Most marriages in Church of England Churches require “Banns” to be called. That process entails, over three consecutive Sunday services, a leader of a church standing in front of a congregation and saying something like: ”
I publish the banns of marriage between John Smith of St Ethelburts Parish and Mary Jones of St Simon’s Parish, both with a qualifying connection to St Jude’s Parish. If anyone knows any reason in law why they may not marry, you are required to declare it now.”
Banns need to be called in the church where you will marry AND in any parish you may each live in. Thererfore it is quite important to discover which parish you do live in. We would recommend following this link to a Church of England Parish finder web site.
If you both live in the parish where you are marrying, then your marriage application form given to you by that church will give them all they need and you do not need banns calling anywhere else. But, if one or both of you live elsewhere and just have another qualifying connection to the church in which you will marry, you will need Banns calling in your home parish.
The national fee for 2011 to call Banns is £22. For a certificate to prove they have been called the additional fee is £12. Therefore, if you marry in one church and both live in two other parishes you will need to pay £22 for the banns of the church where you marry and £34 to each parish you live in for the calling of the banns and for a certificate from each. You must give to the minister who will be marrying you that certificate to legally enable him to hold your wedding.
If you have checked via the link above that you do live within St Jude’s Parish Boundary and require your banns to be read in this church, then please download a form here. Once completed and signed, please post it together with your cheque for the fee, made out to St Jude’s Church, to:
St Jude’s Church, St Jude’s Vicarage, Knighton Road PLYMOUTH PL4 9BU
If you do download the form and post it to us, please do send an e-mail as well via our contact us page so that we can look out for your form and let you know we have received it. (We have had one case of a form being posted, not received and therefore not known about. The banns for that marriage were only chased the week before their wedding and had not been called. It then became urgent, different and a more expensive method then became necessary for them to marry on their chosen date.) Please do not leave it too close to your wedding date to ensure we have your application form as there must be a minimum of three Sundays available BEFORE your wedding day for banns to be valid.
OUR ORGAN IS NOW UNDER CONSIDERATION BY A CHURCH ELSEWHERE AND A FACULTY HAS BEEN SUBMITTED FOR THE MOVE, THEREFORE IT IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE. (MAY 2012)
St Jude’s Church in Plymouth, UK, is needing to refurbish their buildings. As part of that refurbishment (Our Next Era Project can be seen here) the generally unused Chancel area needs to be fully utilised and our Organ sits within that area. In any future design, the Chancel will always therefore be acoustically seperate from the main assembly area of the Nave and the organ is just too large for the new seperated Chancel space to be used again.
The Organ is a large, spectacular and very early example of Hele & Co of Plymouth’s grand organ design. It is approximately 4m by 4m in plan and about 6.5m in height before any access space is required. There is not another space within our church complex it would fit! (Click here for a dimensioned sketch)
Therefore, we want to help find it a good home where its wonderful range and character can be used. So our Church organ is for sale – but where it goes and who can hear it is far more important than the price.
Among organs, this has an interesting pedigree. Its modest historicity arises from its build date. We understand that in their early years, Hele & Co of Plymouth assembled organs. Then, in 1875, they came up with their first grand design. Our organ was built in 1878 with seemingly the fullest specification they could offer.
It was originally a two manual instrument of 20 speaking stops that we understand are mechanical action. Then in 1920 a third manual was added, again by Hele’s, with their unique patented pneumatic system taking the speaking stops to 24 in total. (All of the stops and controls are listed as they appear below with photos)
The organ is built of very good materials and works beautifully – and moving it would mean it would be fully restored. It would need to be dismantled by an organ builder ready to ship and be rebuilt by them, replacing any smaller components that may need refurbishment. Once in its new situation it could be a fully restored perfectly operating organ with another 130 years ahead of it.
The Church Faculty process is now beginning with our detailed site design work initially, prior to submission around May 2012. ( A faculty is a type of Church of England Planning Application.) We were pleased to be given initial permission to find a home for the organ worldwide subject to important conditions – more information can be found here.
We would also be very pleased to work with anyone on grants to help. If you are an end user reading this, we believe you would need to engage an organ builder to dismantle, pack and rebuild it in its new location. If you are an organ builder looking at this page it is also being advertised on the Institute of British Organ Building website where some information is available and there are a few extra photographs lower on this page.
We would love to talk to anyone who thinks they can give it a good home where it will be able to be played and heard.
It is church. A regular gathering of up to 20 or so folk in homes, instead of the church buildings, who want to worship God, grow in Jesus and each other, find a ministry and be involved in mission - and are therefore open to folk joining them. (We also have several Fellowship Groups who have chosen, for a while, to be closed to new members – our definition of the difference between Small Groups and Fellowship Groups) Clergy are not needed for the groups. The life of the group and worship is defined by the group under the sole leadership of Jesus as they wait on Him.
Small Groups will form a major component of the life of St Jude’s across Plymouth as they evolve. While we are a parish church, we recognise we are also a city church, and we want to make provision for folk to have close fellowship in their own local area as we grow.
Planning for Small Groups
Across January and Febuary 2010 we ran a series called RNLI Small Group Church, and then in April we launched some material for our current groups to explore how they may evolve to fulfil the varied need of their group to be Rescuing, Nurturing, Loving and Including.
How do I join a Small Group?
The whole of our Small Group set up is evolving across the summer of 2010. The best thing is to come into one of our services and ask folk what is available. You can also get a feel for the character each of our group’s by having a look through our Small Group Portal.
Sunday evenings at St Judes are from 6.30pm each week in our Upper Hall that faces onto Beaumont Road behind the Church…
Reflections
REFLECTIONS
These evenings are an opportunity to reflect on a passage of scripture that might not have been that obvious or needs deeper study and it will be in a context of sung worship and prayer.
We also have various resources available each week to help us explore more and a downloadable data sheet on the particular book of the Bible we will be in will be available from here (or a printed version in Church the Sunday beforehand) so you can pre-read and prepare a bit. See below for the downloads against each week.
Hopefully, we can learn from each other in how we approach and interpret what we read. You can gain confidence in reading your Bible as we try to allow the Bible to speak to us more and more of God’s love and character.
And, is there a passage you would like us to look at? Let us know on one of the evenings and we’ll try and slot it in. We want to use different books of the Bible each time as you will also be able to build up a free resource of backgrounds to each book of the Bible.
(Click on the reading below to download the background to the book the reading is taken from. They are all in pdf text versions to keep files smaller – if you need to download a pdf reader for free, click here)
PROGRAMME
No Evening Services over Easter Holidays 8 Apr and 15 Apr
If you’d rather contact someone and speak on the phone please either call our Church Office (Open Wed to Fri mornings) on Plymouth (01752) 263163 or the Vicar on 224178 View Larger Map
If the map isn’t showing above just above this sentence, please do just click on its link. If you need coordinates for a Sat Nav, then St Jude’s Church is at 50.372781, -4.127651 and is on the corner of Tothill Road and Beaumont Road in Plymouth.
There is a car park at the church and the local streets are suitable for parking ,except Monday to Friday between 10am and 11am, when resident parking only applies on many of the roads.
If you want to see the parish and its boundaries, maybe to see if you live within it for a wedding application, on a map click here
So much of church life is about being together and doing things with others. And if you like cute, you’ll like this short cartoon that helps to illustrate community…
Apart from the services, we also have a range of Small Groups that get together, a variety of social events across the year such as beach days, quiz nights, Sing-a-long film evenings, book clubs, film nights, the World Cup on large screen tv…
If you look at our News page you’ll get the most up to date events – or maybe just have a meander around the site!
Most marriages in Church of England Churches require “Banns” to be called. That process entails, over three consecutive Sunday services, a leader of a church standing in front of a congregation and saying something like: ”
