Ministry and Mission in Runnymede during the Pandemic – Part 2 – “THY KINGDOM COME”Following much positive feedback on all the parish sharing in our last newsletter, we’ve once again asked our churches to share how things have progressed during the lockdown and specifically, how they have been able to participate in this year’s “Thy Kingdom Come” event. Here are some replies, again in their own words and pictures:
St Paul’s Church, Addlestone members of the congregation to remind them that they are cared for and not forgotten, loved by God and by His Church. 'Cakes with Crosses' have been very well received and a delicious comfort in trying times.
St Paul's also joined with thousands of other churches in 'Thy Kingdom Come', especially encouraging all church members to pray for five people who do not yet know the love of God in Christ for them. St Paul's is still planning to run its summer food programme 'Loaves & Fishes', so that all children can enjoy a nutritious lunch throughout the summer holidays and a chance to have fun together, even if they cannot get away for a holiday.
We engaged in a two-week 24/7 prayer initiative with a large percentage of slots booked out during both, day and night. This was of course website-based and a “Thy Kingdom Come” event, although we organised it a little earlier. On Pentecost we had a full evening of “Prayer and Ministry in the Holy Spirit” via Zoom by using our prayer team and separate “rooms” which were well attended. We also ran two Alpha Courses via Zoom and have just launched “The Prayer Course” by Pete Greig which will last for eight weeks. A second Prayer Course will be running on Friday nights throughout July and August. A number of our home groups continue to meet via Zoom each week and Morning Prayer continues Monday through Wednesday via Zoom as well. Clergy and home group leaders keep in touch with the wider congregation as often as possible. We offer a published news sheet on an occasional basis. PCC has met via Zoom as have a number of prayer groups. The Ministry team has its first “Zoom Away Day” next week and we are aiming to run a week's Holiday Club via Zoom in August as well. This is at an early stage in planning.
St John’s Church, Egham I wrote a poem/reflection to encourage people to pray: A wonderful 10 days, finished with our monthly prayer meeting (via zoom) praying “Thy Kingdom Come” in our lives, in our church, in our community and in our world.
St Jude’s Church, Englefield Green The Vicar’s Jottings over the nine days focussed on the work of God’s Holy Spirit and encouraged us day by day to pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our world. Some of us are already in the habit of praying for five friends or loved ones who do not yet know the Lord and “Thy Kingdom Come” has given new encouragement and impetus to that prayer. Some of us used the Church of England’s liturgy for morning and evening prayer especially prepared for this time between Ascension and Pentecost. Our Pentecost Service, which as usual now, was available to watch on You Tube from 9:30am on Pentecost Sunday, and was a celebration of the events of that first Pentecost set in the context of the climax of “Thy Kingdom Come”. In recognition of our unity in prayer we invited Christians from other churches in the village to contribute to our worship. We also signposted people to the Cathedral celebration service on the Sunday evening.
Holy Trinity Church, Lyne & Longcross Revd Laurence Gamlen has returned to work at St Peters on the Multi Faith Team, where he has been providing pastoral care and support in all areas of the NHS from staff to patients. He has also been doing some video and audio clips which form a press-and-pause for the staff to be able to engage in their own way and time, providing support, and has been well received as part of the work of the Multi Faith Team in this time of the pandemic.
All Saints’ Church, New Haw Attendance at our daily weekday morning prayer has quadrupled and we really value the opportunity to start the day in prayer and studying God's word together. Our new Kids YouTube channel was launched a few weeks ago by our Children and Families worker, Bethany Wood. There is plenty of content there that you might like to share with your own church family, including a four-part series called '@ Home with Derek' (the dinosaur pictured here).
There are also kids’ worship song videos and lots more! You can join in the fun here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXlTClFDwySrl-JleojsUbA
We are focussing on what it means to go out and make disciples and are currently questioning how this will shape our identity as a church going forward.
Christ Church, Ottershaw There were lots of resources available online and some members of our congregation signed up for podcasts, daily reflections and prayers as well as partaking in the various online services for Pentecost. Our Messy Church family were encouraged to also get involved with online interactive prayer maps and fun activities to download such as a dove to make from a paper template.
St Mary’s Church, Thorpe The church itself has been open for a couple of weeks now on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons for private prayer, fully compliant with all government regulations for such events. This opportunity to once again soak up the quiet and spiritual atmosphere has been well appreciated. Our adventures on Zoom have diversified from the well received “Virtual Coffee Morning” on Thursdays to a similar set-up for “Café Church” after the 10am Sunday Eucharist, providing a platform for people to regularly “see” each other, while PCC and various teams involved in the running of St Mary’s have been meeting via Workplace groups, a useful resource for ongoing discussions and sharing of rotas, quotes and other documents.
Another special event for us was Bishop Andrew’s preaching via Zoom in our Trinity Sunday Eucharist. It was good to see him again and as always, his preaching was engaging and his words, both challenging and encouraging, can be summed up in his own phrase: “God disturbs the Comfortable but He comforts the Disturbed.” Just what we need in these current times…
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The challenges that we, and I suggest everybody, have encountered have resulted in the broader church working much closer together. It has been great to see people step up in areas where it would be least expected. For TKC this year we challenged the congregation to send in recordings of The Lord’s Prayer that we posted daily on Facebook and Twitter as well as YouTube. The response was overwhelming and produced some very personal content that involved the laity in leading prayer for us all. Here’s the link for the last day’s prayer that included everyone: 
On reflection, our biggest learning has been to never take our eyes off what matters. For all of the recording, the editing, the tech and the posting whenever we found ourselves focused on the ‘production’, and not on God, things never seemed to go quite right. However, when we stepped back and stopped worrying about what our content may look like we rediscovered those intimate moments of a thin place. That reminder that is God’s mission that we join and that it is His holiness we seek has come through loud and clear over the recent weeks.
A lot of the above echoes the findings in George Fischer and Bob Jackson’s excellent report ‘Everybody Welcome Online’ which is available for free download on the CPAS website and is highly commended; 
For “Thy Kingdom Come”, Fr Damian turned our regular Saturday Noon Said Eucharist into a special event to reflect on the Holy Spirit and connect with this global time of prayer. Our current online Emmaus Course was timed for the “Holy Spirit” sessions to fall into the week before Pentecost and everybody was invited to participate in one of the sessions, either Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, with interesting Bible-based accompanying reading material available from the website. Our Family Pack for Pentecost was a bumper version with a YouTube cartoon link (