St. Paul’s E-News EXTRA
17th November 2020
Dear friends,
Yesterday the Chief Minister of Jersey made an announcement in light of the recent increase in Covid-19 infections in our island. In short, formal public gatherings (such as church services) are reduced to a maximum of 20 (plus 5 “customer facing” staff) and informal gatherings (such as a Home Group) are reduced to 10. In light of this we are having to make some hasty changes to our Sunday worship.
Online Worship
This Sunday we are moving back to online worship. The service will be available live from the church building online at 9.30 and thereafter on YouTube. The link will be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_klnFFND7WGvk-20lySu7Q/ and https://www.stpaulsjersey.org, as well as on the church Facebook page.
Children’s & Youth Ministry
There are, however, a couple of exceptions to this. We want to continue to support our children’s & youth ministry for as long as possible. Their groups all count as separate groups (each allowed to be 20) so they will be continuing on Sunday morning at 9.30. Sign up will be in the usual way. If you are a parent of a child in Little Lights, Sparklers, Flaming Sparks or the Youth Group you will be able to attend the 9.30am church service in person by signing in in the usual way. It will mean that about half of those parents will worship in the Upper Room where we are permitted 15 people but with 35 therefore allowed, we think we can manage just about all of the parents who wish to attend the service.
I should add the good news is that this will still allow the children’s & youth ministry to plan, prepare and record their Christmas services contributions.
Those NOT Online
We also want to serve those of the fellowship who are not online, so they will be invited by a phone call to attend the 11.30 service. Of course, 15 of those will be upstairs in church and will need to be able to climb the stairs. We will be restricting this service to those who are not online for obvious reasons.
Prayer Ministry
Prayer ministry will continue to be offered after the 9.30 service through the medium of Zoom. The link is here:
Meeting ID: 962 5761 6473
Passcode: 902457
Do make use of the ministry if it is helpful to you – it will also be on the website on Sunday.
Finally
We appreciate that this is not a perfect world and we all long to be together to worship the Lord. But in these days we need to love one another and bear with the governmental restrictions for now – there is every hope that they will be revised before too long.
I will not be surprised if rules and regulations change rapidly, and we will do our best to be in touch with you quickly should anything change. But be assured of this: Jesus is Lord! And we will worship Almighty God for He is worthy of all our praise and worship. We will not be prevented or hindered – by God’s grace we can worship in a myriad of ways: and we shall.
And of course PRAY! There is so much to pray about, but please pray. Ask the Lord to guide you in your prayers by His Holy Spirit. It says in Luke 18:1, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” So let us pray constantly – and not give up!
With every blessing
Paul
Paul Brooks
Minister of St. Paul’s Church