Join us Online: 

Livestream 27th June, 11am

also available on YouTube afterwards

or at St. Luke's Church in Person at 11am.

Last Sunday 23 people attended.

If you plan to come to in-person church please register!

(You can now book for services through to July 18th, you can either book one week at a time or all the services in one go. We'll take your most recent booking when drawing up the register. So you can always rebook to change what you have said you are doing.)

Register to attend

The Zoom chat on Sunday's is now moving to 10am!

Join to meet and chat with others before the Livestream.

Click this link to join the Zoom meeting.​

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3)

Our Sunday services often end with a blessing. It is a prayer that God will bring us a life of wellbeing in every sense. 

This is appropriate, because it is what God wants to give to us and indeed as Christians has given us as the verse from Ephesians says above. When God created the world, he created a place of blessing, something that is declared to be good and very good. He placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, where they had access to a wonderful variety of fruit, including the fruit from the tree of life. When he called Abraham, God promised to both bless Abraham and make him a blessing and to bless all peoples on earth through him. Ultimately, Jesus the most important descendant of Abraham is the one through whom people from all nations find blessing.

But, as you read this, you may not feel that your life is very blessed. The effects of the pandemic or other struggles in life may have left you feeling cursed rather than blessed. Has God's promise failed?

Well the verse above talks about us being blessed in the 'heavenly realms'. Paul is looking at the BIG picture of what God is doing in our lives. There will be times in our lives, when things are really tough. Paul himself wrote the letter from jail (Ephesians 6:20) and often went through great hardships (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:3-10). Yet, the BIG picture or the long view as Paul says is that our eternal destiny and our ultimate reality is one of blessing.

As we lift our eyes to God and praise or bless him, then we are given this larger perspective that helps to reduce even our biggest problems to minor incidents in the great scheme of things. It also points us to God's wonderful resources for life now.

So, let's keep praising God, let's keep reflecting on his word and let's keep seeking to encourage one another, so that this larger perspective will help us to know that in Christ we are truly blessed.

Join us this Sunday. We will be looking at Ephesians 1:1-14: Our Eternal Blessings in Christ.​

Please read on...

• Prayer: Livestreaming - what to expect? The latest prayer requests. Thanksgiving Service for Pam Morecroft. Claire Coleman's Ordination.
• Care: Introducing iKnow, the new church communication and administration system.
• Share: Frontlines focus. Two articles for parents and two articles for Christians at work.

Livestreaming - What to expect?

With the switch to livetreaming, not much will change in terms of accessing the services from home using YouTube. The link to use is at the top of this email, but you will also be able to find it on the main website by Sunday morning. 

You may find that there is a few minutes wait before the service starts as we ensure everything is set up in church. You should see a screen saying, "Our Livestreamed Service will Start Soon," while this is happening.  If you watch the link later in the day, you should be able to skip past this screen to the actual start of the service.

You will then see Andrew McMillan who is leading the service this week giving a welcome. As normal you will be able to see him and  all the words you need on the same picture.

Likewise with the hymns and songs you will see a picture with some or all of the singers and musicians and the words for the songs on the same screen so you can sing along as normal.

There may be one or two hiccups, but the whole effect should be similar to the services on YouTube previously, but with more of a sense of being part of the gathering in church with others.

Do let us have any feedback on how we might improve things as we keep working to develop this as the weeks go by.

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...

• Our music and livestreaming teams as we prepare to livestream this week.

• Claire Coleman as she prepares for her ordination on Saturday 3rd July (see link below).

• Friends of Pam Morecroft who died recently. See below for details of a Thanksgiving Service for her at St. Luke's.

• Rosemary Ebelthite's 16 year old grandson Eric in Auckland, recovering from a psychotic episode after months of anxiety.

• Katrina (Norah's daughter) has cancer in the lung. Pray for a good recovery from the operation to remove it and that all the cancer is gone.

• Alison's granddaughter, Lexi. Give thanks that the growth on her knee is only cartilage/bone. It likely to be removed at the end of August.

• Barb (Gloria's daughter's friend).

• Flo Baldock - now on tablets to treat an ulcer in her stomach. Pray for healing.

• Rita who is not feeling well, because of a thyroid issue.

• Jean Simmons. Please pray that she can be kept comfortable at this time. She is now in a nursing home.

• Pauline Emptage waiting to hear from King's College Hospital about next steps for treating her back.

• Nathan Court for his continuing treatment.

Please also continue to pray for: Jean Mayton, Jeannette (Claudia's sister), Shirley Crabb, Collette Judge and Joy Smithers.

Thanksgiving Service for Pam Morecroft:

There will be a special service in St. Luke's to give thanks for the life of Pam Morecroft on Tuesday 6th July at 2pm. All those who knew her at St. Luke's are welcome to attend. 

Ordination of Claire Coleman:

Claire will be joining us at St. Luke's as a curate in July. She is being ordained as Deacon at Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday 3rd July at 5:30pm. Unfortunately, the tickets are highly restricted due to covid. However, if you would like to watch online you can do so using the Cathedral livestreaming link. 

Introducing iKnow

We are in the process of setting up a new communications and administration system that we can use as a church called, iKnow. You may well receive an email about it in the near future, although initially we are prioritising adding those who are attending church in person or involved in one of the active teams.

This system means you will be able to see the information we hold about you and update or edit many of the details and preferences we have for you online. It also enables us to manage rotas, plan services and communicate with one another in a more streamlined and effective way.

When you first receive an email, please follow the instructions to set up your password. Then please log in and check the details we have for you are correct and that you are happy with your preferences and permissions. You can edit most things yourself.

If you have children, you will need to add them and their details to the system. This will greatly help us as we prepare for the relaunch of Sunday Club in September.

You can also tell the system when you will not be available. Please do this, especially if you are helping out in some way over the summer as this enables us to organise rotas for the different teams much more effectively.

Finally, there is an iKnow app. Once you are signed on to the system, you can download the app and sign up for St. Luke's. The app is an excellent way of keeping up with what is going on at St. Luke's. It even tells you when you are next due to help out on a rota!

Arrange to meet Paul

I have really enjoyed meeting up with some people over the last week or so. If you would like to have a chat with me at some point soon, then you can book a 30 minute meeting by clicking the link below. I have now extended the dates you can book until 20th July, but do book for sooner rather than later!

Last Week's Talk:

Rebuild: Rejoicing in God's Word (Nehemiah 8:1-12) - Available Online

Under Nehemiah and Ezra the people of Jerusalem showed a renewed devotion to the word of God. It was part of the rebuilding of a community that moved God's people from disgrace to distinction and enabled them to flourish for hundreds of years. What lessons can we learn as God's people today?

St. Luke's Stories

Remember you can use this form to send in your personal reflections on your pandemic experience, which we can then publish. We also welcome mini-autobiographies and poems! Please just email them. In the meantime check out the poems and stories already there...

Frontline Focus: Parenting

This week we have a couple of blogs for Christian parents:

Experiences that build resilience strengthen children who face adversities

10 things that help build resilience in children to enable them to cope with problems in life. It even mentions chess!

Lessons from my Wood

How can you rediscover hope when devastation and failure tear your life apart? Becky Sedgwick from Parenting for Faith relates her personal experiences in this candid account prompted by a walk in a wood…

Frontline Focus: Christians at Work

Being a Christian makes a Difference at Work

This and the next article both draw on some research on Christians in the workplace. This one points out that being a Christian does make a difference to how meaningful and significant people find work.

4 Ways to See the Benefit of Work as a Christian

From the same research this article gives some really helpful analysis to help Christians think about their work and how it benefits them, others and society!

Finally, let's bless God for the blessings he has given to us!

Yours in Christ,

Paul Worledge 

Vicar, St. Luke's Ramsgate

www.stlukesramsgate.org​