suspension of Milton Anglican public worship & renewing our connections

Milton Anglicans seek to play our part in the care and compassion required of us in the face of the Covid-19 crisis.  Consequently we have suspended our public worship and are inviting one another to deepen our prayer, faith and connections together in fresh sustaining ways...

---

sad but clearly necessary suspension of public worship

Our Archbishop announced on Thursday evening 19 March that all public worship will be suspended in our diocese from Monday due to the corona virus.  Please see the Anglican Focus article here for coverage.  His ad clerum (letter to clergy) also advised that  those congregations able to communicate effectively with their membership could suspend worship this Sunday.   Milton Anglicans have decided that this is the socially responsible thing to do.   This may come as something of a shock, even though it has been increasingly likely for some days.  However it is clearly the right decision in the face of our challenges as a society together.

connecting afresh

This is an unprecedented situation for the church and society at large. Yet we can have confidence that as a parish we have the strength of connection and the imagination to rise to this challenge and to find news ways of connecting, sharing faith and supporting one another through these difficult days.  Our parish priest Penny Jones has now posted her first ever video to our Facebook page and we shall try to do something of the kind most days. It is a small beginning to which we invite you to contribute resources and ideas.

Over the last couple of days conversations began on the telephone with some of our older parishioners who at that stage needed to encourage to stay home from worship.  We have also begun creating prayer buddies - pairs of people or households who will undertake to call each other up each week, share prayer intentions, perhaps read to one another resources that we will post electronically where one of the pair does not manage technology well. The telephone, together with other modern devices, is a wonderful familiar piece of technology that we can use effectively to maintain connections. We therefore hope we can do even more to meet together and some of us are beginning to explore how to use Zoom and other free group audio-visual meeting rooms. This should be a possibility for parish council and other key parish developments, and also for things like Kerry’s Lent study.  We are also aware of the great strains on particular people in our parish and wider community and hope we can find ways to offer support.

do share together

In short we shall be doing everything we can to resource us spiritually through this time and hope that we can emerge from this experience stronger and more vibrant in our faith than ever.  We pray for each of us that we may listen for the promptings of the spirit and find ways to minister effectively to our community in the coming weeks and months. We strongly encourage everyone to share thoughts, experiences, ideas, and other things to support prayer, faith and solidarity with one another and all those in need.

Please be kind to yourself and others.  Do contact Penny Jones on her mobile (047744095).  We look forward to sharing calls, texts, emails, facebook communications et al :-)

with every rich blessing