Saturday, 11th. April, 2020
Well, I’m a bit late with this entry coming almost two weeks since the last! But I hope you’ll forgive me when I tell you that it has been because of Holy Week and Holy Week preparations. I really have been on the steepest learning curve of my life!
You’ll remember that one of the things that we talked about during our mission planning activities recently was the possibility of sharing our services — we knew others did it and we didn’t think that we would do it any better (or even as well) but we would be local and we thought that local was good! We also talked about a project involving young people in making worship videos which we could then share with old folk in care homes. That would be outreach to both young and elderly but very importantly we thought that we would be able to tap into the technical abilities and almost inbuilt computer skills of young folk. In fact we have been pitch-forked into a situation from which we envisaged preparing maybe six services over a six month period, to producing something every day. And of course, no sooner had we started than we were in to Holy Week and tomorrow it will be Easter Day. So my head is buzzing as I learn to cope.
The other thing which I have learned is that naturally watching videos is something we are all expert in. What I mean is that every day we watch television and so we take for granted the standards of production which that presents to us. We are about message rather than production, but unless the production reaches a certain standard then the message can’t be heard. So that’s where I am!
Tomorrow, Easter Day, we shall offer communion to everyone on line. Before the service folk will, I hope, have prepared themselves with a glass of wine and a piece of bread which we shall consecrate during the service. I hope that we shall all watch it and participate in it together at 10.30 am. This is not something which I have done before — although I have had Services of Holy Communion broadcast. I know that some people wonder if this is an appropraite thing to do. I would have gone into those discussions not sure about what side of the line I would have come down on — until this present situation. It cannot be right for anyone to be be denied Easter communion, and that is why we shall do what is planned.
Isn’t Zoom wonderful? The highlight of my week is now after our short service when we congregate on Zoom with our coffee (Melanie with her tea) and chat til noon. It was wonderful to see everyone but especially to see Molly who tuned in all the way from Australia. You know our services on line are attracting quite a lot of interest — they are put on youtube in the unlisted section which means that the way of accessing them is through our own web-site or through a link if I provide it. That way we know that those who participate are folk who have at least come through our site and probably know us or know about us. Certainly more than a hundred folk share with us at the present time — so that’s a lot more than used to be in church on a Sunday morning. Our challenge will be to bring these folk into the worshipping congregation when all of this ends — or perhaps we shall have to continue to broadcast our service even when we are back in our beautiful church.
Tomorrow I am using the olive-wood communion cup and the bowl I brought back from Palestine earlier in the year. Both were used in services when we were there, the cup at Gethsemane and the bowl by the Sea of Galilee. Obviously with everyone in lockdown it was not appropriate for me to seek to get hold of our beautiful silver which is safely locked away!
So you have all my news. I thought I would have time on my hands but now it has been learning the skills I’ve described — and how much more there is to learn. I have loved the fact that several of our folk have volunteered to provide our five-minute daily services and we are all learning how to do these better as every day goes by. There are other plans in the pipeline and I’ll be saying something about them very soon but that’s where we are except to record that we, at Mount Pleasant, are all safe and well. If anyone needs help of any kind at all, please let me know and if I can’t help I have a team of volunteers who will be able to tackle almost anything at all!
Keep safe!