Sunday Letter

26th July 2020

Dear Friends

God be praised!   After nineteen weeks, we will be meeting together for worship in our churches next Sunday!  Georgina and I are looking forward to seeing you again and to sharing prayer and worship with you.

We will have a lot to share and a lot to thank God for. 

I am sure there will be many mixed emotions.  There will be understandable sorrow and anxiety, and the services will not be the same as before lockdown. We have been working to ensure that our return is made as safe and comfortable as possible. We will still be socially distancing, there will be no singing for the time being and no refreshments after the service.  Also, to begin with, we will only be offering communion in one kind.  During August we will not be holding any midweek services or events.

However, after this list of what we will not be doing (apologies!), what we will be doing is coming together once more as the body of Christ.  One thing we have learned during lockdown is that, unlike ourselves, Christ has no boundaries or restrictions and I know that he will be fully present with us whatever shape our worship takes.

For those who do not feel that they can return just yet, it is our intention to film one of the services each week and put them up on youtube as before.  This is obviously something of an experiment so please bear with us as we work out how best to do this.

Also, we ourselves will not be the same as before.  Our lives may have taken many different twists and turns during the past nineteen weeks and as a community we need to think about what lessons we can learn from our experiences, both personally, as a church and in our community. 

I do believe that we have been given an opportunity to look at our lives and re-evaluate our priorities.  This is something we need to do as a church as well.

Wednesday was the feast of Mary Magdalene.  Mary’s life was utterly and profoundly changed through her encounter with Jesus.  Her faith grew through needing, following, lamenting, and proclaiming Christ and she was always guided by love.  She is a good role model for us.  We need to admit our need for Christ as we try and follow in his footsteps.  We need to lament both for own failings and those of others and for our world.  Finally, we need to proclaim Christ with love in our hearts, putting the well-being of others at the centre of all that we do.

On this note, we have now appointed our youth pioneer!  His name is Tom Tame and he will be moving from Guildford during August.  Tom comes with a huge amount of experience of working with young people, underpinned by a robust theology and faith.  I hope that many of you will get to meet him over the next couple of months and that you will continue to pray for him and for the young people of our town and villages.

Let us look to the future with hope and faith in all that God will accomplish.

With every blessing,

Ann