Christ is risen!
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the pressure of all of this is starting to take its toll and I ask you to be extra vigilant in prayer. For many who were waiting it out to return to Church, you have a big adjustment to make and I invite you to take small steps to enable yourself to interact with your community of faith and re-establish a worship life.
The online platform is not an easy one to adjust to and that fear of TECHNOLOGY is keeping you from your Church. Therefore, we have been working very hard to meet you on your road from Easter which runs into the future and you’re on it. We are developing a new Ministry Model to ensure that the Teaching, Worshipping, Pastoral, and Fellowship life of the Church continues.
At present WhatsApp is proving to be the best medium of communication and although it is limited is being used effectively even to conduct services. I must encourage you however to look at downloading the ZOOM application because it is a platform that we will be using more and more to host “gatherings” our WEBSITE is the equivalent of the Church Complex and has everything you need to know about the activities of the Church.
A key to Mission Shaped Ministry is to use existing communities and the individuals in the Church as the ministers. I encourage you to use your WhatsApp groups to minister into the lives of your circle of influence. You can do this by sharing information from the church on your WhatsApp groups (I am sure that you share other videos to all your contacts, have you shared a sermon/podcast or message of hope with them)?
Facebook is another Church complex that has everything about the church on it. Unlike a Website where it is all together in one Place Facebook is more like the Church scattered, little bits of ministry all over, available to everyone. What we need now to build our community is for you to interact with Facebook content. Accepting Church online is a difficult thing for people to do, and if they see that the members of the Church are participating, people will be more willing to try it out. (I am repeating myself, but it is worth doing).
Telephone Ministry – Voice calls are coming back into fashion! I am putting together a team to assist in phoning and interacting with the Parish. If you are willing to get involved with this ministry, then please let me know. We are also offering to counsel, so if you need please phone 0823704702 and I will arrange for a counselling session with myself or one of our team.
We are so grateful to those of you who have continued to give faithfully. These are trying times economically and we are under financial pressure. If you are not on our DG system please consider joining it, every contribution helps. For those who have envelopes of money sitting waiting for that Sunday, please consider doing an EFT. We are looking at a payment system that could collect offerings.
We are all missing the music. It is a central part of our worship. Gospel music is readily available on radio and other platforms I encourage you to listen and sing along and worship God.
Thank you to those people who have already contributed to the COVID-19 Testimonies, I eagerly await further inputs.
Be assured of my prayers!
Rector.
3rd Tuesday of Easter 2020
