Our Church Anniversary Weekend would be happening around now if it were not for Covid 19. The virus, and society’s response to it, means this has been a very different year for all of us, and for Thackley Methodist Church. Our building has been closed, and we have worshipped with paper and on-line for nearly a year now. We have kept in touch through phone calls and messages, cards and Shine, with the pastoral team at the heart of this fellowship. Thank you to all for the care you have shared.
And now, with the development and distribution of the vaccines, we have a kind of roadmap promising us a return to the kind of interaction we used to enjoy.
As we look forward, I have asked all our churches to be considering some important question:
- How might our congregation have changed over the last year (e.g, numbers, volunteers, confidence, experience of worship)?
- What kind of balance of paper/on-line/face-to-face opportunities for worship might be necessary going forward?
- What kind of pattern and frequency of face-to-face worship opportunities would we seek to provide (e.g. monthly, fortnightly, weekly, Sunday, midweek, joining with another church)?
- How might we consult our members? How might we start small to test the water, and then develop?
- What new things might we do?
At Thackley, as we consider these questions, we are aware that responsibility for church life before covid was resting on a small number of shoulders, and that over the year those shoulders have become fewer. We cannot assume a return to how things were, indeed, we should not assume anything, but rather take the opportunity to prayerfully consider our way forward, if we are to remain, both as individuals and as church.
We are proposing that we gather, that is those who feel confident and safe to do so, on Easter Sunday morning for worship. This will still need to be socially-distanced, with places booked in advance, masks worn, and sadly no congregational singing. This will give us a taste of worship in these conditions and help us determine a future plan.
We are also asking that all of us take the time from Easter to Pentecost to prayerfully consider our place within the life of Thackley Methodist Church, that we might be open to God’s purposes and plans for us, whether they are to serve in our current building, in some other shape or form, or to be dispersed to other churches. I ask that in this period of discernment we respect one another’s situations, and be careful not to put others or ourselves under pressure to carry unhealthy levels of responsibility. Our questions might be ‘What is God offering to me and asking of me in this chapter of my life?’ ‘What is God saying to us as church in this place as we emerge from covid 19?’
May God bless you through Lent as you journey to Jerusalem with Jesus, and may Holy Week and Easter inspire us to listening prayer and open reflection as we place ourselves once more in God’s gracious hands.
Blessings
Rev Nick Blundell
Link Minister and Circuit Superintendent