SEPTEMBER 2020
ISSUE 27
K I N G F I S H E R FA M I LY It’s church, Jim… So, after six months of varying degrees of lockdown, during which time we have not been able to meet as churches ‘in the flesh’, physical church is about to relaunch. For many of us, this cannot come soon enough - lockdown has been tough, especially for those who have been shielding and so not even allowed out of their houses for ‘essential’ reasons. Children have missed out on vital months of school, families have been kept apart and a new language involving R-numbers, social distancing, COVID-secure bubbles and so on has been introduced.
to attend church physically on the Sunday coming.You will need to book to come to church and that will help us to keep not only a handle on numbers, but will enable us to know which service you came to. That’s important because someone in the congregation may subsequently test positive and everyone who was there that morning would need to be informed. If you were sitting within 2 metres of them, you would need to self isolate for 14 days.
We will be welcomed into church and be asked to follow the marked-out route into the main hall. We will need But having to close church buildings and to have a face covering for the duration not being able to celebrate Easter, of the service - we will be providing Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day or single-use face masks for the first few communion together, or physically weeks for those who forget to bring gather for Connect groups, prayer theirs or who don’t yet have one. Hand meetings, weddings or funerals… that sanitisers will be available around the has been especially tough. Online building. services, Zoom meetings and the use of YouTube have been great, but somehow not the same. However, change is upon us. Lockdown has eased significantly, churches are allowed to open their buildings again, services can go ahead once more surely that means we can put that whole ‘corona thing’ behind us and get back to normal life? And that brings us to another addition to the COVID phrasebook - the ‘new normal’.Yes, we are taking the first step in getting back to physically meeting again, but there will some differences between the ‘new normal’ and the ‘old normal’. What are those differences going to look like?
“The method of worshipping God may change, but the God we worship never will.”
The services will be a bit different - we can’t sing together during our time at church, unfortunately, and we are going to have to remember to keep the appropriate distance apart when talking to each other before and after the services. The children will be taken upstairs to their groups to have fun, but still observing the social distancing rules.
• “I am the the Lord, I do not change!” (Malachi 3:6). The method of worshipping God may change, but the God we worship never will - He stays the same loving, caring, protecting Father He has always been. • “Do not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25). It is worth getting over the hurdles I have just described above, because of how important it is that we meet together. What can we achieve through meeting together that can’t be achieved through being apart? We get to encourage one another! We can focus on the hurdles to getting into church, the restrictions on what we can do during the services, the things that we miss and so on - or we can find ways of encouraging each other. The opportunity to meet and encourage each other, spurring each other on does not change. • This world is not our permanent home! “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.” (Hebrews 13:14). One positive in all of this is that we are encouraged to shift our focus from the comfort of what we have now and the delusion that it will always stay the same and never be shaken, and onto our true, permanent home which is in Heaven.
So, as we begin to take our first, small steps on into the ‘new normal’, let’s rejoice that we get to see each other The COVID-19 virus is not yet again (remembering of course, those defeated and we are not yet immune to who can’t yet join us due to health it, so meeting back together is going to issues). Let’s take this opportunity to look different… hold lightly to the things that truly aren’t permanent in favour of holding Social distancing rules still apply (2 metres apart, or 1 metre+ where that is Wow - it all sounds so different, doesn’t tightly to the things that will last forever and “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, not possible, with face coverings). it? And as Mark Twain put it, “No one the author and perfecter of our faith, who Because of this, a maximum number of likes change, except a baby with a wet for the joy set before Him endured the people will be allowed into the nappy”! Well, here are some things that cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at buildings at any one time… currently are NOT changing: the right hand of the throne of 48 at Tredworth and 26 at Westgate. God.” (Hebrews 12:2) There will be an online booking system where you can indicate if you are able