Dear Church Friends,
You will have heard that the Government has issued guidance that places of worship can open for services from the 4th of July. This is welcome news but comes with some caveats regards health and safety.
You may not be aware that all our local church buildings are managed as though they have individual charitable status whose maintenance and finance are managed through local PCC’s (Parochial Church Council’s) whose members are all Trustees of the building. As such all activities including our services are the responsibility of the PCC’s and the Wardens locally.
I therefore wanted to be in touch to let you know I am meeting with our church Wardens next week and subsequently will meet with the PCC’s to talk about whether we can begin services in the churches in our Benefice in compliance with the extensive guidelines for safe meeting at this stage. The guidelines are extensive and can be found at the link below if anyone is interested:
COVID-19: Guidance for the safe use of places of worship from 4 July
Our church services will therefore not be resuming this week. Please bear with us as we take seriously our responsibility to the worshiping community and our wider friends and neighbors in the villages. I expect to be able to offer some further advice on when we will be able to meet for worship in around 2 weeks time.
Until then I will continue to send out reflections and services on Thursday and Sunday which I hope will allow us to feel united in prayer and worship.
The Peace of the Lord be always with you x
Rev Doug Heming
The Benefice of Chebsey and Norton Bridge, Ellenhall, Ranton and Seighford with Creswell 