Notice Sheet 

Normal Service Resumes on September 7th. The 'Landing Page' contains a full list of services in the benefice up to September 7th.

Inclusive Church

We're delighted to announce (as it says on our landing page) that St Mary's application to join the Inclusive Church network has been approved. Our thanks to Gavin for his work on this, and it's good to hear that Barrow and Goxhill are also joining IC.

There are several other churches in the diocese who are part of the movement - Elsham, Crosby, Little Coates (Grimsby), and several in Lincoln - St Nicholas' Newport, St John's Ermine, Holy Cross Boultham, St Michael's Waddington.

Inevitably, some folk will think 'it's all about sex', but real inclusion is far-reaching (and often far more challenging). Learning abilities, disability issues, wealth, culture, age - it's all about trying to make Churches move from 'people like us' to 'people'. There's much more on the IC website:

https://www.inclusive-church.org/

“We believe in inclusive church – a church which celebrates and affirms every person and does not discriminate.

We will continue to challenge the church where it continues to discriminate against people on grounds of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, or sexuality.

We believe in a Church which welcomes and serves all people in the name of Jesus Christ; which is scripturally faithful; which seeks to proclaim the Gospel afresh for each generation; and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, allows all people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus Christ.”

Long Range Notice:

There will be an Animal Blessing Service at St Mary's on September 14th at 3.00, to which all animals (and their human carers) are welcome. No woodworm, please.

Raising the (spiritual) temperature
Ever since Bishop Stephen joined us, he’s been talking about ‘raising the spiritual temperature of the diocese.’ As the big structural changes of ‘Time to Change Together’ run through, it’s time to move on to the next stage of things, which has been dubbed ‘Time to Grow Together’.

Bishop Stephen has written a bit more about this on the diocesan website, and it’s well worth a read just to get the idea of what he’s thinking. More in-depth material can be found there, too – the third is one I find especially interesting. It’s all at https://www.lincoln.anglican.org/raising-the-spiritual-temperature/