The following activities are taking place each week. All are welcome to join us:
Sundays
- 8am – BCM Communion Service
- 10am – Contemporary Service (Communion service on the first and third Sunday of the month, informal morning praise on the second and fourth Sunday of the month)
Mondays
- 9-9:30am Morning Prayer on Zoom with St Thomas and St Mark’s – Parish Prayer zoom link
- 10:30am-12 – Zoom Study group on Pennington Church general zoom link
Tuesdays
- 9-9:30am Morning Prayer on Zoom with St Thomas and St Mark’s – Parish Prayer zoom link
- 1.30-4pm – Strictly Come Crafting. 2nd & 4th Tuesday at the Community Hall. Contacts Dorothy Davies 01590 676163 or Shirley Saunders 01590 677628
- 2.30-3.45pm – Friendship Teas 1st Tuesday in month at the Community Hall. Contacts Shirley Saunders 01590 677628 or Pat Wright 01590 678416
Wednesdays
- 9-9:30am Morning Prayer on Zoom with St Thomas and St Mark’s – Parish Prayer zoom link
- 10:15-10:30 – Morning Prayer at St Mark’s Church
- 10:30-11am – Coffee at St Mark’s Church
Thursdays
- 9-9:30am Morning Prayer on Zoom with St Thomas and St Mark’s – Parish Prayer zoom link
- 1-2pm – Fareshare Larder – St Mark’s Community Hall Car Park
Fridays
- 9-9:30am – Morning Prayer on Zoom with St Thomas and St Mark’s – Parish Prayer zoom link
Saturdays
- 9-9:30am Parish prayers at St Thomas Church
Donations for Ukraine
Supporting this year the locala charity New Forest for Ukraine, please find a box at the back of church for donations of food, bedding, baby supplies, pet supplies, medical supplies and so forth to support Ukrainian refugees. See Shirley for more details (01590 677628).
Friendship Tea
A chance to meet with both current and new friends in a friendly atmosphere – with tea, cake and good company! For further details, please speak with Shirley (01590 677628)
Coming up on Tuesday 1st November from 2:30 in the Community Hall.
Churchyard Working Group
Don your gardening gloves and bring along your favourite garden shears – and join us this Thursday 2nd October from 10am – where we’ll do justice and prune the errant corners of the church yard, for the benefit of all our visitors. Refreshments available.
Parish and Giving Update
The St Mark’s PCC recently met with Debbie, the acting Bishop of Winchester regarding the next steps in interegnum for St Mark’s. Within this meeting, we discussed the challenges that face both ourselves, but also our neighbours St Thomas in Lymington.
Lymington will be appointing their incumbant initially with the intention to appoint for St Mark’s following. The intention here being to ensure complementary skill sets across both parishes. St Mark’s have been in suspension (having a ‘priest in charge’) for over a decade, due to a desire from the diocese to see closer ties between St Mark’s and St Thomas’s – with this roadmap for moving out of intergnum in both parishes potentially helping a closer knit between our churches.
During these early days, our church wardens along with St Thomas church wardens are meeting regularly with the area dean. Combined events with St Thomas’s, including prayer groups, and messy church are already seeing combined success across our churches. Our PCC is also engaging with Christians together, Lymington and Pennington – helping our name be known across the wider Christian community.
St Mark’s PCC would welcome your help as we journey forward, with any volunteers who may be able to help in the aspects of our church life. Such as joining teams for parish visiting, events and refreshments or helping with our study groups; we are also wanting to fill a health and safety role – and would welcome any interested individuals to help in this position.
Financially, we are facing challenges as a church as many of our congregation and community likewise see. We are in the unfortunate position of seeing a large increase in our utility costs. With a rise of over 400%, we will be potentially seeing an increase exceeding £8,000 per year over church and hall. Although we appreciate the financial position of our congregation varies, if you are able to support us further now this would be most welcome. Many of our congregation donate through the Parish Giving Scheme; if you do not currently do so, we ask if you would consider starting – this is a great way for us to manage our finances. Alternatively, our weekly envelope scheme is available as an option too; details for both schemes are available from our treasurer and church warden, Teresa.
You may also want to give through alternative methods too, which won’t cost you to do so. For example, supporting us through services such as Amazon Smile or Easy Fundraising is a great way to use services you may already be using: with a percentage of the price you pay coming back to St Mark’s.
Our PCC would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts for how we may save money, or indeed increase finaces into the church. Do speak to any of your PCC members, or email ‘enquiries@penningtonchurch.uk’ with your thoughts – we’d love to hear from you.
Our thanks to all for your support; our church is not a building, it’s the people within it who meet in a common love of Christ – and it’s together that we can move forward.
Anti-social behaviour in the churchyard
We are increasingly getting reports of anti-social behaviour in the churchyard here at St Mark’s. Churchyards exist for the benefit of all. They are beautiful and sacred places which are clearly important to the local community and to those who have loved ones buried here.
This space is intended to be a quiet and peaceful space, where visitors can spend time paying their respect to their loved ones, and spending time in prayer. We ask that all visitors respect this space, and show consideration and kindness to other visitors.
Please dispose of litter in the bins provided at the churchyard entrances or take it home to dispose of properly.
If you know the people that are not respecting this space, please strongly encourage them to stop this behaviour in the churchyard. There are now people that no longer feel it is safe to visit graves in the churchyard. Our churchyard volunteers, and many others in the community are repeatedly having to pick up rubbish left behind by others.
As a community, we need you to help us to work together to make this a safe place for everyone to visit. If you are witnessing an incident of antisocial behaviour in the churchyard, please report this to the police through their online reporting tool:
https://www.hampshire.police.uk/ro/report/asb/asb-v3/report-antisocial-behaviour
Monday study group
Our Monday group continues on Monday 31st October via Zoom at 10.30am. Moving on from our look at Ruth, we’d love to see you as we now move on to Esther – If you would like to join the group, do please contact Jane (enquiries@penningtonchurch.uk) and she will be happy to give you more information on our studies.
If you want to find out more about the source material for these studies, the book we’re working through is available here.
Music for Remembrance & Reflection
A Concert of beautiful music by Choralia Milford on Saturday 5th November at 2.30pm at All Saints Church, Milford on Sea. Phil Daish-Handy is the musical director and Leigh Jerwood will be taking part (singing, playing and including some of her musical compositions).
Tickets: £12.50 in advance available at the back of church/ £15 on the day (under 18s free) in support of the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal.
Daily Prayer
With St Thomas in Lymington, we continue to ‘pray for our nation, for its leaders, its health and essential services and all those who suffer’ this week at 9am on Zoom. Led by members of St Mark’s and St Thomas congregations, this now runs Monday through Friday.
Daily prayer is also taking place in St Thomas church from 9am on Saturdays
Coming together, we offer daily prayer for the situation in Ukraine.
Please do join them either by computer or phone:
- https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
- Meeting ID: 895 2990 2640 Passcode: 2020
- Dial in from a landline phone: 0131 460 1196
World Vision
Following our recent service and talk by Matt Hyam from World Vision here is an update on the child called Ireen, who is 5 years old, and her community that our church supports in Zambia. This charity works to ensure that every child has an appropriate form of education though at the moment Ireen is under school age. Sothe community have benefited from: health education; learning about equal opportunities for boys and girls and to be treated equally; learning how to care for each other in their community; safeguarding issues; understanding the dangers and impact of people trafficking and unsafe migration so they are better equipped to protect children in their community.
St Mark’s Flower Decoration
If you would like to give flowers to commemorate an anniversary or other special day, or remember a relative or friend, please enter your name on the poster at the back of church against the date you would like your flowers to decorate the church and/or contact:- Lin Haley on 01590 677904
YouTube and Facebook
All our services can be found on our YouTube channel here. We also post details about or services and events on our Facebook page too, here.
Online Connection Information
Zoom Details
- Pennington Church General Zoom link:
- From a landline phone: 0203 481 5240 Meeting ID: 944 5816 8956 Passcode: 1839
- Parish Prayer Zoom Link:
- From a landline phone: 0203 481 5240 Meeting ID: 895 2990 2640 Passcode: 2020
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PenningtonChurch
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StMarksChurchPennington