| To get to our online services, click here. You can always find them by going to our website: www.cranbourneanglican.org.au/online-service. If you’d like to join us for a virtual morning tea (video conferencing) 11am Sunday the 31st of May, click here at 11am Sunday. Meeting ID: 291 757 7519 Password: 444240 |
Dear church family,
I pray you are going well.
We praise God that there are small signs of restrictions easing and life returning to something slightly more like things normally are. As you will have heard on the news, there are a number of restrictions being eased on Monday the 1st of June, including that we are now allowed to run small church services with a maximum of 20 people.
Your parish Council met last night and considered how we will approach re-opening the church. We decided last night that we will continue to meet online until the restrictions are further eased and are able to meet with more people.
I know this might be disappointing to some, and I want to assure you that we are every bit as keen to resume services as you are! Let me explain why we came to this decision. Firstly, reopening for worship is not as easy simply unlocking the doors and firing up the organ. The diocese has provided an extensive list of preparations we would need to make and precautions we would need to have in place before we could begin worship again. You can find the list here. As you’ll see, it is a long list! We carefully considered a plan whereby we run six or seven small services through the week, giving everyone an opportunity to come, but it was felt in the end that the stretch on volunteer resources, on the minister and the difficulties there are in ensuring a covid safe church in this model meant that it’s just not feasible for a church of our size to begin meeting with such small numbers.
Instead we are working towards opening when the restrictions are eased to allow up to 100 people to be part of worship (though even then given the Four Square Metre rule we will only be able to have 75 at most). We are hopeful that this will be towards the end of June or early July.
So, if things remain positive over the next few weeks, we will be meeting together at church soon, but not quite yet!
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with me. I look forward to seeing you here at church I pray sooner rather than later!
In Christ,
Sam.
St John’s Fete 2020 (Planning in Preparation)
Barbara Bates
While we don’t know yet what October will hold, we are nonetheless pressing on with preparations for our Fete in the prayerful hope that we will be able to in fact have it. In 2018 we had the following stalls and whilst I would like to replicate the same/similar concept suggestions are welcome. If you have a suggestion or you would like to bring a new stall to the fete don’t hesitate to step up and give it a go!
Coordinators would need to plan and prepare the stall and set up on the day of the fete. They would also need to staff the stall with helpers on the day of the fete.
Once coordinators are finalised a meeting will be held to assist with the organisational issues.
LOOKING FOR COORDINATORS FOR THE FOLLOWING STALLS
| STALL | COORDINATOR |
| Kids Activities | |
| White Elephant | |
| Second-hand Toys & Baby Clothes | |
| Jams & Pickles | Lyn Hosking /Pat Dan |
| Cakes and Slices | |
| Craft/Quilting | |
| Plants | Lyn Hosking |
| Jewellery & Accessories | |
| Second-hand books | |
| Fresh Vegetables | |
| Silent Auction | |
| Kath Swarris’ table | |
| Other Suggestions | |
| FOOD | |
| Devonshire Tea | |
| Skewers | |
| Malayalam Food Stall | |
| BBQ and Dim Sims | |
| Doughnuts and Fudge | |
| Other Suggestions. | |
Volunteers: If you would like to volunteer for one of these positions please email Barb Bates: batesbarbara14@gmail.com
Or call
Mobile: 0428020780
Vision & Mission Process
Who will you email this week?
As we continue our mission and vision process, we’ve been encouraged to listen to our community. I wonder if you have managed to think of two people you know who don’t go to church to whom you could send this Survey? Click on the link to have a look at it yourself so you know what you’ll be forwarding on. As you will see, it’s very non-threatening and not at all preachy – we’re simply wanting to understand our community better and listen to what they think the greatest needs are, and get a sense of the kind of thing they would find helpful. This will help us in our plans to serve our community and reach it with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Who are the two people who live in the area and don’t currently go to church that you could forward it on to? Pray about it now! Then copy the google forms link:
https://forms.gle/37n4YtkJFP8GBF2o7
and send it to your friend/neighbour/family member asking them if they would be happy to fill it in.
For those not sure what to say, you could even just copy the template email set out below:
Hi [friendly neighbour/friend/family member – put their name here!]
I hope you’re doing well. My church (St John’s Anglican Church Cranbourne) wants to serve and support our local community in these difficult times and we’re in the middle of planning how we can do that. They’ve put together a short survey and I wondered if you’d be willing to spend 5 minutes telling us what you think the greatest needs are in the area? Here’s the link:
https://forms.gle/37n4YtkJFP8GBF2o7
Thanks!
There you go – I’ve made it easy… Please do pray about who you might ask and get emailing! For those more comfortable with paper, paper copies of the survey are available at the church.
Kids Ministry
We’ve included kids talks in the service and some activity sheets to download for the kids which you can download here (so you can print them off early and get set up before time!) or you’ll be able to find these at our online church page on our website every Sunday from 9am.