Welcome!

Our Christmas Worship includes a

Midnight service beginning on Christmas Eve at 11.30pm. In St. Mark’s, East Kilbride

And

A Christmas Day service at 10.30am in St. Cuthbert’s, Cambuslang.

There will be joint services on Sunday the 26th December at 11am. In St. Mark’s

And a joint service with Bishop Kevin and Baptisms and Confirmations on Sunday the 2nd January.

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dear Friends,

Do you have your Turkey?

Yes! No! I don’t eat Turkey. I’m vegetarian. Actually turkeys a modern American invention. We eat duck. In Scotland we never used to celebrate Christmas, so we have steak pie for Hogmanay.

So many possible variants!

Will there be enough Turkey?

And if not does that mean Christmas will have to be cancelled?

Well, of course not.

Just like last year, it will be different. We may not be able to replicate what always happened the previous year, or when Mum cooked it, or when all the family were together.

Years change, habits change, traditions change.

And the world changes. Europe has changed, Russia has changed. China has changed. The climate has changed. Work styles have changed. Health conditions have changed. Holidays have changed. Politics have changed.  Nature has changed. This year has changed. The Church has changed. Have we changed?

It’s all changed, sometimes dramatically, and sometimes insignificantly, some for the better and some for the worse, but have we changed?

Some we have lost. Maybe we’ve lost someone to covid. Maybe we’ve lost someone to old age and frailty. Maybe we’ve lost someone to cancer, or some other disease, or accident. Maybe someone’s moved away. But we have also gained. Many have been born this year. Some have moved job, or house. Maybe we have a pet who has joined the family. Maybe our family is larger. A new year has begun and it has brought a new birth of all kinds of things. Have we changed?

Two thousand years ago a child was born, and everything changed! Nothing was ever the same again. And it won’t necessarily mean we have Turkey for lunch, but Turkey was never really part of what Christmas was all about, was it?! And our situation changed. We are invited to be born into a new life, a new way of living. We are invited to become part of a new family, a new community. We are invited to change.

This Christmas let us answer the call to change and never be the same again.

Seasonal and festival Blessings to you,

Love from

Paul

Baptism and Confirmation.

The Bishop has confirmed a date to return to Baptise and Confirm Rebecca, Sarah, Cate and James. Due to a Norovirus infection they were unable to come to the Bishop’s previous visit in August. You’ll have to make an early recovery from all the New Year’s celebrations and come to church because it’s on the 2nd January.

Seasonal Festivities

Carols and Nativity Tableau

Christmas Carols will be sung to accompany our Nativity and Eucharist Service in St. Mark’s on Sunday the 19th December, before Christmas. You may wish to participate and join in the tableau by dressing up as Mary, Joseph or the Baby, Angels, Stars, Shepherds, Wise men, Herod, High Priests and their guards, Sheep, cows, donkeys, or Camels!

Christmas

Christmas Eve will be celebrated with a Carol Eucharist in St. Mark’s from 11.30pm and Christmas Day will be celebrated with a Carol Eucharist at St. Cuthbert’s at 10.30 am.

Epiphany

Epiphany Carols will be sung on the Sunday before Epiphany which is the 2nd January. You may wish to reprise your outfits of kings, camels, horses and stars, or the holy family with baby.

These plans will, of course, be subject to the pandemic.

Winter Events.

All reports please as soon as possible.

AGM St. Cuthbert’s 2nd December 

Mikros Group Tuesdays 10.30am-12.30pm. In St. Mark’s Church hall. Games, Refreshment, Story-time and Sing-a-long for pre-school children and their friends.

Singing Group Thursdays 7pm., In the Rectory. All interested welcome.

Sunday

Eucharist in person

& online on ‘Daily Prayer’ & “St. Mark’s” & “St. Cuthbert’s”

(Facebook groups Live)

St. Mark’s at 11am. 

St. Cuthbert’s 9.30am.

Evening Prayer 5pm.

online Daily Prayer Facebook Live

Wednesday

Eucharist 10.30am. In person &

online Daily Prayer & St. Mark’s & St. Cuthbert’s Facebook Groups Live

Evening Prayer 5pm.

online Daily Prayer Facebook Live

Compline

online Daily Prayer Facebook Live

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Morning Prayer 10.30am.

Evening Prayer 5pm.

online Daily Prayer Facebook Live

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Dear Friends

One step forward, two steps back!

It feels like we’re back to the start, but actually we’re falling back on well-rehearsed learning from the first wave of Covid. The World Health Organisation is already predicting a third wave before we all get to have a vaccination, so we might get another chance!!

I wish I could announce what we’ll do at Christmas. We know that the government will allow a relaxation and several households will be allowed to meet over Christmas, but that doesn’t sound as if anyone’s terribly confident that we’ll be moving out of tier 4. If we do move down a tier then we could celebrate Christmas, allowing up to fifty people for in-person public worship for 11.30 pm on Christmas Eve in St Mark’s and a morning celebration at 10.30 am. in St Cuthbert’s, but if we’re still in tier 4, I think it would be better to continue with just our online worship.

Our news suggest that it will not be until Easter or later before we are all vaccinated so it’s going to take some months before we’re back to some kind of ‘normal’. But it might give us some hope to have a Summer Ceilidh, Lunch Clubs and Friendship Circle meetings as well as singing and music and in-person public worship again.

Christmas and Epiphany are seasons of hope and revelation. Let us build on those and look forward to all the good things God has in store to reveal to us in the coming year, having learnt from this past year and rebuild our lives for next year, building on all that we have learnt and all that we have planned and that we plan to change to improve our lives, our relationships, our communities and countries. Let us put our faith into action and strive to bring about God’s kingdom.

Yours in Christ,

Blessings

Paul

Currently All worship is online using Facebook live, but the usual rotas are included for when we manage to return to the church building.

Daily Morning Prayer 10.30 am Except

Sundays

All worship is online using Facebook live.

Daily Morning Prayer 10.30am.

Except

Sundays

St. Cuthbert's & St. Mark's 10.30 a.m. Eucharist

Wednesdays

Said Eucharist 10.30am.

Compline 7.30pm.

Daily Evening Prayer 5pm.

Zoom Coffee Morning on Saturday’s at 11am.

You can find the orders of service, daily on the www.scotland.anglcian.org website.

Search for Scottish Episcopal Church on the Internet.

Once you’re on the page search for ‘Daily Prayer’ and select it. It works, but the page doesn’t change. You have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the selection. Then you can follow the  complete version of the daily prayer. I’ve added the bare-bones of the order of service here, in this magazine so that you can follow it if you don’t want to follow it online. The selection of Psalms and the Readings change for each service, so you’d need a bible to look them up as we go. I usually announce the references. A bible translation may be very different from the ones used.

When?

How long’s a piece of string! 

I suspect that churches will be included with things like stadiums, cinemas, theatres and the like. So probably at the very end. We’re not seen as part of the economy and so not essential. I think we will be the last to be given permission to open. That having been said if people are allowed to meet in groups of ten or less, or some such arrangement, it maybe possible to have numerous smaller church services, in homes, if not in church, or gardens if the good weather continues. This may be a possibility. However we will have to remember that sharing the peace, the common cup and singing (the more one exercises the lungs and projects your voice the further oxygen and CO2 exhale with droplets) are all high-risk activities when it comes to this virus. If schools return in June, or August, then maybe October will be the final relaxation of the condition, but it is by no means certain and we will continue to have to be careful. A return to our usual social selves may be a long-way further off. 

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