Revd Samantha's thoughts on reopening churches for services and Eucharist. Please read and reply to her if you are able to help.Dear Friends,You will probably be aware that we now have permission, under very strict conditions to open churches for public worship.The main principles within the guidelines concern maintaining appropriate hygiene and good social distancing and they need careful application.After careful consideration, I would like to suggest that we start progress towards opening one church as a test case so we can learn and become confident in offering safe worship, step by step across the Mission Community.St Mary’s Lynton is the obvious place to start as it is spacious and the first stages of preparation have taken place there as it is open for private prayer on a Sunday, but I would like to gather a group of people from across our churches to be a working group for putting the guidance into practice, so that the experience can later be shared across the Mission Community, and so this first service back is a full Mission Community enterprise.So, I am looking for volunteers who would like to help with planning for a new Sunday Eucharist, appropriate for the current restrictions, at Lynton. I will take full responsibility for the liturgy and the plans for the communion itself, but we also need to look at how we set up the church, how we communicate what services will be like and how the service is stewarded. Once people have volunteered I will send out, by email, a document about the things we need to consider. I would then hope to be able for as many of the volunteers as can to have a virtual meeting by Zoom, before a few of us meeting at St Mary’s to look at the logistics. I am not setting a date for a service yet, because we need to be comfortable that all is in place.Please could you let me know in the next couple of days if you feel you would like to be part of the working group.I fully understand the range of feelings people have about coming back into church. I don’t want anyone to feel any pressure to do things they are not comfortable about and will give as much information as I can over the next weeks to help you decide for yourself whether you are ready to come into church for worship. The sermon and Youtube reflection will continue whatever.God blessSamantha
<b><a href="https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches">https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches</a></b>
Dear friends, This week has seen new rules around face coverings worn in enclosed places coming into force for those who can safely wear them. The rules mean we have one more thing to think about before we leave the house for certain activities - the habit of taking a mask or covering with us, the habits of putting it on and taking it off with care, getting used to what it feels like and how we communicate while our mouth is covered. <br>
Dear Friends,This week many young people and children will be finishing school for the summer. It has been such a disrupted time for children, parents and carers, and all involved in teaching and learning in schools. Let’s keep all our children, young people and school staff in our prayers through this week as the West Exmoor Federation finds creative ways to mark the end of primary school time for our year sixes. Parracombe and Lynton and Barbrook PCCs have made their traditional gift to the children of the “Book of Books” a contemporary telling of the stories of the Bible and we pray that they will enjoy reading them in days to come.At the centre of school life here are the CARIS values: Curiousity, Achievement, Respect, Inspiration and Support – with their initial letters spelling out “caris” which means love. The values emerged from the school community reflecting on the parables and what qualities they inspire in our lives. Our Sunday readings hold us with parables at the moment, and you might like to give a thought for how each story shows some of the CARIS qualities. After fifteen hours of a Zoom conference this week which was trying discern future priorities for the Church of England, it was interesting to realise that the qualities our children are learning are essential for healthy relationships within our church life too.Over the next week I will be trying to have conversations with all our Churchwardens about how we gently offer an opportunity, for those who feel comfortable, to return to a celebration of the Eucharist within the Mission Community. Across the diocese churches are being very cautious about this, so our progress is in line with the norm here (and actually in line with much that I heard about across the country).Be assured, as ever, of my prayers for you all,God bless,Samantha
