St James’ Church

3rd update on 13th March 2021

Worship

We are open for public worship daily with COVID-secure guidelines in place. These include the wearing of face-coverings for all save those medically exempt, social distancing, hand-sanitising, a cleaning regime, and the taking down of contact details for the government’s Track and Trace service. All our public worship is streamed via our Facebook page for those not able to attend in person. These are the times of weekly public worship:

• Morning Prayer at 9.15am daily, from Monday to Friday, which is from the Book of Common Prayer on Tuesday
• The Eucharist at 10am on Sundays and at 11am on Tuesdays;
• Midday Prayer at 12 30pm on Saturdays;
• Evensong at 6pm on Sunday;
• Compline at 7 30pm on Wednesday

Resources are available from St James or the website with orders of service for daily services. The weekly Parish Notes contains an Order of Service with readings for Sunday Eucharist and Evensong.

Click here to go to our worship from home resources.

Church as a place for prayer

Outside of these service times, we continue to provide a safe haven for people to pray and come to reflect. Until Easter, the opening hours are 9am-1pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday as well as around service times.

Church opening for visitors

The full opening of the Coffee Shop and presence of Guides will be postponed until things are more settled. Along with this the planned pre-season meeting for volunteers is postponed.

Social events

Whilst maintaining a rhythm or prayer, continuing to offer a basic offering of worship and providing a safe space for prayer and reflection are essential aspects of our role as parish church to the local community, we need to suspend all social events where members of the church and community gather. A Lent Course for this Lent continues via Zoom, as do prayer groups as advertised elsewhere on the website.

Pastoral Care

As throughout this year, we need to continue caring for each other, and especially look out for those who may be isolated or unable to access help or services. We do this through the Pastoral Care Network, which includes the work of the Community Larder at Trinity, and medication deliveries from that hub, but also covers a ‘phone network of parishioners and others in the community.

We are aware that we do not have the means to contact or know about everyone who may need our care, so would always ask for people’s help in alerting us to need and helping us respond appropriately.

If you are aware of someone who is in pastoral need please email louthparishpastoral@gmail.com or pass a note of the person and their contact details to a member of the ministry team at a service. If this is not possible, then drop a written note into the Deanery Office; if this is still not possible contact the Deanery Office by ‘phone, leaving a message if there is no one available to answer immediately.

yours,

Arabella Milbank Robinson (Assistant Curate, Team Parish of Louth)
James Robinson (Rector of Legbourne Woldmarsh and Rural Dean)

St James Church Louth, along with all the other churches is really struggling at the moment as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak. As we can’t fundraise in person we would like to ask that if you are doing your shopping online, to please sign up to easyfundraising. Over 4,000 sites will give us a free donation every time you shop online. This will help us continue to support people that rely on us.

 

St. James’ is the historic parish and civic church of Louth.  It is the probable burial place Saint Herefrith – of one of the Saxon bishops of what became the Diocese of Lincoln.  Until his remains were removed to a rival church, his shrine in Louth was a popular place of pilgrimage.

In the mediaeval period its current dedication to Saint James became dominant, possibly linked to the pilgrimage routes to Compostella in Spain.

Today St. James remains a popular place for visitors and we pray that those who visit us are touched by the spirit of this special place and become not just visitors but pilgrims as well.

Please note: The tower climb is NOT OPEN

Find out more about the Peregrines.

St James : Westgate, Louth, Lincolnshire, LN11 9YD