[Magdalen] Diocese decisions: "re-gathering"

[Charles Wohlers]

Our new bishop in Vermont does not allow use of the church, even for 
streaming by one person. We (Christ Church, Montpelier) have been doing 
Zoom Morning Prayer on Sundays. Our brand new interim does it from his 
home in Elmore, but with a picture of the church chancel as his Zoom 
background, which is a pretty good substitute. The church is still being 
used, however, mainly by the soup kitchen folks who are now handing out 
bag lunches. We do have a Zoom coffee hour immediately after the Sunday 
service, which is a very good thing. The bishop holds daily morning 
prayer and compline via Zoom from her home.

Vermont only has a small fraction of the case load as does, say, Boston 
& suburbs (our county is 6/10,000; Boston suburbs are around 
100/10,000). The governor here is allowing most retail businesses to 
open this coming Monday, albeit with significant restrictions. I'll be 
holding a plant sale outside at the church a week from Saturday to 
benefit the soup kitchen - again, with restrictions.

-- 
Chad Wohlers
chad at satucket.com
Woodbury, VT   USA
where it was 22F this AM and 70 this afternoon - springtime in New 
England!



On 14.05.2020 22:28, Christopher Hart wrote:
> My parish is live-streaming the Sunday service (clergy, organist, four
> singers, and a few readers present) via Facebook and recording it for 
> later
> viewing. The rector also streams morning and evening prayer on 
> weekdays.
> The vestry meets via Zoom and the members of the vestry each have a 
> rota of
> parishioners whom they call on a weekly basis to check on them. Our 
> bishop
> has been live-streaming Noonday prayer most days. I'm sure there are
> discussions about future steps, but I'm not currently privy to any 
> details.
> I miss seeing people. Even a Zoom coffee hour would be welcome.
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 4:48 PM cady soukup <cadyasoukup at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
>> Dear ones,
>> 
>> By virtue of being on the Culpeper Region, I have become a member of
>> the Diocese of Virginia Elected and Appointed Leaders group. We have
>> been directed to a documents to read regarding various recommendations
>> for re-opening after a shut down, from the USA Centers for Disease
>> Control (with a section devoted to communities of faith), to the
>> Wisconsin Council of Churches, to a joint document created by the
>> Bishops of the Maryland, Washington, DC, and Virginia Episcopal
>> Dioceses, to Virginia Governor Northam's phase one business sector
>> guidelines.
>> 
>> The national Episcopal church, in the person of Presiding Bishop
>> Michael Curry, has emphasized that we adhere to sensible guidelines in
>> the name of love for each other. I have found his sermons and guidance
>> to be joyful and heart-warming.
>> 
>> Virginia is to move to phase one re-opening tomorrow, except for
>> northern Virginia where the infection rate is not diminishing. As the
>> register of our medium-sized country church (we are in the top 3 of
>> the 10 churches in our region, which range in attendance from about 10
>> people on Sundays to a high of over 200 people), we have vestry
>> members who want to start attending church again so they can partake
>> of the eucharistic feast.
>> 
>> We have found in the Diocese of Virginia that virtual worship services
>> (Facebook, Youtube, Zoom) are reaching a far larger group of people
>> than physically attend church. The virtual worship services for our
>> church, Trinity in little Washington, VA has attendees from FL, NC, CO
>> - most of whom are one-time members who have moved away, but some of
>> whom are unknown. Attendance has gone from roughly 80 people per
>> Sunday to many more than that. The diocese is reluctant to give up
>> this wonderful evangelical moment for in-person church services!
>> 
>> Bishop Susan Goff warns us that our "re-gathering" together will be
>> messy, must be deliberate and thoughtful, and will be approved
>> church-by-church after churches provide their plans (under guidance by
>> the diocese). The diocese is in the
>> figuring-out-the-guidelines-for-phased-plans stage, which should take
>> some time given the widely varied nature of our churches (from
>> historic mountain missions to even older urban congregations).
>> 
>> What are your churches doing? How do you envision moving forward?
>> 
>> Pondering, learning, praying,
>> 
>> Cady
>> typing this in 'suburban' Boston, VA where the deer outnumber the 
>> people
>>