We’ve asked our parish churches to share how they have been able to respond to the challenge of lockdown and here are some replies, in their own words and pictures:
Christ Church, Virginia Water
We are currently running Sunday 10:30am Sunday Services streamed via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNy_iHAxEDM0UzU1piitiBg/live People are recording themselves at home for the readings and prayers. Our musicians are also recording themselves.
We are updating people using E-news weekly and our website.
We run a Wednesday evening slot which is a smaller talk for people to listen to, then many of the home groups use the material offered to meet via “Zoom”.
For Easter we had a streamed 7:30pm Service for Maundy Thursday and an Hour at the Cross at 12nn on Good Friday, all via the same link.
We will be running a Christianity Explored Course in a daytime and an evening slot for 10 weeks via Zoom or telephone call in.
We are keeping our website updated with all activities going on: http://www.cc-vw.org/
We are also phoning our congregation to check on people with those most vulnerable phoned more often.
We have members involved in the Virginia Water Residents Emergency Plan to help our community.
by Carrie Vibert, Administrator
St John’s Church, Egham
Community / Pastoral: There has been regular liaison between the office, pastoral team, staff team, volunteers, foodbank, CAP and other ministries so that we are working together to provide a reassurance to the congregation and the community.
A list has been set up of vulnerable/senior people in our congregation and community and all these have received an email or telephone call initially to find out how they are doing and to say we as a church are available; as other people are highlighted these are added to the list. Ongoing to that various people are linked in to each of them individually so they have a regular contact person and can alert them if they have any needs or concerns. This is for all ages and anyone who might be lonely or vulnerable during isolation. WhatsApp groups have also been set up in some groups so that people can stay in touch and pray for one another regularly as well as doing bible studies remotely.
In addition, we are keeping in touch with our Seniors Groups that would normally be meeting on a regular basis: For example our Craftea Ladies knitting group receive a phone call from one of the team each Thursday afternoon (normal meeting time). We also contact the residents who would normally attend a monthly service in our local retirement complexes to see how they are getting on. We are in contact with the Managers of these homes, too, so they can alert us if they feel we can help and support in any way. As many as possible of those who do not have online access are being provided with a paper copy of the weekly newsletter and some have buddied up remotely to hear the service.
A ‘Hardship Fund’ has been set up together with procedures set out by the finance team so that shopping or the collection of prescriptions can be done safely by our volunteers for anyone who is anxious, vulnerable or in need. They do this adhering to safeguarding guidelines and in the most appropriate way for those who are receiving the service. This has led to new and trusted relationships being made between volunteers and recipients.
We have also partnered with our local supermarket Waitrose who have kindly provided care packages for some of our most vulnerable. Here are two of the responses:
“A wonderful bag of items, including anti-bacterial soap which I’d not been able to get. I loved the card from the child, how will I be able to thank them.“
Thank you very much for the lovely parcels. I’m over the moon with all the love I am receiving from my brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Also Tesco are still providing food weekly through their FairShare scheme which is being given out to those who need it. In addition, we are working in partnership with other local agencies such as “CARE in Egham” and “Egham and Englefield Green Mutual Aid” as well as linking in with Runnymede Borough Council, Runnymede Foodbank and other local charities.
Playtime – Baby and Toddler Group is live streamed online on Fridays, when the group would normally meet.
Although we are a church and community in isolation this unprecedented situation has opened the way for many opportunities to work together.
Worship: Daily “Reading and Prayer” with a journey through Luke’s gospel and Compline with a journey through the Psalms; Sundays 10am Service on YouTube Live, 2.30pm on Instagram or Facebook: Youth Service with ‘Grace and Clem in the Bungalow’, 4pm on Facebook Live: Children’s Service with Robin and Rachel. All broadcasts can be found on St John’s Egham YouTube Channel.
Other: Life Groups and other social groups are continuing to meet via Zoom or Skype. People have been encouraged to form Prayer Triplets. We had our first (monthly) Prayer Meeting online via Zoom just before Easter. We have always had a closed Facebook Group and now, of course, it’s come into its own for information sharing and mutual encouragement. I (Vicar) have always sent a weekly email to the congregation and that has become bi-weekly and again an invaluable way of keeping in touch.
by Revd Esther Prior, Vicar
All Saints’ Church, New Haw
Here at All Saints New Haw, our vicar Andy Reid and the team are keen to ensure that whilst we may be physically distant, we want everybody to feel involved and keep socially and spiritually connected! We will continue to glorify God as the family of All Saints and warmly invite everyone to join our online church community. This means that we are active online in a number of ways:
Online Presence: To keep up-to-date with all that is going on, there is a weekly newsletter and a message from vicar Andy Reid on the website http://www.allsaints-newhaw.org.uk/. Our monthly church magazine will also be on the website this month.
10am Sunday services are recorded from Andy's vicarage office and members of the clergy team and congregation also take part on various occasions. These are available via our home page each Sunday or live on our Facebook Page.
Our 'Physically Distancing but Spiritually Close' webpage http://www.allsaints-newhaw.org.uk/prayer-ministry-during-the-outbreak/ contains video reflections, kids and youth videos, prayer resources, bible studies and more. It also contains links to many other helpful resources.
Our Weekly Online Church Family Newsletter gets published each Friday and is available to view via the homepage of our website. It contains current news, videos, service information and more. It is also available directly by email via our administrator Michelle /
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We are also present on Facebook: @allsaintsnewhaw, Instagram: @newhawyouth and Twitter: @AllSaintsNewHaw.
Helping Our Community in New Haw: We have three teams of volunteers who are ready and willing to help our community in New Haw. Requests for help, someone to talk to or someone to pray with/for you can be made via email, leaving name and telephone number.
For practical assistance in any way (grocery shopping, collecting prescriptions etc):
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. This team is being co-ordinated by Katy Thomas.
For prayer requests:
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. This team is being coordinated by Jenny Phillips.
For a “Friendly Voice” to chat to if you are lonely, anxious or just want someone to talk to:
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. This team is being coordinated by Pam Bridger.
The All Saints' Team are encouraged and in good spirits! During these challenging times, we are seeing God at work within our church. As a leadership team we are more united than ever! We feel that God is equipping us and facilitating us to be more proactive in building our church and local community and challenging us to move forward with new technology!
Our Bible Verse for the Year: Proverbs 3 v 5-6.
All Saints’ Bible Verse cards to help everybody focus on the verse during 2020 and continue to reflect on these words and allow them to mould and shape us.
by Michelle Fern, Administrator
St Jude’s Church, Englefield Green
As for all aspects of life, nothing is as it was and St Jude’s is meeting the challenge in several ways:
The main focus for St Jude’s in the community is based on work done through our Village Centre. Our Centre Manager, Ali Watts, is working alongside “Mutual Aid Egham and Englefield Green” and we are indebted to Ali for the amazing dedication she has shown in this work.
Ali is also the point of contact in Englefield Green for people who are especially vulnerable at this time.
In addition, Judith and one of the churchwardens have made their telephone numbers available to Mutual Aid to be used for people needing spiritual support.
As a church family we are maintaining telephone and email contact with one another as far as we can.
Sunday services at 9:30am continue from the Vicarage and Manse led by Rev Judith Allford and Rev Andrew Reed. This is done via YouTube through the St Jude’s website. We are indebted to Guy Bunce for his technical direction and assistance. During Holy Week we were also privileged to enjoy the ministry of Rev Orion Edgar, Chaplain to Royal Holloway College, who led us in three services of Compline.
We are also fortunate to have Judith’s excellent daily musings available on the St Jude’s website and on our St Jude’s Facebook page. This is titled ‘Vicar’s Jottings’.
Sunday readings and a weekly prayer diary are also available via our website (www.stjudeschurch.info).
Overall we are facing this crisis with optimism and a strong desire to support people. We find there are groups of people helping their neighbours creating a powerful sense of community spirit.
Our prayer for this time: Keep us, good Lord, under the shadow of your mercy in this time of uncertainty and distress.
Sustain and support the anxious and fearful, and lift up all who are brought low; that we may rejoice in your comfort knowing that nothing can separate us from your love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
Photo: Sunday Morning Service from the Vicarage Garden! (Revd Judith Allford)
by Cassandra Gouriet, St Jude’s Runnymede Deanery Representative
Christ Church, Ottershaw
Here at Christ Church Ottershaw, we feel it is very important to keep in contact with our church family, especially in these uncertain times. In order to do this, Sandra, our Vicar, has been writing a daily ‘Thought For Today’ [see image below – ed.] which is a short piece linking our current situation to a Bible passage and pulling out the positives of our current situation to give everyone hope. [See picture for example – ed.] There is also a prayer each day included in the item. These are sent out every day and there has been a lot of positive feedback about how helpful these have been. In addition to these thoughts, we send out a weekly notice sheet which details the Bible readings for that particular week. It also features the Collect as well as an additional prayer related to the current times and prayer requests. We use this sheet to let the church family know what media they can access for online church services and any news from the Church. Sermon notes are also sent out each week with this notice sheet.
When the notice sheet is sent out, an email goes with it detailing positive stories, which are sent in by the congregation, to try and help lift readers’ spirits. We have featured items such as how someone’s birthday was made special or the announcement of a new grandchild to someone remarking on how they now have time to admire the wildlife in their garden. It also features requests for items such as wool for some of our members to knit or offers of jigsaws to share.
Around 30 households joined together on Zoom to take part in a Maundy Thursday service. It was lovely to use this technology as everyone could say hello to each other and see each other albeit virtually! We also used the same application for Easter Sunday to celebrate the Risen Christ and over 40 people joined in. We also all arrange to pray at the same time each Thursday evening so even though we are not together, we can all pray together from our own homes.
The Church family has really united with a strong community spirit through these times, from people calling each other for a chat, to running errands such as shopping and picking up prescriptions to putting sermon notes and church notices through doors. Some are part of the local support group for their locality or have volunteered through North Surrey Volunteers. If anyone in the church family needs anything then they are invited to contact Vicar Sandra or Chloe, the Church Administrator.
Since the start of lockdown, the email circulation list has really grown, and it is lovely to know we can reach so many people this way. If anyone would like to be added to our mailing list they can send a request to Chloe McCarthy at
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by Chloe McCarthy, Administrator
St Paul’s Church, Egham Hythe
How to remain connected when disconnected? This is undoubtedly the main question we have all faced during lockdown. For us, the challenge was how best to support both our congregation and our local community with the gifts God has provided us. This provided an opportunity to take a look at our technical resources and identify how best they work in our context. The generous offer from iKnow to gift 6 months free usage of their church management system to all churches has been especially helpful.
From a platform angle we have used Zoom, which has proved positive as we have gathered, albeit virtually, for services, meetings and even a night at the pub. WhatsApp groups have also been used to enable communications across different parts of the church with the main group being a particular hotspot of chat, support, information and fun. This also included a daily updated Holy Week narrative in Lego from one of our families! We have been keenly aware of keeping in touch with those who don’t use online media frequently. We have a buddy system in place that ensures regular phone calls and contact with the more vulnerable of our congregation.
From a community perspective we have used our position as host and chair of Runnymede Borough Council’s Egham Hythe Task Group to engage with the main stakeholders in the parish. This has led to us working with our local councillors to support, and communicate information about, the Egham, Hythe & Englefield Green Mutual Aid Group who are Runnymede Borough Council's point of organisation for co-ordinating local volunteer services and response.
We are being supported in this call out by Runnymede Borough Council, Voluntary Support North Surrey, Runnymede Family Centre, 1st Egham Hythe Scouts, 398 Staines & Egham Air Cadets, The Magna Carta School and our two Primary Schools (Hythe and Thorpe Lea) among many others. If you would like more information on this group please head over to their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/197494315013469/
Easter Day on Zoom SP@Pub say cheers!
Rosie blessed us with a Spiritual Communion Gethsemane in Lego
by Steve Baynes, Egham Hythe Runnymede Deanery Representative
St Peter’s Church, Chertsey
At this time our churches are seeking to minister not only to their gathered congregations but the wider communities they are called to serve. For many clergy, we are grappling afresh with what it means to have the 'cure of souls' for our parishes which are hungry for security, encouragement and hope…and, although many don't know it, God.
St. Peter Chertsey is offering live streams on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at 9pm entitled 'Hope in a Time of Crisis'. These are regularly engaging about 800 people. We are also streaming a main Sunday morning service at 10:30am which are engaging well over 1,000 people each week. This is a remarkable time for ministering to our communities!
We are currently continuing an online Alpha Course via Zoom in which 14 people gather weekly. A new Alpha Course is being launched in May on Tuesday afternoons picking up those who we are engaging with during our weeknight live streams.
Our prayer coordinator, Laura, has arranged for 24/7 Prayer Resources online, with members of the church signing up for slots both during the day and night. We are currently in week two.
Several of our home groups are meeting via Zoom each week and the ministry team is valuing meeting for daily Morning Prayer via Zoom.
Members of the parish are involved in the Runnymede wide service to the housebound, involving delivery of shopping and prescriptions. The Church has released an additional £700 to support the increased work of the Foodbank.
Funeral Ministry continues with weekly funerals being led by Matt, our interim curate.
When this crisis ends we are convinced that our online presence must continue by streaming Sunday worship and midweek evening ministry in some form.
Zoom Group Meeting
Online Worship
by Revd Canon Tim Hillier, Vicar
St Mary’s Church, Thorpe
Like everywhere else, these unusual times have seen a complete modus operandum revamp at St Mary’s. While of course many activities had to be cancelled, our services are ongoing, and nearly all the planned Holy Week and Easter services also took place…everything live streamed from the “re-decorated” St Mary’s Vicarage, i.e. Vicarage Chapel, with recordings of readings, sermons, anthems and organ voluntaries by members of our congregation fitted into the service proceedings. Hymns are accompanied by iPod tunes. All this serves to give our church family a worship experience as close to “normal” as possible, including daily Morning Prayer, at least one weekday Eucharist, Sung Eucharist on Sundays and festivals, and regular Complines.
The experience is of course virtual and one of Spiritual Communion but made more real and involved with a host of resources sent to our e-mailing list and made available on our website, including pdf service sheets, readings and hymn texts for singing along, a Family Pack with activities and colouring pages to suit the week’s theme and extra activities packs to accompany the Online Family Services, along with assorted other materials from prayer resources to sermon transcripts. People are encouraged to join in on the live streams via our Facebook page or our website which has been upgraded to cope with this massive load of weekly materials. We also bought an additional One Licence agreement to be able to use Taizé, Iona and other CLLI-excluded music resources.
We encourage people – not only those with children – to take part in activities such as hanging branches on their doors on Palm Sunday or putting Easter Flower Crosses in their gardens, as a means of witness to their neighbourhood, to engage further with the theme of the week and to feel more connected by sharing their work in photos which then appear as collages in the background of the “Vicarage Chapel” for the services.
Our online following and email list have substantially grown and we are reaching far more people in this way than we ever did, or could possibly do, within our normal church life, including many people outside our regular or even fringe congregations, with around 700 viewings of the Sunday services and many people engaging via chat on the Facebook page, which interestingly goes across the otherwise rather fast boundaries of our different congregations.
Of course we also have provision for helping the most vulnerable members in our congregation and beyond through these precarious times: A “Buddy Scheme”, overseen by our Curate Revd Jo Winn-Smith, has linked up interested parties for regular phone calls and pastoral support. This scheme is open to everybody, not only our church family, and our office email is on the contact list for pastoral support with RBC. We are making up “Care Packages” for self-isolating older members, an idea started on Mothering Sunday, and they are much appreciated. Here a couple of the more interesting replies we’ve had: “I am rationing my delicious chocolates, rather like during the war, but enjoying them all the more. Thank you, St Mary's.” and “Many thanks for the gifts. Miracles still happen at St Marys…TOILET ROLLS!”
Across the board, times have forced us into new technology, from the hardware for streaming to the use of Vimeo for videos, iKnow for interactive administration and Zoom for group meetings (our first Online Quiz Night as well as an Emmaus Course are coming up soon!) and vastly increased online presence…developments that are possibly here to stay beyond Lockdown into a new age of Virtual Church alongside returning to the spiritual atmosphere of our beloved medieval church building in Thorpe. Interesting times in which to learn how to stay the same around the essence of our worship and yet adapt to a changing world and take up this opportunity for mission and engagement beyond our normal reach…
by Petra Hudson, Vicar & Wardens’ Secretary
Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday Witness and Sharing Activities (see article) – Credits from left: Petra Hudson, Margaret Alderson, Elaine Gill