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Thursday 19th March 2020

Dear

I am writing to you personally to introduce our special weekly letter to you in your own home that we are starting because of the Corona Virus outbreak. We know how much coming to church on Sunday, and to the activities through the week or year, means to you and to us, and we know how upset you will be that we will not be able to meet together in the coming weeks until this is passed. Whether you are a ‘regular’, or a past or new member or friend, we want to reach out to you in this time when loneliness will be so apparent.

We want to reach out to you because we want to reassure you that you are in our thoughts and prayers, and no matter what difficulties this time brings, we want to hold you fast in the body of Christ in this place. This mailing will bring you a greeting from Christ Church each week for at least the next three weeks. Then we will want to know from you how much you appreciate the weekly letter, and whether we should continue with it every week. We would be very happy to do so.

As well as greeting you, and assuring you of our love and prayers, we will be able to send you out any information from church that we think might be of interest or help to you. We are also hoping to be able to send you a page of thoughts and prayers for your own use at home. This letter has a news sheet, and next week’s letter will have a return a post card. Perhaps you could use the postcard to let us know anything that you want the church to think of for you or the community, or for prayers for you or for others.

We will be able to bring everyone’s thoughts together in our weekly video service that we will be putting on the church’s website and Facebook page. There is more information about that on the attached sheet. And if you cannot get online yourself, perhaps a visiting relative might do so on their phone while they are visiting you. With this letter is the prayers and reading for that shared act of worship for the Christ Church flock on Facebook.

For now Gwen and I join in sending you our love, and assuring you that you are in our prayers and the prayers of the whole church. Please make use of the new telephone buddy to have a good chat.

Best wishes,

Christ Church Stocksbridge LEP, Manchester Road, Stocksbridge, S36 1DYRev Ian Lucraft, 136 Wadsley Lane, Sheffield, S6 4EE; [email protected]; 0114 234 7153; 07428 744 014

www.christchurchonline.org

Christ Church Stocksbridge

http://www.christchurchonline.org/

mailto:[email protected]

Corona Virus Update Wednesday 18 March 2020

First we want to reach out in love and care to all our members and friends. We are not going to see as much of each other for a few weeks. But as I said last Sunday, the church is not the building, which we cannot use for gatherings at the moment. The church is you and me, the members and friends who make up the body of Christ in this place. We will do everything we can to make sure that we stay in touch with each other, look out for each other, pray for each other, and if possible pray and worship together using social media. We will remain the body of Christ; just live it differently for a short while.

Christ Church was quick off the mark to begin to make arrangements to respond safely to the virus, and now we are stepping up the changes to our activity in response to the latest guidance from the government and the national churches. The changes we have made, or are planning, are listed below. Not all are finalised, so it will be important to keep in touch with developments through our website, Facebook page, or with this weekly mailing.

This is a rapidly changing situation, and things may change from day to day.

Sunday Worship

Sunday Worship, mornings and evenings, is suspended immediately. There will not be public worship at Christ Church on Sundays until further notice.

We plan to open the church on Sunday morning 22nd March, for one hour prayer and meditation, but it may be that this too will be prevented by the action of our landlords, the Yorkshire Congregational Union. We expect that our members and friends will be responsible and only come if they are well, without any symptoms, and are not at risk on account of underlying medical issues. We will not invite anyone to the “Open for prayer” so we are not encouraging unnecessary meeting. We will only use the Road Door and not touch door handles etc. unnecessarily. We will not require officers to provide the functions of organist, door or vestry steward or other roles. We will come and go simply, speaking to each other only as we see fit, but not touching or getting too close. There will not be any books or papers or coffee. Depending on how the general public reacts to the advice not to have public gatherings, and the controls set out by our landlords, the Church officers will have to decide after this Sunday if we can, or are allowed to continue this “Open for prayer”, and we would in any case keep it under continual review.





We will try to use social media to allow others who are not present to join us in a simple online worship. We expect to have a new Facebook Live TV channel working. This will be at www.facebook.com/christ-church-stocksbridge. This will relay my greeting, prayers, bible reading and thought, meditation and news of the church family to anyone who chooses to join us on Facebook. I hope it could also include a celebration of communion, and people could have a glass of wine or sherry or water and piece of bread in their own homes and we could all share in the communion at the same time. This could be a real “communion” of our faithful flock. Until we try this we do not know how it will work, but we hope it will be a boon to us over the coming weeks. We have not yet determined when this will be broadcast, but we expect it will also be available Sunday mornings, so that people can view it at a time to suit them, and then as a recording, perhaps when a family member could help them to access it. We expect to start this very soon but the details are not yet finalised. There will be more details of how this will operate by Sunday 22nd March which will be posted on the Church’s website at www.christchurchonline.org. So keep looking at the church website.

We will also offer everyone links to the URC and Methodist websites that will be streaming worship services across the nation. Details to follow.

Keeping in touch

We think it will be very important to keep in touch with each other. The first priority will be to reach out from the church to offer a personal word of comfort and cheer, and an assurance that no-one is forgotten

We are expecting that the Pastoral Carers will continue to exercise their excellent caring ministry to the members in their group. You know them already, and so we hope that will help you. Please ring your Pastoral Carer yourself if you want a chat, or feel lonely, or want to discuss something.

Because this is a special and temporary crisis, the church wants also to have a regular phone contact with all its members. We want you to know we are looking out for you and that we are putting the effort in to spend a bit of time on the phone with you. This is in addition to the normal Pastoral Carer link. In fact it means you may get more than one call each week, and for some of you that may be a good thing! We are grateful that a number of church members, in addition to the regular pastoral carers, have volunteered to set up a temporary “Church Phone Buddy” system, whereby everyone in the church






http://www.facebook.com/christ-church-stocksbridge

gets at least one phone call every week for a chat. This is in addition to, and supplements, the existing Pastoral Carers arrangements. Please ring your Phone Buddy yourself if you want a chat, or feel lonely, or want to discuss something. You’ll hear more about this next week.

We are also planning to set up a “mailing service”. This would include a letter from the minister, possibly a sheet with private worship and prayer for personal use, and possibly a news sheet. In this way everyone will be able to share prayers together. This might be weekly at first, but we will review its welcome and usefulness after three weeks.

I will still be “at work”. My pastoral ministry will of necessity be mainly in a telephone form. But I will still be available when required for serious situations if appropriate. And please keep me or your pastoral carer or your phone buddy up to date with your news.

Church Activities

All meetings, fellowship meetings, group activities and service activities have been suspended. Jenny and the Lunch Club volunteers are organising a phone network for Lunch Club members. Rachel is doing the same for The Meeting Place, Heather for Busy Little Hands. Frank and Jenny are going to keep in touch with the choir and David and Amy with the Guild members, and Jean with the Monday Fellowship. Each will do that in their own way.

Community Groups

We have now had a requirement sent to us from the Yorkshire Congregational Union that all groups that use our premises must cease to do so with immediate effect. So all the groups will stop this week. (We are awaiting final decisions on The Good Days because of their special needs.)

Communication

Speaking to the minister

If you need to speak to me, the minister, or if any member or friend needs to contact me, please use my mobile: 07428 744 014, or my landline, 0114 234 7153. (On the landline you might have to say your name and press # the first time you phone me.) Or you can always email me on [email protected]






Leadership Team

We have had to suspend this. I have had a phone conference with the officers, John Cornell, Mike Clarke and Simon Utting, to review where we are, and agree immediate actions. It may be that we can have a phone conference for the leadership team in the future but we believe that it will be better in the short term to email members of LT with actions and questions, and seek their responses.

Church Meeting

We have clearly got to suspend Church Meeting. We will explore ways in which it might be possible to share thinking as we move forward, but this is early days.

Post Cards

We are going to send out a couple of post cards in next week’s mailing. We hope that you will use them to tell us about yourself, or share news or make suggestions and give feedback, if you cannot use phone text or email.

Other Items

Green Moor and Crane Moor

They have likewise had to suspend services. I have told them about our “Open for Prayer” arrangements, and they are also setting up phone links to all their members.

Offertory

We have been asked about the weekly offering. While this is the least of our concerns at the moment, we are grateful that people are thinking about it, as we still need almost all our revenue to cover continuing costs. Please continue to use the weekly envelopes if you have them. Perhaps once a month you could put them in an envelope and pop the envelope into the letter box in the Road Door of church. If you do not have a weekly envelope, and you wanted one, just ask. If not you might just put it in a tin each week!

But we are very conscious that this may be a challenging time for families and their income. So please do not put yourself in a difficult place by giving if you cannot afford it. The Lord will see us through.

Ian Lucraft 18 March 2020





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