Photo by Marian Kroell on Unsplash

Join us Online: YouTube (from 6am Sunday)

For those who feel safe and would find it a support to come in person to church, then the church is open at 10:30am on Sunday:

If you plan to come please book to attend

(booking possible for Sundays in March):

Register to attend​

Also, join us for a chat at 11:30am on Sunday: 

Click this link to join the Zoom meeting.

"He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children." (Psalm 78:5)

This Sunday is Mothering Sunday, where we give thanks for our mothers and the crucial role they have played or are playing in our lives. One word that is often associated with mothers is 'nurture.' They nurture us when we are babies by feeding us, comforting us and cleaning us, but they also nurture us as we grow by teaching us. We learn to speak primarily from our mothers and other family members and they are the ones that help to encourage us in all our early development, through sitting, crawling, walking and running. It is often mothers that help us take our first steps in learning to read and write and also to count. I even remember learning how to do simultaneous equations from my mum - but that's probably not normal!

We learn so much from our mums before we even start school. Our dads and other members of the family also have a crucial role to play in this. The truth is that for most people the vast majority of our learning and the biggest influence on our lives comes from our parents even in a world where everyone attends school and we are swamped with information from the internet and TV.

All this means that our parents have a crucial influence on our spiritual development. One survey reckons that a massive 73% say that families have a big influence on the way people think about their faith. The next most influential factor was friends on only 36%.

Our parents tend to have the biggest impact on our understanding of who God is and how he wants us to live. Of course this comes through their example: how seriously they take their faith and how they practice it, but also through what they set out to teach us both in answering our questions and in teaching us from the Bible.

St. Luke's has been blessed with having a good proportion of families and children attending our church. As we plan to come out of Covid-19, we need to keep our work with children and young people a key focus as we seek to pass on the good news of Jesus from generation to generation. To do that we will need to recruit to and re-enthuse our team of Sunday Club teachers and youth volunteers, but we also need to increasingly see this work as a partnership between church and family (and school?).

Join us this Sunday as we focus on Growing Faith: Children and Young People. The reading is Psalm 78:1-10.

Please read on...

• Prayer: Opener to send in and the latest prayer requests.
• Care: Follow up information and links on the Food Club and information on what our 'Parish Share' (the money we are asked to pay to the Diocese goes to).
• Share: The latest on 'St. Luke's Stories' web page a blog on Inspiring Women from CMS and some blogs and podcasts on sharing faith with our children.

Contributions to this week's Opener

For this Sunday: We would love to have children and adults saying:

"Happy Mothering Sunday!"

Please send contributions in as soon as possible (by 10am on Friday). You can send them by Whatsapp (07769 871520) or by WeTransfer.com to: [email protected].

For next Sunday:  We need people responding to: "Jesus said, 'A new command I give you...' with: "Love one another"

Prayer Requests:

​​Be assured I will do my best to check that people are happy for the requests to be shared before including them. Please pray for...

• Shirley Crabb has a pre-assesment for a hip operation on Wednesday. Pray that the operation can go ahead soon.

• Annie's mum that they can find the right residential care home for her.

• Flo Baldock having problems with her stomach, having a scan on 23rd.
  

• Jean Mayton, after a serious bleed on the brain recently.

• Nathan Court for his continuing treatment.

• Joy Smithers and others who are feeling quite isolated and frustrated at this time.

• Barb (Gloria's daughter's friend) starting radiotherapy and chemotherapy in March.

• Jeannette (Claudia's sister). The cancer has not spread and she starts Chemotherapy soon.

Our Food Club

Following on from the interview with Sharon Goodyer from the Food Club in last Sunday's service here is a bit more information for people who would like to join the club:

We are a members only food club that aims to support people who are aspirational about eating better but are struggling to feed themselves and their families well. We have lots of fresh fruit and veg, meat and tins all at prices you can afford. We create meal kits and have homemade meals as well as providing other cooking tips, tricks and advice.

Margate: 51, High Street

Ramsgate: St. George's Church Hall

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10am-3pm

To find out more about latest developments check out the Our Kitchen Facebook Page.

Parish Share

It costs around £80,000 a year to run St. Luke's. A large part of that is the Parish Share - about £60,000, which we pay to the Diocese. So what does the Parish Share pay for?

About £50,000 goes towards the cost of employing the vicar. This is broken down into three parts:

• £27,000 for the Stipend (the money the vicar receives to live on)
• £12,300 for National Insurance and pension contributions
• £10,700 for housing costs associated with the vicarage.

The other £10,000 we pay towards Parish Share is for the Diocesan 'Shared Costs'. We pay less than most for this (the average across the Diocese for a benefice - the set of churches run by one vicar- is £33,500). We pay less partly because we have less adult members than the average benefice and partly because Ramsgate is a more deprived area. Over half of these shared costs goes towards the costs of training new vicars (including the costs of curates like Claire who is joining us in July). The rest goes to support various Diocesan ministries and mission and the necessary administration.

To read about all this in more detail check out this recent explanation from the Diocese: Demystifying Parish Share.

Last Week's Talk:

Compassion for the Community (Psalm 146) - Available Online

We look at another song of praise. It is a psalm that focuses on what God is like and what God does. However, we tend to put into practice what we praise and become like those we worship, so as we consider what God does we find ourselves wanting to act like him.

St. Luke's Stories

We have three new items on our new 'St. Luke's Stories web page' since last Thursday:

• Sue Hawkes. Sue lives in Spain and she recorded this video about her journey with God for the church she attends out there. However, when she is in the UK, her and her husband attend St. Luke's as does her mum Pam Mercer and her identical twin sister Chris Kirk. Below the video is a picture of Sue and Chris at St. Luke's back in the 1970s!
• Audrey Tucker. A poem by Audrey Tucker, one of our members, reflecting on how praising God makes a day in lockdown a great day.
  
• Peter Erlam. One idea on this page is to share mini-autobiographies of members of St. Luke's. This one from Peter Erlam comes as a poem!
  

​Do keep sending in more 'life stories' so we can add them to our page.

Interesting Blogs and Videos

Inspiring Women: CMS

To mark International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating 200 years of sending women in mission. We’ve brought together a collection of amazing women in mission for you to read and hear about, so you can be inspired to act and pray.

Grandparents Matter

An article that is a great encouragement for grandparents to find ways to share faith with their grandchildren.

Growing Faith Adventure Podcast

This Podcast explores how faith can grow in the connections between church, school and home.

Creative Prayer Spaces at Home

Ideas for Creative Prayer Spaces in the home.

Finally, let's keep praying for our parents and young people that the faith may be passed from generation to generation.

Yours in Christ,

Paul Worledge 

Vicar, St. Luke's Ramsgate

www.stlukesramsgate.org​