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St Mungo’s Annual General Meeting: for all Church members on Sunday 22 January as part of our 10.30am services at both Balerno High School and St Margaret's in Livingston [with the AGM part of the service being live streamed to St Margaret’s]. Details were emailed to all members on 13 and 18 January. Church members watching the service via the live stream can participate in the Vestry nominee affirmation process via an online voting form which will be issued via ChurchSuite on Sunday morning. This form will be open for the duration of the service only.
Heating on a Sunday morning: We are aware that both Balerno High School and St Margaret’s Academy are cold on a Sunday morning and have been in dialogue with the respective schools regarding this since November. BHS has turned their thermostat down in order to save money and St Margaret’s heating and air circulation is managed externally and proving challenging to resolve despite numerous attempts. We are continuing to work on finding solutions, including looking at how we manage the external doors in both locations, but in the meantime please do dress for a slightly cooler morning!
Cups and Refreshments! Since returning to serving refreshments, the price of recyclable cups has doubled. We would like to encourage everyone to remember to bring their reusable cups; flasks; china cups to church on a Sunday morning to reduce the quantity of paper cups each week. In Balerno, a reminder that there are St Mungo’s recycle bins dedicated for the paper cups. We are also introducing in Balerno, reusable juice cups, to try and reduce the amount of waste. Please do bless the refreshments team by returning these cups back to the refreshments area. Thank you.
Housegroup Leaders meet on Wednesday 25 January at 7.45pm in the Church Building Balerno. Do offer to babysit to help leaders attend.
Communion & Soaking: Thursday 26 January 9.30am - 10.30am. A short liturgical communion service followed by a time of worship and soaking in the Church Building Ladycroft, Balerno.
Alpha: We will be running an in-person Alpha in Balerno starting on Thursday 26 January in the Ministry Centre, Balerno. We will start at 7:30pm with a meal and then start the video series at 8:15. The advert says ‘Stay Curious’, many people accept things as truth without taking time to stop and ask questions, Alpha is the perfect place to ask the big questions in life. Who could you invite to ‘Stay Curious’? Email alpha@stmungos.org for more information.
Baptism service is being planned for both congregations on Sunday 5 February. This will be at 1pm at Balerno High School so please plan to come along to support those being baptised. We’ll all (both congregations) be able to enjoy our packed lunches in the Balerno concourse between the morning services and the baptism service.
Heriot Watt University Chaplaincy Lecture. Monday 6 February at 7pm. From Peru to Mars: New Worlds and Jesuit Science, a whistle-stop tour of science through the ages. Speaker is Brother Guy Consolmango SJ, often called “the Pope’s Astronomer”. This is free and open to all, but please register here on Eventbrite
Certificate in counselling course: There will be a Certificate in Counselling course in Edinburgh on 10-11 March and 14-15 April. This Certificate in counselling is required if you want to do the Diploma in Integrative counselling with a Christian Perspective which starts in September this year here in Balerno. Spaces on the diploma are already filling up! The Certificate is a worthwhile course to do even just by itself for personal and spiritual development and to help you be a better listener. More information about this course can be found here: http://www.vitalconnexions.org
St Mungo’s Christmas Gift Collection: We are so grateful to the extravagant generosity of our congregation at this time, in support of Life Center Church in Beirut. We are very close to our target now with the amount raised to date standing at just over £18,000 [including gift aid]. We will keep the giving page open until the end of February and it would be a real blessing if we exceeded the target of £20,000 to support the amazing outreach ministry in Beirut: https://www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/lc_cei_2022.
Youth: Sunday 22 Jan– youth head straight to Church Building Ladycroft, not in the service.
· Sunday 22 Jan– Deeper. Meet at Transform 6.30pm at Balerno Parish Church, or make your way to the Erasmuson’s house for 8pm
· Fri 27 January - Friday Night Youth Game Show. Meet 7.30-9.30pm at Church Building, Ladycroft, Balerno.
Prayers
Please pray for those who mourn the recent death of Gwen Harris (Balerno congregation). All welcome at the funeral at 12.30 at Warriston cemetery on Thursday 9 February.