[Magdalen] opening churches

[Michael Bishop]

God be praised!

I am delighted to say that this morning we had our Eucharist in church 
at St Mary's, Bunny, Nottinghamshire in the midlands of England. It is a 
large village church and the only one of the 4 in this benefice  to have 
been opened for services as yet. The service was somewhat different to 
thne former usual - no singing or live organ music allowed and we were 
seated in pairs of chairs all 2 metres apart. (2 people from the same 
household could sit alongside each other). Facemasks were required to be 
worn by all. The rector came round to distribute Communion in one kind 
to us in our places. The service was contributed to by  housebound 
worshippers with recorded readings and a recording of the service was 
made for distribution online. There is no online connection available in 
the church.

It was certainly good to worship in church at last after all churches in 
England had been closed to all worship since before Palm Sunday. I look 
forward to having the opportunity of preaching live next Sunday rather 
than preaching by recording.

Things are far from normal. I am sorry for those who were due to be made 
deacon in cathedrals around England this week. No ordination are take 
place. Would have been deacons are being licensed as authorised lay 
workers via zoom. It is hoped they will be ordained at Michaelmas.

God bless

.....
.....
Michael Bishop
rev at michaelbishop.name

On 05/07/2020 3:07 pm, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
> We are allowed to have outdoor worship with no more than 50 people, masks,
> no group singing and no sharing of communion. Some churches are doing
> this, some aren't. We aren't, for a variety of reasons. Churches may also
> record or stream services from their buildings with no more than the
> numbers necessary to do that. We don't have the technology for that.
> I'm still doing services on Zoom from my kitchen. Last week and this I've
> patched in sermons by our bishop and another staff member. They're
> offering us one each week as a break from preaching, if we want. I'm not
> going to make a habit of that, but it was nice to have a couple weeks'
> break from preaching. I'd only missed one week of preaching since 
> December,
> except Easter, when I sent everyone to the Cathedral website and went 
> there
> myself.
>
> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 8:12 PM Judy Fleener <fleenerj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We were scheduled to begin in person worship with three weekday 
>> Eucharists,
>> no Sundays. That has been canceled since the numbers around here are on
>> the rise again.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.
>> Judy Fleener, ObJN,SSH
>> Western Michigan
>>
>