26 August 2020

Rev. Irene writes:

Education has featured highly in our news over the past months with school closures and exam results and now we are looking towards getting our young people back in school and into a routine again.

If you have been following the scripture readings over the summer you will know that we have been going through Matthew’s gospel and have heard many of the popular parables and miracles that Jesus performed during his three years of teaching. Hearing these stories and events always takes me back to my school days when hearing bible stories and reciting the Lord’s prayer was a daily event. So often this is not the case these days and it does concern me that my grandchildren will have missed out of the richness of the Bible and not had the opportunity to consider Jesus being part of their lives. I suppose this puts more pressure on all of us, born in the 50’s and 60’s to make sure we share Jesus and not shut Him away only to be mentioned on a Sunday!

Big thank you to Mandy and all the children’s workers who step into the gap and share this great news whenever and wherever possible.

Below are details of a Family craft morning which Mandy is hosting in the Minster in September.

As promised Hannah one of our contemporary musicians is, this week, telling us about life during lockdown for her and her family:

I will always remember the evening of Sunday 15th of March. My mum had come to stay and so I went with Oli, my husband, to the 6.30 service at the Minster for the first time by ourselves without our son Samuel (then 15 months) since he had been born. I was leading the worship and we finished off the evening singing the chorus to “How Great is our God”. As I listened to the whole room lift their voices and eyes to heaven, I had a profound moment of peace. But alongside that I had a sense, which turned out to be right, that this would be our last evening worshipping collectively at the Minster for quite some time.

Instead, Church from home has now become a regular fixture of our Sunday mornings. Not only has this helped to bring some kind of structure to the week (necessary at the height of lockdown when all days blurred into one another!) but also meant that we have done our best to keep a time of focus on God as a family. We set up the “self-service creche” for our son in the living room, remind him that the children’s workers will not be attending this morning, and ask that he does his best not to launch himself off any item of furniture whilst mummy and daddy have their eyes shut to pray!

I also had the privilege of making recordings of contemporary worship songs for the Minster services. My husband set up a makeshift recording studio in our lounge, complete with duvet over the door and sock over his phone (he read it on the internet somewhere!). When recording songs for Church at home I have always done my best to offer them up to God and sing them in worship, just as if I was in the building singing with a congregation (although we do have to keep the volume down a bit, as we tend to record during Samuel’s nap time). The only other challenge has been moving the piano around the lounge for a nice-looking background whilst also avoiding the brio train set!

My heart longs to be back in the Minster singing collective praises to God in a busy building. Yet, I know that we are little way off that being possible. In the meantime, I look forward to recording in Church this weekend for the first time (and not having to navigate the brio!) and to taking small steps to being back together again.

Hannah Wilson

Rev Irene concludes:

FAMILY CRAFT SESSION: Wednesday 2nd September 10am-12noon. Due to Covid restrictions there are limited places. To book email mandy@hullminster.org with details of how many in your family group, and their ages and Mandy will email you back with booking confirmation and instructions for this event.

OPENING TIMES FOR PERSONAL PRAYER AND VISITORS

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 12-3 pm

On Sunday there will be an online service at 10am and a live service in the Minster at 11:15am. If you would like to be in the Minster for the service at 11:15 please book a place either on-line here or by telephoning the office on 01482 224460.

Finally, if you or anyone you know would like to explore the Christian faith more then we have an online Alpha course starting on 8th September, to sign up click here.

Readings:

The Collect for this week.

Creator God,

you made the goodness of the land,

the riches of the sea

and the rhythm of the seasons;

as we thank you for the harvest,

may we cherish and respect