WELCOME!

Welcome to the website of the churches of
St Michael’s and St Barnabas, Devonport.

From Sunday July 25th, we will be meeting in the church building at 4pm on Sundays for a short spoken service of Evening Prayer.

However, our main worship service remains online, at 10:30am each Sunday morning via our Facebook page. 

For details of our online social activities and all other meetings, see What’s On … and the side bar for our sitemap and many other useful links.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Daily broadcast 11 Aug 20

Apologies for no broadcast yesterday!

The glory of the cross – Mark 8:31-33:

Junior Church report – August 7th

We had a great time in Junior Church again this week! 🙂

From our beginner’s bible, page 334… Jesus calm the storm

Jesus and his disciples got into a boat. They wanted to cross the sea. Jesus took a nap. The waves gently rocked the boat back and forth. Suddenly a great storm came up. Waves splashed over the boat. Wind whipped around the disciples. They woke Jesus up and shouted, “The boat is sinking! Don’t you care?” Jesus asked “Why are you so afraid? Don’t you have any faith at all?” Then Jesus told the storm to stop. Right away it was calm. The disciples were amazed. They said to each other, “Who is this man Jesus? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

We did a picture of either a boat or a storm, or a boat in a storm for our prayer diary. We talked about how we can be having a nice time, but suddenly something can come along to spoil it. In our story, they were all sailing and it was calm and the disciples were probably having a fun time. But then what happens? A big storm comes up!There are HUGE waves and the boat is being thrown around.

What would you feel if you were in a little tiny boat in a great big storm? What did the disciples do?They turned to Jesus.

What did Jesus do? Jesus stopped the danger.

What would have happened if they had not turned to Jesus? They would have stayed in a scary storm.

They would have to struggle and be afraid. They would have to fight with the storm and the boat – they would have gotten more and more cold and wet and tired and anxious. So we need to remember when something is frightening us, or is hard work, to turn to Jesus.

What was the prayer of the disciples? How did Jesus answer? In our prayer diaries, we wrote “When I am afraid, I need to ask Jesus to help me”. We talked about how we can write or draw in our diaries the way that Jesus helps us when we get scared.

Lord Jesus, we ask that you remind us that you are there with us, when things make us afraid or anxious. We thank You that we can always turn to you. We thank you that You want to help us. Amen.

We said the Lord’s prayer and finished with the Grace.

Our next meeting is on Friday August 14th, from 10:30am. Please ask us for the link 🙂

TONIGHT – Quiz Night!

Tonight’s the night … our next Zoom quiz … one team per screen … bring your own snacks … question setter’s decision is final … great company … no prizes, just pride!

On Zoom, 7pm for 7:30pm … ask us for the link! Everyone welcome 🙂

Sunday morning worship 9 Aug 20

We warmly welcome everyone to join us in our worship online on Sunday morning at 10.30am, particularly if you are a newcomer. You can follow the order of service by clicking on this link: Service 9 Aug 20

The service starts at 10.30am but we will be live from 10.20am. The order of service also contains the words of the songs we will be singing: “Give thanks with a grateful heart”, “Hear the call of the kingdom” (both before the service), “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty”, “Faithful one” and “Blessed be your name”. Plus, at the end of the service Revd Tim will be playing one of his songs during the sharing of the peace.

The service will be streamed on our Facebook page, but you don’t need a Facebook account to watch it, as our page is public. There will also be an opportunity to meet over Zoom afterwards and greet one another in person. Just ask us for the link. We look forward to seeing you!

Join us also at 4pm for a limited service in the church building, but please let us know if you are planning to come!

Broadcast 6 Aug 20

The most important question – Mark 8:26-29

Broadcast 5 Aug 20

Slowly coming to faith – Mark 8:22-26:

Daily broadcast 4 Aug 20

Have you got it yet? Mark 8:14-21

Broadcast 3 Aug 20

Learning the same lesson again – Mark 8:1-13:

Junior Church report – Friday 31st July

God is like a lighthouse!

Psalm 32:8 … I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. NKJ

As a warm up game we had a go at walking across our rooms with our eyes closed. As all of the children managed that without problems. |Then we suggested that the grown ups created an obstacle course for the youngsters to negotiate, again with their eyes closed, this time being guided and directed by the adult in the room. Afterwards we discussed what made the second journey across the room easier. Of course it was having directions from another person. We talked about God being our lighthouse and being there to guide and help us in life’s journey. We watched a video of a song that we want to learn,  and joined in where we could. Good fun when you are all on mute and the video is a bit jerky, but we tried our best!! Karen and Gill later discussed the possibility of asking Rev Tim if he could learn the song so that he could accompany us!! (This version has the lyrics)

We further explored the lighthouse theme by talking about what a lighthouse does. A lighthouse keeps you from danger, and shows you the correct way to go. Both wonderful suggestions from our youngsters. And how are lighthouses like God ? We are kept from going in the wrong direction and kept safe – another marvellous answer from a very astute young man! It was pointed out that like God, lighthouses stand firm and strong when storms rage around them. We talked about the fact that we need the Light of God shining brightly in our hearts to tell us where to go and what to do. The question was asked “How do we talk to God?”

All of the children knew that it was through prayer and that like Samuel we can hear God talk to us, no matter what age we are. For our craft activity we drew pictures of lighthouses to put in our prayer journels. Karen is still working on hers and we expect to see a masterpiece!! Some amazing and creative pictures were produced. We certainly have an artistic group of children! During our quiet time we talked about things for which we could ask God’s help and then prayed about them. Some of us had worries that we handed over to God. It felt good to know that however big our worries, God is bigger! We finished today’s Junior Church by saying The Lord’s Prayer together and then finished by sharing The Grace, complete with a huge wind up Amen!!

Homework for those who want it

Make a 3D lighthouse to show us next week.
Watch the you tube clip, Coast – The building of the Eddystone lighthouse. Well worth watching!

JOIN US next Friday, August 7th at 10:30am for another fun filled Junior Church. Everyone welcome – ask us for the Zoom link 🙂

Sunday morning worship 2 Aug 20

We warmly welcome everyone to join us in our worship online on Sunday morning at 10.30am, particularly if you are a newcomer. You can follow the order of service by clicking on this link: Service 2 Aug 20

The service starts at 10.30am but we will be live from 10.20am. The order of service also contains the words of the songs we will be singing: “Jesus, lover of my soul (it’s all about you)” and “We bow down”, (both before the service) and then “Bless the Lord, O my soul”, “The God of Abraham praise” and “Salvation belongs to our God”.

The service will be streamed on our Facebook page, but you don’t need a Facebook account to watch it, as our page is public. There will also be an opportunity to meet over Zoom afterwards and greet one another in person. Just ask us for the link. We look forward to seeing you!

Join us also at 4pm for a limited service in the church building, but please let us know if you are planning to come!

Daily Readings – MAP

During lockdown, have you been able to maintain a regular quiet time/daily devotional/act of worship?

One of the goals of our MAP (Mission Action Plan) is for ‘every church member to have some pattern of regular, personal devotion with Jesus’ 🙂 So tell us, what have you been reading recently?  Do you have a set reading plan? How has God ‘spoken’ to you during this time?

If you don’t read and pray regularly, here are some ideas from the Church of England …

Daily Prayer – Morning, Evening and Night Prayer from the CofE – https://www.chpublishing.co.uk/apps/daily-prayer

Lectio365 – a 7 minute daily pattern for prayer – https://www.24-7prayer.com/dailydevotional

Bible in One Year – readings and devotional thoughts which take you through the whole Bible in a year – https://www.bibleinoneyear.org/

PrayerMate – an app to help you pray for different people and concerns each day. I love the way it offers friends at random for us to pray for – https://www.prayermate.net/

There are many other possibilities out there, so do share both reading plans and answers to prayer 🙂 Let’s encourage each other to keep going with God 🙂

Church online – Zoom Links

Please note, as from August 1st, all our Zoom links to meetings will be renewed for security purposes. Meetings continue as normal, but you will need a new link for each meeting! We will try and get the links to everyone who needs it, but if you think you have missed out on receiving a link, please do contact us … by FB, this page, email or phone/text and we’ll do our best to get it to you on time 🙂

Broadcast 30 Jul 20

The God of the whole Bible – Mark 7:31-37

Broadcast 29 Jul 20

Confronting racism – Mark 7:24-30:

Broadcast 28 Jul 20

The heart of the matter – Mark 7:14-23: