Dear friends,

I hope you’re all well. Each week now has its own challenges, and I pray that God will give you the grace you need each week to journey on.
Please click here to watch today's MP Service, led by John & Pauline together!

On Sunday, we welcome Bishop Nick who is preaching for us, and at Bradford Cathedral on the same morning! See if you can work out how? We’re grateful that Bishop Nick has made time in his busy schedule to record a sermon for us.
As per usual, we'll be sharing our service at 9am on our website, followed by Online Coffee Morning at 11am.

On another note, most of you will know that I will be finishing up at St. Wilfrid’s on 13th September. I can now tell you that Canon Robin Gamble is going to be leading Calverley Parish through the Interregnum (time between vicars), along-side our Parish team. This is great news for us, as Robin, Maureen, & Zoe will be a part of the life and worship here in Calverley. I know you’ll make them all feel very welcome. Robin is the head of Church Growth & Evangelism for the whole diocese and will continue this full-time role while he leads here.
Robin will be starting in October.

Rev. Sue McWhinney will also be working across St. Wilfrid’s and St. John's Farsley from September, having been covering in Farsley for the past 6 months.
Sue has also now completed all of the curacy requirements - well done Sue!
She will be based at St. Wilfrid’s until the next chapter emerges for her.

Following the news last week, I'm also happy to announce that we will be resuming public worship on Sunday 2nd August at 10am.
We have opted for one service to start with, to ease ourselves back into worship.
One big advantage of this is that we won't have to do a full clean between the services, which would be required if we have two services. As soon as is possible, I anticipate the 2 Sunday service pattern will return, but not initially.

More details will be forthcoming, but just a few things to bear in mind initially:
• Firstly, we will continue with the 2-metre social distancing protocol, along with a strict one-way system in to and out of the Church building.
• We will be able to have small groups of people sitting together by using a variety of seating arrangements. So for example, if you are a family of four, you should be able to find 4 chairs together. But there will still be more limited seating than normal. As a result, we need to be creative in how we accommodate those who want to worship.
• At PCC, we discussed the possibility of people starting out by attending alternate weeks if we're having difficulty with numbers. So you might choose the 1st & 3rd, or 2nd & 4th Sunday of the month, instead of every week.
We will continue to provide an online worship service for those who can’t make it on Sunday.

Our Church will be open this Sunday from 9am - 11am for private prayer.
Next week, the Church will be open for private prayer on Monday & Wednesday from 11am - 1pm. The following week, it will just be open for prayer on a Wednesday from 11am - 1pm.
We’ve found that Wednesday is the most popular day for prayer and gives us a 72-hour window between people using the building that reduces the risk of COVID-19 as we start to resume worship.

Sue has reminded me about the Parenting for Faith organisation who have some great resources over the summer holidays to help with equipping parents to relate faith to their families. For further details please click here.

Please continue to pray for those who are unwell.
Malcom Raistrick is being transferred to Otley Hospital this week. He continues to need our prayer. We also pray for key workers and those who are struggling with mental health issues at this time.

Finally, our wedding is all set for 1pm next Saturday 18th July.
We only have space for 30 people at the service. I’m afraid people can’t "pop in" for a look during the service. However, if you click here and join the group, you can watch via Facebook Live on the day. You will need to have a Facebook account to do so, but we invite all on the Newsy Email to watch.
You’re also welcome to come outside Church at 2pm if you’d like to have a look and listen to the bells after the service!

Blessings,
Phil