This week´s services

Wednesday:

10.30am Said Eucharist at St Andrew’s, Los Boliches

Sunday:

9.30am Said Eucharist at Calahonda Church

11.30am Said Eucharist at Alhaurin Chapel

Sadly, we cannot meet all the rules & regs to make it possible to safely use the chapel at Benalmadena at the moment.

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Please remember that our return is strictly governed but the Spanish Government’s laws, FEREDE (the Ministry of Justice agency governing non-Catholic churches) and our own Diocesan guidelines.

To meet the rules and regulations governing our return, we will need your help - and ask everyone attending to please:

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• Make use of hand gel as you enter the church (even if you are gloved)

• Wear face masks

• Sit in the allocated seats – starting from the front (back at Los Boliches) and where a service order has been placed. Those from the same household may sit together.

• Keep to the 2m social distancing.

• Holy Communion will be given in one kind (wafer alone) and please make sure your hand is open to receive the wafer.

• There will be a retiring collection

• Please leave as directed, starting from the back (front at Los Boliches) of church.

• Sadly there can be no singing in these early weeks of returning.

Clearly this is not Church as we know it – hopefully as restrictions continue to be eased,  we can slowly return to our usual pattern of worship.

I strongly believe it is worth following these simple rules and regs, so that we can start to gather together again for worship, and to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion, denied to all of us for so many weeks now.

Thank you for your help to make our return run as smoothly as possible.  Fr Nigel

Looking to the future after lockdown…

I am most grateful for the help and support of Caroline, Rev’d John Sutton and     Fr Peter Ford in providing thoughtful Reflections and Intercessions for our twice weekly Service Orders that have now been sent out each week, for over three months. We also need to send our very heartfelt thanks to Sue Brown who has prepared every single Order of Service so they could be sent out in the Newsletter format and also on our website and social media each week. That work represents an enormous commitment, for which I am so grateful.

Now that we have begun returning to church, things will need to change to avoid all of us who work ‘behind the scenes’ to produce on-line material and now our Church services, being faced with unrealistic pressures & demands.

We are aware that there are a few people in our congregations who are still self-isolating at the moment, while some will not be able to use public transport -  although I know various people are kindly offering lifts. In order to judge whether there is now a real need for Orders of Service to be sent out on Sundays, please drop me a line if you would welcome a copy, because you are continuing to self-isolate or have difficulty attending church:  CdSEpewsheet@gmail.com

A shorter version will gladly be sent out as a pdf document. Thank you. Fr Nigel

Our phased return for worship includes:

Wednesdays at 10.30am – Eucharist at Los Boliches

Sundays at 9.30am - Eucharist at Calahonda and 11.30am - Eucharist at Alhaurin

Find out more...

Pastoral Care

Contact details for the Chaplain, Reader and Wardens are readily available on our website and have been included in each mailing during the Lockdown period. Even during this phased return of gathering for worship, please do make contact should you simply need a chat, prayerful support or just quiet reassurance during this time, which for some continues to have many challenges. If there is someone you know who would value a call, then please do email us in confidence – and then this can happen.

This unprecedented time has revealed a lack of a comprehensive list of our Chaplaincy members with names, phone numbers and/or emails contact details. Like all Churches in the Diocese we have the Electoral Roll, with names and addresses, which isn’t very useful at times like these! It’s partly due to the Data Protection laws and what we can do with your information. The Chaplaincy phone I inherited on arrival, clearly has contact information that’s long out of date, so that hasn’t been very useful either.

It’s been really encouraging to know there has been an excellent, active informal networking of care and concern going on throughout this challenging time. But it would be good to have a list of names and telephone numbers to build on that pastoral networking, for the future.

So we plan to create a Pastoral Contact List with names, ‘phone numbers and emails of our members. To conform to the Data Protection laws everyone will have to sign the form as they give this information – which will then only be used by the Chaplain and Ministry Team under his direction, for pastoral care reasons. It will not for promoting Chaplaincy events for example. You can of course, choose not to have your name or contact details on this list ~ but then, please don’t complain if no one get’s in touch….!!

Forms for this new Pastoral Contacts List will be available soon.

Supporting your Chaplaincy during this difficult time:

A big thank you to all those who have brought in their offertory and stewardship envelopes, which have been a great help and support for Chaplaincy ministry. Even though we about to start gathering again for worship, it’s still possible to arrange a bank transfer to support our ministry here, either to our Spanish or UK accounts. If you have any questions about this, please have a word with our Treasurer, Graham Bloor.

Spain:

Unicaja

Account  Name; Iglesias Anglicana De La Costa Del Sol Este

Swift/BIC: UCJAES2MXXX

IBAN: ES39 2103 0194 6500 3001 0341

UK:

Barclays Bank plc

Account name: Diocese in Europe Fund 

Account number: 40317039
Sort code: 20-06-13

IBAN: GB16 BUKB 2006 1340 3170 39

Swiftbic: BUKBGB22

 Please include the reference:  CdSEast

It is very important that you include the reference CdSEast – otherwise any offering may get lost in this account, which serves every Chaplaincy in the Diocese!

Thank you for your continued practical support. Fr Nigel