Wednesday 3 June 2020

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

First I want to thank you for all the many kind emails I received last week. I'm sorry that I can't reply to every email personally, but I am very grateful for your encouragement and support. I was feeling very exhausted and a few days away has done me good. Thank you, too, to Sue, who sent out a message on my behalf while we were away.

Alleluia! I have good news! Last night the council met together and agreed to begin services in church again on Sunday 21st June. There will be also be a 'test service' for the council and a few others on Sunday 14th June to make sure that all safety restrictions work and it all runs smoothly.

It will be a great joy to be able to meet together to worship again and I know many of you are very keen to do that. Others are feeling more cautious and want to stay away from church gatherings for now - and that is perfectly reasonable and in many cases very wise. Let me assure you that we are taking seriously all the necessary precautions and will do our utmost to protect everyone.

As you will know, we have to abide by social distancing rules, with 2 meters between each seat (though couples and families can sit together). This reduces the number of people we can fit into church quite drastically, probably to between 20-30 people. We will therefore also have a service with similar numbers in the hall at the same time. We will need to know in advance who is hoping to attend each service so that we are sure of numbers and can plan the seating arrangements appropriately. So you will need to book your seat for church! I will give you more details of how you can do that in a subsequent email message.

There is a lot to do to prepare the church for our new style services: moving all the upholstery chairs and replacing them with plastic ones (which can be cleaned more easily after each service), preparing the liturgy for the beamer to avoid paper liturgies, organising a new team of sidespeople for this period to ensure that everyone abides by the social distancing and other regulations, setting up the new 'booking system', and other things. I am extremely grateful for those who have already put work into planning these things and for those who will be working hard on practicalities these coming weeks.

As you are already aware, the services will feel rather different at first, with no communion, no singing and no children's work, but we hope it is at least the beginning of things returning to normal. So let us give thanks! Next week I hope to send you a copy of our strategy document so that you can see for yourself how we are dealing with the situation, what precautions are in place, and what to expect. In the meantime, please do pray for the council, for the new team of sidespeople, for Maria in the office overseeing the booking system, and all those involved in planning for the re-opening of the church.

As we prepare to open the church again for services, we will continue to offer the online services for those who cannot attend in person. We will also be continuing with our online meetings via zoom.

Tomorrow we have our lectio divina meeting, 10.30am. This involves listening to a short passage of Scripture several times with periods of silence in between. At the end of the silence there is an opportunity to share our insights together. It is a wonderful opportunity to meditate on some words of Scripture and allow those words to feed our hearts and minds. If you would like to join us, please let me know and I can send you the link.

Our Men's Bible Study Group and Coffee Discussion Group will continue as usual on Sunday.

As we look to the future and the re-opening of church, I am aware that people may have different perspectives. Let us pray for one another, listen to one another, and remember that we are called to work for the common good.

'If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind....Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...' (Philippians 2: 1-2, 5).

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

With love in Christ,
Helen