Update from Phil Moon (Vicar)

A message from Phil Moon
Welcome to the first of our BH bulletins which will also include a brief ‘Thought for the Day’ during this time of the Corona virus.

Self isolating
We’ll be putting these Bulletins online each morning between 9.30 and 10.00, every day from Monday to Sunday, so we can all know what’s happening in our church and be helped by being pointed to God’s word each day.
Last night we had our first ‘BH Cobra’ meeting (using Skype – it worked well), with me, Tim, Mark and Geoff (our wardens) Dave from Holy Cross and Simon from Goldstone. We’ll continue to meet regularly during this difficult time, and here are the main arrangements that we agreed last night, as they affect BH. Holy Cross and Goldstone of course have similar arrangements.

1. While we can’t meet physically as a church, there will still be services online at 10.00 and 6.30 each Sunday
2. BH will be open from 9-5, Monday to Friday for private prayer. Do use the Nevill Avenue entrance.
3. All midweek groups (small groups, youth and children’s work etc) will not physically happen, but we are encouraging, for example, small groups to meet via Skype or Zoom (it’s a good App, apparently!) Clearly this may be a challenge technically for some, so we are asking the church family to help out on this front wherever possible. We are also investigating possible use of conference phones, and will let you know more details very soon.
4. We will be working on providing bible teaching material for families and young people to use.
5. Our buildings will not be available for meetings or gatherings which involve unnecessary social contact.
6. Weddings and funerals can still happen at BH, but would need to be very limited in numbers.
7. The monthly Prayer Meetings will still happen, but online. We’ll let you know more about the format of these in due course.
8. Pastoral care is being taken very seriously, especially for our older members and those who are medically vulnerable. We need to take great care over physical distancing, but will use the phone and internet methods to keep in touch. We need to support and help one another with this, and I hope that everyone will make a number of calls each day just to check on and encourage one another.
9. The March PCC has been cancelled, and we are waiting for guidance from the Diocese on how this outbreak will impact our APCM.
10. We are concerned about the long term spiritual impact of all this, but we are confident in our great God, that far from just ‘getting through’ this can be a time of great spiritual growth and maturing for BH, Goldstone and Holy Cross.

 
Thought for the Day (Phil Moon)
I’m having to self-isolate at the moment, having developed a cough last week. I’m 6 days in, 8 to go. And it’s a very strange experience, because Church is about people, and being with people, and just at the moment, we can’t do that in the way we normally would expect to.
But this morning I was reading Isaiah 2:1-4, and using Alec Motyer’s excellent devotional book Isaiah by the Day (you can buy it from Books Alive, worth every penny). He uses his own translation and in v3 it’s: “And many peoples will come, and they will say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, so that he may teach us something of his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion will go forth teaching, and Yahweh’s word out of Jerusalem.”
Yes we have big challenges just now. But we will be back in the building at some point and that will be a wonderful day. And on that day and right now, and every day,  He will teach us something of his ways that we may walk in his paths. May that be our prayer every day during this crisis, and for the rest of our lives.