First Sunday back: what we did
by Stephen Kneale, Building Jerusalem:
Government restrictions on a whole host of things were lifted as of the 4th July 2020. A right good number of us probably went for a haircut on Saturday – and if you’ve caught the FIEC webinar on Church in Deprived Communities to which I contributed – you’ll reckon, in my case particularly, it was well over due! But most significantly for us, albeit with certain restrictions still in place and the need to abide by social distancing measures, we were permitted to meet as a church yesterday for the first time in about 4 months.
It bears saying, not every church has taken the opportunity – or even been able – to meet again. Of those that have, various of us have taken slightly different approaches to what we deemed possible and worthwhile within the spirit of the government guidelines. It is important to say there is no right or wrong answer here.
For many with no church building, they are at the whim of whether those who manage the spaces they rent are willing to open for them at this time. For those of us with buildings, we are weighing what is possible to do in person against what we can achieve online. All of us are having to consider the nature of our congregations i.e. do we have a credible number of people who could come or are too many of our people in vulnerable categories to make it worth opening? There are a whole host of other considerations too that do not make this the ‘no brainer’ that some seem to believe it is (in either direction).
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