worship despite our physical separation. It is an App which can be used on Android/Apple or Windows devices and is relatively easy to install and use without requiring you to register . There are plenty of ‘How to’s online: This one is on how to Join a Zoom Meeting https://www.youtube.com/embed/hIkCmbvAHQQ?rel=0&autoplay=1&cc_load_policy=1 which will tell you how to join any of the acts of worship we are having this week.

Obviously, there are some things that are easier to do than others, so our worship is different from before, but with the same sense of the Spirit joining us together.

You can either join one of the acts of worship by clicking on the link above, or by installing/opening Zoom on your device, entering the correct Meeting ID (e.g. 224-497-494 for Easter Sunday) and then entering the password (which Zoom requires us to set) of 858873 which is the MATV Office Phone Number without the area code. The password is the same for all the Acts of Worship to make it easier to remember.

And please do offer to help with the worship in this most special of weeks by using the form you will find at https://bit.ly/2xcxDZZ to tell us how you would like to help. It would be helpful if you could use the form rather than via email as it will make the planning easier.

Looking forward to seeing you this week as we join together to remember all that Jesus has done for us.

With every blessing,

Mark

I don’t normally plug stuff, but Hodder are offering the “NIV Audio Bible read by David Suchet” until Monday April 6^th only for your Android device or iPhone/iPad (not for any Windows machines, it appears though). If you go to

https://tinyurl.com/sff2eqq

you will find a link for downloading it from Apple’s App Store or Google Play (for Android devices). When you install it, you can download all the audio files. I don’t have an Apple device, but on an Android device there is an icon at the top right which looks like a speaker. Tapping on that gives you the option to “Install all audio”. If you use that option, you will be able to hear David Suchet reading whichever verses you want to hear even when you have no internet connect. Do be aware though that the total size of all those files is 1.54GB so you will need that amount of spare space on your device and, if you don’t have fibre broadband, it will take a while to download.

On the Android version (at least on my phone), starting the reading at whatever point you want is a bit strange. You have to find the starting verse first then double-tap on it and then say whether you want to “Play from here” (with no end set) or “Play verse” to play just that verse. Once underway though, a “pause button” appears in the bottom navigation bar, which allows you to pause (and then restart) the playing.

Happy to try and help if anyone gets stuck.

Alan (contact details on "Who's Who" page)

AUDIO RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD OR LISTENING TO DIRECTLY FROM THE "FEATURED RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD" SECTION OF THE HOME PAGE. THE SERVICE SHEET AND THE TEXT OF THE READING ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE RESOURCES SECTION OF THE HOME PAGE OF THIS WEB SITE. If reading this on a mobile phone, please tap the picture of Andrea first then tap on the link above. 

Dear all,

I hope this week has not be an anxious time for you amid all the changes to our way of life and that you have been able to feel something of the presence of God, nonetheless.

After last week’s trial of streaming worship using Zoom, we are giving another go! It was great to see so many of you last Sunday, and thank you for all the encouraging comments after the service. It was great that so many of you found it a real blessing to see each other’s faces through the power of technology overcoming our physical separation.

Use this link for our worship this week and every week from now on: https://zoom.us/j/224497494. Or from your Zoom App, click “Join a Meeting” and then enter the Meeting ID of 224 497 494.

If you have not got the technology for Zoom (i.e. no Laptop or Smart Phone) you can still join us. Phone 0330 088 5830, 0131 460 1196 or 0203 481 5237 and enter the Meeting Id via your keypad when prompted. Obviously you won’t see us, but you will be able us this to follow the worship. If you tried the app last week but didn’t hear anything, that’s because you need to use select “Call via Device Audio” via the headphones icon at the bottom left hand side of the app screen when you connect to the service. If you don’t not only won’t we hear you, but you won’t hear us either.

Our worship begins at 10:00am although we will start gathering from 9:45 onwards. This week our worship will be led by Andrea and we will be joined by Ven. Ian Bentley, Archdeacon of Lynn, who will give our talk on the Bible Reading: John 11:1-45. There are some activity sheets to go with this bible reading are available at here for home printing. If you like craft try looking here: https://ministry-to-children.com/lazarus-raised-crafts/ for some fun crafts to make.

On Friday or Saturday I will email out a service booklet for those of you who don’t like following words on a screen.

I would also be grateful if you can forward this email to friends, neighbours and members of your congregation. I am painfully aware that our distribution list does not yet have everyone’s emails on it. So please help by passing this on. The act of worship, like all our ‘normal’ worship is open to all and we don’t want anyone to miss out because we haven’t got their email on our system and of course that means that others in our communities or wider who want to join are very welcome.

Finally, can I ask you for forbearance, not least when things are not perfect or quite ‘as you would like it’. Please remember that an item of the service that you are finding a barrier to worship is almost certainly the one thing that is blessing someone else. If you don’t know the song, just listen to others worshipping or take that as an opportunity to have a biscuit (having switched your mike off of course so we don’t hear you crunching). We are a diverse benefice. Our worship from now on will reflect that.

Looking forward to seeing you again on Sunday.

With every blessing,

Mark

Dear friends,

I hope this email finds you all well and flourishing despite all that has happened this week. It is surreal to think quite how quickly things have changed, but as we believe in a God who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) we are finding new ways of expressing the same truths of the gospel and what it means to be the church.

In their letter on Tuesday (how long ago that seems), the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, said “As the challenge of the coronavirus grips the world, and as the Government asks every individual and every organisation to rethink its life, we are now asking the Church of England in all its parishes, chaplaincies and ministries to serve all people in a new way. Public worship will have to stop for a season. Our usual pattern of Sunday services and other mid-week gatherings must be put on hold. But this does not mean that the Church of England has shut up shop. Far from it. We need to look at new ways of serving everyone.”

So as we come towards the end of this week – here are some of the ways we are starting to find new ways of serving while still staying the same,

1. We will be continuing to have acts of worship on Sunday. As we are not able to worship in our buildings we will worship online. Details below.
2. We will be continuing to care for each other and our communities, in conjunction with parish councils and members of our villages. Details below.
3. We will be continuing to pray each day in and for our villages. Details below.
4. We will be continuing to offer pastoral support at pivotal moments in lives. Details below.
5. We will be continuing to be the universal church, connected to the church in the nation and around the world. Details below.

1.     Sunday Worship

As you know, we are not able to use our buildings for worship (so please don’t turn up), but we have been investigating ways of meeting together online. At present we are still trying things out but it seems the most effective way of doing this will be using a provider called Zoom.  So this Sunday we are having a try out with a time of worship, bible study and prayer at 10:00am, which this Sunday will be hosted by me. I hope you will be able to join me by clicking on this link (https://zoom.us/j/400008490). You will have to download a small app onto your PC, laptop, tablet or phone, but you will then be able to join me and other members of the parish churches of our benefice in worship.

This is very much a try-out – so it will almost certainly be clunky and not as smooth as normal, but as we carry on things will get smoother and we will develop things further.

I realise that up until last week this might not have been your thing – mine neither – but it the easiest way to ensure that we can continue to meet up together as it says at Hebrews 10:25 “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

We do also recognise that not everyone is online or wants to join in this way. So next week we will be producing a simple liturgy that can be used at home and which we will make as available as we can on paper and online and which will be used alongside the online Sunday Act of Worship.

2.     Caring for each other and our communities

The staff team together will be keeping in touch with you and holding you in prayer and support. We are looking at ways of working with parish councils, the foodbank and others to ensure that no-one is left alone or vulnerable. We are trying to find ways we can easily stay in touch with you and help practically while at the same time we have to stay in as much as possible and avoid contact. However please do stay in contact with us also. The Church Office will still be open on 01362 858873 and at contact@matvchurch.uk, Mondays to Fridays 9:15 to 12:15 (although it will no longer be open by foot or car). Also my phone number 01362 882260 will always be answered.

Unfortunately we are going to have to plan for the possibility that some or many of us are self-isolating or get Covid-19, possibly badly, so we are trying to ensure that everything we do will be done in a way that ensures the care can carry on no matter what. We still have the “Cure of Souls” for these lovely villages of ours and the virus does not stop that.

I know that you are already caring for each other and for your neighbours, we just want to ensure that no-one is left behind. We will let you know more as soon as some of our plans are a little more filled out.

3.     Praying in and for our villages

Prayers have been said Monday to Saturday in each of our villages for a few years now (Hockering, Yaxham, Welborne, East Tuddenham, North Tuddenham, Mattishall) and we will be continuing this pattern, with some changes because of the circumstances. One member of the staff team will be in each parish church using the existing pattern (of Monday-Hockering, Tuesday-Yaxham etc) to act as a hub for our prayer, but with a changed time of 9am, and we invite you to join them in prayer at home (just like Sunday worship you won’t be able to join them in the church itself). We are finalising a simple form of daily prayer that we will be using together and will get out to you as effectively as we can. If the Live-streaming works on Sunday I hope we will be able to do it like that as well. We realise that not everyone will wish to join in even a simplified form of morning prayer but please do stop at 9am and pray – using the Lord’s Prayer or a simple Arrow prayer. There is a real power when we all get together to pray even if we are not all in the same place. It is the Holy Spirit of God who truly connects us (Colossians 2:5).

I fully agree with the Archbishops in their letter I referenced earlier when they say “Being a part of the Church of England is going to look very different in the days ahead. Our life is going to be less characterised by attendance at church on Sunday, and more characterised by the prayer and service we offer each day. We may not be able to pray with people in the ways that we are used to, but we can certainly pray for people.” I believe that there is a power in prayer and particularly when the people of God come together, so I hope that as many of you as possible will add to your schedule the coming together at 9am knowing that you are not alone but praying with many others in our villages.

This is particularly important in such uncertain times. We know that people are afraid, or acting out of character or fear (toilet-roll hording anyone). Our villages, country and world needs our prayer and the action of the God who revealed his love to us in Jesus.

4.     Pastoral Support at Pivotal Times

The Church of England has a historic ministry at times of birth, marriage and death. This is continuing, again in different ways. We will continue to baptise and bless children, conduct weddings and funerals – but at the same time minimising the numbers of people who will come together as a result. If you want to know the detail you can find it out on the Church of England’s central Covid-19 webpage and we will put more details up on the website, but it will mean things are different. For baptisms, blessings and weddings many are choosing to wait, but of course for those who lose loved ones that is not an option. Please pray for those families and also the funeral directors and others who are no longer able to be as flexible as they once were in helping families and friends in their time of grief.

5.     Being part of the national and universal Church.

Although I am not sure there has ever been a time before when public worship has been suspended across the country, other Christians have always had to meet privately or in scattered ones and twos (such as in North Korea) – so in one sense we are being brought together as a worldwide church in a way that our usual pattern of worship obscures.

However I would like to invite you to two things that show that greater unity in our nation as well on this Sunday, Mothering Sunday, which has been set apart as a day of Prayer and Action by all the churches in this country.

First – The Archbishop of Canterbury invites you to join with him in worship. He is being broadcast at 8am on local Radio stations, 8:10am on Radio 4 and online at 9am through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/thechurchofengland).

Second – He invites you to light a candle at your windows at 7:00pm “we are calling on everyone to place a lighted candle in their window at 7.00 p.m. as a sign of solidarity and hope in the light of Christ that can never be extinguished.”

Some final words

Please remember that although all public worship is suspended, the office is closed to visitors (but open otherwise), all meetings and events are suspended (unless they can be done online), we are very much still here, active and at work.

I recognise that this email will not get to everyone – so I would be grateful if you know of someone near you who is not on email please do stay in touch with them, so I have attached to this email a copy of it in letter form – please print it off and drop it through their door. Help us to find ways of encouraging them, praying with them, supporting them and being with them over these coming weeks. Also please feel free to forward this email to anyone who think may not be on our mailing list (yet).

In their letter the Archbishops go on to say “This is a defining moment for the Church of England. Are we truly a church for all, or just the church for ourselves? We urge you sisters and brothers to become a different sort of church in these coming months: hopeful and rooted in the offering of prayer and praise and overflowing in service to the world.”

This is our intent here in Mattishall and Tudd Valley – to truly be a church for all despite of the challenges that our situation now gives us. Please do hold each other up in prayer and mutual encouragement.

And I look forward to you being with me on Sunday at 10:00am (https://zoom.us/j/400008490).

With every blessing, continuing prayers and love,

Mark

Mark McCaghrey

Rector: Mattishall and Tudd Valley Benefice
Benefice Office, Church Rooms, Dereham Road, Mattishall,
Dereham, Norfolk, NR20 3QA.
​Phone: 01362 882260
Office: 01362 858873

Dear friends,

In the light of Boris Johnson’s statement Monday night, the Archbishops of York and Canterbury have ordered all public acts of worship to be suspended with immediate effect (https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/news/archbishops-call-church-england-become-radically-different-public-worship).

This means that THERE WILL BE NO SERVICES AT ANY OF OUR CHURCHES WITHIN THE BENEFICE with immediate effect (Tuesday 14:00).

Also all meetings will be cancelled and all APCMs postponed until further notice. The Church Office will be open for emails and phone calls but no one will be able to walk in, so the door will be locked.

We will be putting into place pastoral arrangements to support people at home and are looking into ways of making our worship visible even if not public. We will let you know more as soon as we know more.

Please continue to pray for our difficult situation as a nation and world in these unprecedented times.

With every blessing and prayers,

Mark

Janet Clark, who with her husband Les, founded and operated GATE, died on 13^th June 2019 after a battle with womb cancer. As a charity we want to build a milling machine in her memory in the first village she visited in The Gambia, Sasita Medina.

Pounding cous is very hard work and is done every day. The women in Sasita Medina have to walk 7 km(4 miles) to the nearest milling machine. A milling machine in Sasita Medina will also serve 7 surrounding villages, Sasita Toranke, Dighanteh, Sareh Bully, Sein Boboreh, Foreyaa, Sareh Saidy and Farumburregh and save the women there a 7km(4 miles)+ trek too! Providing a milling machine in their village will save the women labour and the need for the older children to mind the babies and toddlers while mum is pounding will be removed. Some years ago, when we installed a milling machine in Bakadargi 500 children were able to go to school the day it went ”live” as they were no longer needed to mind their younger siblings while mum was busy pounding millet to make cous so they could eat that day. This is why the Sasita Milling Machine project, will be a great and fitting memorial to all the hard work Janet did in The Gambia.

If you can hold a coffee morning, host a talk and slide show with craft sale, or organise any kind of fundraising event or make a donation please get in touch, as anything you can do will help! Please help us to raise the £6,500 we need for this project. We already have £2500!

Contact us through GATE's Facebook page, email: GambianAid@gmail.com or write to us: G.A.T.E c/o All Saints Church Office, Dereham Road, Mattishall, Dereham, NR20 3QA.

The new Bishop of Norwich has been announced. Please see https://www.dioceseofnorwich.org/article?id=4120 for details.

The Church of England has released a Christmas advert on YouTube inviting people to come to church this Christmas. See it here.