To read this week’s newsletter, click here.

Please note that there’s a correction to the newsletter as I missed a service off the list!

• Sunday 4 October, 6:30pm Harvest Festival Evensong at Hanley Castle Church

Click here to see the update. (Opens in an external website).

To see this week’s newsletter, click here.

Dear Friends,

So how do you feel about the “rule of six.” It’s a dreadful name isn’t it? I am however glad that the government has to some extent clarified the “is it 30 or 6?” confusion that every event organiser in the country has been wrestling with for months!

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement on Tuesday evening a number of you contacted me to ask “Does this mean church is locked down again?” The good news is the answer is NO! In his press conference on Wednesday, the Prime Minister specifically mentioned places of worship as being exceptions to the rule: so we can carry on meeting!

The government’s website has a comprehensive list of exceptions to the rule (ie a list of situations where groups can be larger than six people). At the time of writing, these include:

• where everyone lives together or is in the same support bubble, or to continue existing arrangements where children do not live in the same household as both their parents
• for work, and voluntary or charitable services
• for education, training, or registered childcare (including wraparound care)
• fulfilling legal obligations such as attending court or jury service
• providing emergency assistance, or providing support to a vulnerable person
• for you or someone else to avoid illness, injury or harm
• participate in children’s playgroups
• wedding and civil partnership ceremonies and receptions, or for other religious life-cycle ceremonies – where up to 30 people will be able to attend
• funerals – where up to 30 people will be able to attend
• organised indoor and outdoor sports, physical activity and exercise classes…
• youth groups or activities
• elite sporting competition or training
• protests and political activities organised in compliance with COVID-19 secure guidance and subject to strict risk assessments

Last weekend we finally restarted the Deep End Youth Group (a BBQ in the vicarage garden) and my wife Carol restarted the Welland toddler group, so I’m delighted to see that both Youth and Toddler activities are in the exception list!

You’ll note also that exceptions are allowed for voluntary and charitable services – which means that if our PCCs want to meet physically, they can. Other church business-type meetings can occur too. Though they must take place in a Covid-secure way, which typically means we have to abandon the comfort of a home and meet in a larger Covid-secure venue, wearing face masks. So, in some cases it may continue to be more helpful to meet electronically!

What is less clear are all the implications for Christmas. Thursday’s Daily Mail headline of “There goes Christmas” is over the top, but it’s clear that for many of us, Christmas may work very differently this year. For the last twenty years or so, I’ve gathered a group of 10-15 friends for a Christmas meal a week before Christmas, and unless the rules change before then, this year it won’t be happening.  But small gatherings of six are still possible: so Christmas is still coming, the goose just need not be quite so fat! And perhaps with less catering to do, and fewer parties to attend, it’ll prompt us all to look beyond the celebrations to Christ, our Saviour and the life and hope his birth brings.

Frustratingly our Christmas services will not be as they were last year. With the need to clean or quarantine buildings between services, and fewer service leaders than in the past, we can’t run all of the carol services and Christmas Eve / Christmas Day events we have in the past. I’m working with the service leaders and venue managers, to try to find a balanced and creative way through this.  The ongoing “no singing” rule, combined with restrictions on attendance, mean that it’s unlikely each church will have a carol services this year: but we’re exploring some creative alternatives and we’ll tell you more nearer to.

It isn’t just Christmas that will be different this year, Covid impacts our Remembrance Sunday activities too. Our church in Upton hosts the largest Remembrance Sunday service in the area, but this year, it won’t be in church (or we’d have to turn 300 people away). It’s likely an event will happen around the war memorial at the Pepperpot, but my brief initial discussions with the council  lead me to think that it’s scope will be limited. I’ll let you know more as soon as I know more!

Finally, changing tack a little, Clare our administrator is leaving us this weekend. We’re sad to see her go and very grateful for all the work she’s done, particularly during the confusion and uncertainty of the last six months, when she’s often been working from home, balancing childcare and work, and often during hours of the day that we didn’t contract her to work for. So thank-you Clare, we wish you all the best in your new role and pray that you’ll enjoy it, provide great support to your new employer, and continue to grow in the failth and love of Christ.

We advertised the post about a month ago now, and you’ll all be pleased to hear that we had a large number of very high quality applicants, We’ll be interviewing some of them next week. Please be praying for the candidates and the interviewers, as we seek to discern the right way forward.

Here’s what else is happening this week:

1) Services – Sunday 13 September

IN-PERSON:

• 8am Holy Communion @ Hanley Castle
• 9:30am Holy Communion @ Upton
• 11am            Holy Communion @ Earls Croome
• 11am            Morning Worship @ Ripple
• 11am            Morning Worship @ Welland

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

• Daily Prayer. A new initiative. Alison Martin is producing a weekly “daily prayer” service, which can be used on any day of the week. Updated on a Wednesday or Thursday, you can access it at hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel.

2) Next Weekend (Sunday 20 September)

IN-PERSON

• 9:30am Breakfast Church @ Upton
• 9:30am Holy Communion @ Hanley Swan
• 11am            Morning Worship @ The Hook

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Service of the Word (traditional) –available from midnight

3) New Regular Pattern of services

Now that most of our buildings are open again for worship, the service leaders, church wardens and I have agreed a new pattern of services, which the service leaders and wardens think is sustainable for the foreseeable future.

Inevitably there will be occasional deviations from it due to things like Harvest festivals and special events, and we’ll also need to cancel the occasional service so that buildings can be quarantined after weddings, or when service leaders are unavailable. Please keep an eye on www.hopechurchfamily.org/calendar for the most up to date information.

4) Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference. To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

5) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

6) What Covid-safe church will be like.

We’re mostly getting used to this by now, but just in case you need a refresher, here’s a reminder of the basic common-sense, ground rules for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres.
• Please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• Congregational singing is not yet allowed (either inside or outside)!
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Giving. If you value what we do and would like to support it, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme (where possible) to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish church here.
• Please observe any directions the stewards give you.

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we work to keep everyone safe. Please continue praying for everyone involved in managing the Covid-safe regime in our buildings, and also for our service leaders as they try to think of innovative ways of being church within the rules!

7) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the ongoing hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays                10am-noon         St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays               10am-noon         St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays          10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays              10am-noon         St James’, Welland
• Fridays                   5pm-7pm            St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays              10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

It’s possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

__________

We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Rev’d Barry Unwin

Dear Friends,

It’s quiet here at last! For the first time in nearly six months, all the children are at school (or work), and life suddenly seems a bit more like it used to be!

But I know for many the return to school is something to be afraid of. Having sat through a number of governor presentations on Covid-risk in the last few months, I am very confident that our schools are going to do as much as is humanly possible to protect their communities from Covid.

Earlier this week I encountered an interesting article about the likely risk of getting Covid. Tim Harford, the economist who presents the BBC Radio 4 statistics programme More or Less suggested we have a “44 in one million” chance of catching Covid every day (for those who like to round things down that’s 1 in 22727 chance)! That works out as a one in two million chance of dying, and a one in a million chance of hospitalisation.

And those figures assume that Covid is distributed evenly across the UK, which of course it isn’t. Malvern Hills district currently has an infection rate of 3 per 100,000 people, compared to a UK average of 8: so if my maths is correct, your chance of catching Covid in any one day in the Malvern Hills area is more like one in 60,000! All of which is to say that in our corner of Worcestershire, you’d have to try really quite hard to catch Covid-19 at the moment! And whilst that shouldn’t cause us to be careless, it should remind us that with common sense and a bit of self-discipline about things like hand washing and face masks, we don’t need to be afraid!

St Paul speaks about fear in his letter to a young church leader called Timothy. He says, “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”(2Tim 1:7) and whilst the fear Timothy felt was more to do with physical persecution and church politics, than disease, the same Holy Spirit can still help us to face our fear of Covid.

So rather than living in fear of life getting back to normal, let’s invite the Lord to make us brave (and self-disciplined), so that we can move forward confidently in these challenging times.

Here’s an update on what’s going on this week

1) Services – Sunday 6 September

This is the first Sunday of our new regular “post-covid” service pattern.

IN-PERSON:           

• 9:30am  Holy Communion –@ Hanley Swan.
• 11am Holy Communion @ The Hook
• 6:30pm Evensong @ Hanley Castle

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

• Service of Spiritual Communion – WEDNESDAY 9 September, 6pm Click this link to join in.

2) Next Weekend (Sunday 13 September)

IN-PERSON

• 8am Holy Communion @ Hanley Castle
• 9:30am Holy Communion @ Upton
• 11am            Holy Communion @ Earls Croome
• 11am            Morning Worship @ Ripple
• 11am            Morning Worship @ Welland

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Service of the Word (traditional) –available from midnight
• Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

3) New Pattern of services from September

Now that most of our buildings are open again for worship, the service leaders, church wardens and I have agreed a new pattern of services, which we think is sustainable for the foreseeable future.

We don’t have as many service leaders as we had before the Covid outbreak, and we also have concerns about over-working some of our team, so there is no way at the moment to return to the pattern and frequency of services prior to Covid. Instead we’ve taken the opportunity to try to fairly allocate services between our various congregations, and to provide service times that are complementary where churches have a history of worshipping together (for example Upton and the Hook, or Hanley Swan and Welland). Sadly this means some churches will lose services, and others will have long-established patterns disrupted. However given most of us have had no “in-person” church service for four months, this represents an ideal time for a new beginning!

The new pattern will begin in September. Inevitably there will be deviations from it due to festivals and special events, and we’ll need to cancel the occasional service so that buildings can be quarantined after weddings, or when service leaders are unavailable. Please keep an eye on www.hopechurchfamily.org/calendar for the most up to date information.

4) Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference. To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

5) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

6) Think you can sort out our administration?

We have a vacancy in the parish office, from mid-September. If you (or someone you know) would be interested in a part-time administrative role, 14 hours a week, then you can download a job description from our website: www.hopechurchfamily.org/administrator. We’ll be interviewing in September.

7) What Covid-safe church will be like.

We’re mostly getting used to this by now, but just in case you need a refresher, here’s a reminder of the basic common-sense, ground rules for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres.
• Please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• Congregational singing is not yet allowed (either inside or outside)!
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Giving. If you value what we do and would like to support it, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme (where possible) to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish church here.
• Please observe any directions the stewards give you.

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we work to keep everyone safe. Please continue praying for everyone involved in managing the Covid-safe regime in our buildings, and also for our service leaders as they try to think of innovative ways of being church within the rules!

8) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays                10am-noon         St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays               10am-noon         St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays          10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays              10am-noon         St James’, Welland
• Fridays                   5pm-7pm            St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays              10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

It’s possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

9) Deanery Plan – Consultation

As part of its plan to restructure and streamline things, the Diocese of Worcester is planning to reorganise its deanery structures. Our parishes currently form part of the Deanery of Upton, which is among the smallest deaneries in the country, and not considered viable at this size. Two options have been considered – merging us with a larger rural deanery (Pershore and Evesham), or with the more local Malvern deanery. Personally I think Malvern makes a lot more sense, but you may feel differently about it. You can download the full details here, and if you have any comments please send them to the address in the consultation letter.
We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Dear Friends,

It’s quiet here! For the first time in nearly six months, all the children are at school (or work), and life suddenly seems a bit more like it used to be!

But I know for many the return to school is something to be afraid of. Having sat through a number of governor presentations on Covid-risk in the last few months, I am very confident that our schools are going to do as much as is humanly possible to protect their communities from Covid.

Earlier this week I encountered an interesting article about the likely risk of getting Covid. Tim Harford, the economist who presents the BBC Radio 4 statistics programme More or Less suggested we have a “44 in one million” chance of catching Covid every day (for those who like to round things down that’s 1 in 22727 chance)! That works out as a one in two million chance of dying, and a one in a million chance of hospitalisation. That means you are as likely to die of Covid-19 as you are to die from taking a bath.

And those figures assume that Covid is distributed evenly across the UK, which of course it isn’t. Malvern Hills district currently has an infection rate of 3 per 100,000 people, compared to a UK average of 8: so if my maths is correct, your chance of catching Covid in any one day in the Malvern Hills area is more like one in 60,000! All of which is to say that in our corner of Worcestershire, you’d have to try really quite hard to catch Covid-19 at the moment! And whilst that shouldn’t cause us to be careless, it should remind us that with common sense and a bit of self-discipline about things like hand washing and face masks, we don’t need to be afraid!

St Paul speaks about fear in his letter to a young church leader called Timothy. He says, “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”(2Tim 1:7) and whilst the fear Timothy felt was more to do with physical persecution and church politics, than disease, the same Holy Spirit can still help us to face our fear of Covid.

So rather than living in fear of life getting back to normal, let’s invite the Lord to make us brave (and self-disciplined), so that we can move forward confidently in these challenging times.

Here’s an update on what’s going on this week

1) Services – Sunday 6 September

This is the first Sunday of our new regular “post-covid” service pattern.

IN-PERSON:           

• 9:30am  Holy Communion –@ Hanley Swan.
• 11am Holy Communion @ The Hook
• 6:30pm Evensong @ Hanley Castle

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

• Service of Spiritual Communion – WEDNESDAY 9 September, 6pm Click this link to join in.

2) Next Weekend (Sunday 13 September)

IN-PERSON

• 8am Holy Communion @ Hanley Castle
• 9:30am Holy Communion @ Upton
• 11am            Holy Communion @ Earls Croome
• 11am            Morning Worship @ Ripple
• 11am            Morning Worship @ Welland

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Service of the Word (traditional) –available from midnight
• Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

3) New Pattern of services from September

Now that most of our buildings are open again for worship, the service leaders, church wardens and I have agreed a new pattern of services, which we think is sustainable for the foreseeable future.

We don’t have as many service leaders as we had before the Covid outbreak, and we also have concerns about over-working some of our team, so there is no way at the moment to return to the pattern and frequency of services prior to Covid. Instead we’ve taken the opportunity to try to fairly allocate services between our various congregations, and to provide service times that are complementary where churches have a history of worshipping together (for example Upton and the Hook, or Hanley Swan and Welland). Sadly this means some churches will lose services, and others will have long-established patterns disrupted. However given most of us have had no “in-person” church service for four months, this represents an ideal time for a new beginning!

The new pattern will begin in September. Inevitably there will be deviations from it due to festivals and special events, and we’ll need to cancel the occasional service so that buildings can be quarantined after weddings, or when service leaders are unavailable. Please keep an eye on www.hopechurchfamily.org/calendar for the most up to date information.

4) Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference. To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

5) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

6) Think you can sort out our administration?

We have a vacancy in the parish office, from mid-September. If you (or someone you know) would be interested in a part-time administrative role, 14 hours a week, then you can download a job description from our website: www.hopechurchfamily.org/administrator. We’ll be interviewing in September.

7) What Covid-safe church will be like.

We’re mostly getting used to this by now, but just in case you need a refresher, here’s a reminder of the basic common-sense, ground rules for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres.
• Please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• Congregational singing is not yet allowed (either inside or outside)!
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Giving. If you value what we do and would like to support it, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme (where possible) to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish church here.
• Please observe any directions the stewards give you.

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we work to keep everyone safe. Please continue praying for everyone involved in managing the Covid-safe regime in our buildings, and also for our service leaders as they try to think of innovative ways of being church within the rules!

8) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays                10am-noon         St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays               10am-noon         St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays          10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays              10am-noon         St James’, Welland
• Fridays                   5pm-7pm            St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays              10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

It’s possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

9) Deanery Plan – Consultation

As part of its plan to restructure and streamline things, the Diocese of Worcester is planning to reorganise its deanery structures. Our parishes currently form part of the Deanery of Upton, which is among the smallest deaneries in the country, and not considered viable at this size. Two options have been considered – merging us with a larger rural deanery (Pershore and Evesham), or with the more local Malvern deanery. Personally I think Malvern makes a lot more sense, but you may feel differently about it. You can download the full details here, and if you have any comments please send them to the address in the consultation letter.
We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Dear Friends,

By now you’ve probably heard the joke about Education Secretary Gavin Williamson setting up an ABBA tribute band called BCCD, (so you can guess what this email will be about.)

First of all, I’d like to say congratulations to all who have managed to get exam grades over the last week or so. My oldest son James is among their number, and off to the University of Brighton in the Autumn to read Sports Science. We give thanks to God for how all of this has worked out for him and others, all the while remembering those who have had a more complex and frustrating or disappointing time. Do please be praying for them all.

Please also be praying for our Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, who I’m sure wouldn’t object to me saying hasn’t had the easiest of fortnights. But before we all pile in and tell him what he should have done, let’s remember that it’s very easy to be wise after the event. Philosopher Friedrich Von Schlegel said, “The historian is a prophet looking backwards” and I think that rather neatly defines the problem anyone taking policy decisions in these uniquely uncertain times faces.

Attempting to chart a course through the uncharted waters of Covid-19 is in a sense, a “prophetic task”. We’ve never faced a global pandemic before; there’s no historical road map to fall back on and so it’s down to our elected officials to build the road. And when you’re out breaking ground in new territory, it’s inevitable you are going to get some things horribly wrong. That’s why it’s always much easier to play the role of historian than prophet. Well all have the gift of hindsight, we all can say, “I would have done it better”. But few of us actually have the courage or the gifting to get up and do it.

I say all this with half an eye on one of this weekend’s bible readings, from the 12^th chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Romans (you can see it below), where Paul talks about what true worship is. You see, in the Bible, true worship isn’t you enjoying your favourite church music, nor is it Book of Common Prayer, instead it’s something far more radical. It’s everyone who knows Jesus offering themselves to God as living sacrifices, saying “not my will but yours be done”, and being ready to use whatever gifts God has given us as he would have us use them. That’s true worship.

Here’s how Paul concludes his thoughts on true worship, “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

So what’s your gift? And how will you use it in worship?

Here’s an update on what’s going on this week

1) Services in church, this Sunday 23 August

• 9:30am          Holy Communion  @  Upton
• 11am             Holy Communion @   Hanley Castle
• 11am             Morning Worship @  The Hook
• 11am             Holy Communion @ Welland

2) Online Services

Click the links on the list below to take you direct to the event at the appropriate time.

w/c Sunday 23 August
Video (available through Facebook, YOutube, through our website, or on DVD/CD)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – watch anytime from midnight onwards at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.
• Wednesday 26^th. Service of Spiritual Communion on Zoom @6:30pm. Click here to join in. You can download the liturgy from the calendar page.

3) Next Weekend (Sunday 30 August)

It’s the fifth Sunday of the month next weekend, so we’re carrying on our tradition of all coming together in one of our larger venues.
IN-PERSON:           

• 9:30am  Morning Service – all our churches together @ Hanley Swan.

VIDEO (online and CD/DVD)

• Service of the Word (traditional) –available from midnight
• Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

4) New Pattern of services from September

Now that most of our buildings are open again for worship, the service leaders, church wardens and I have agreed a new pattern of services, which we think is sustainable for the foreseeable future.

We don’t have as many service leaders as we had before the Covid outbreak, and we also have concerns about over-working some of our team, so there is no way at the moment to return to the pattern and frequency of services prior to Covid. Instead we’ve taken the opportunity to try to fairly allocate services between our various congregations, and to provide service times that are complementary where churches have a history of worshipping together (for example Upton and the Hook, or Hanley Swan and Welland). Sadly this means some churches will lose services, and others will have long-established patterns disrupted. However given most of us have had no “in-person” church service for four months, this represents an ideal time for a new beginning!

The new pattern will begin in September. Inevitably there will be deviations from it due to festivals and special events, and we’ll need to cancel the occasional service so that buildings can be quarantined after a wedding. Please keep an eye on www.hopechurchfamily.org/calendar for the most up to date information.

5) Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference. To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

6) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

7) Think you can sort out our administration?

We have a vacancy in the parish office, from mid-September. If you (or someone you know) would be interested in a part-time administrative role, 14 hours a week, then you can download a job description from our website: www.hopechurchfamily.org/administrator. We’ll be interviewing in September.

8) What Covid-safe church will be like.

We’re mostly getting used to this by now, but just in case you need a refresher, here’s a reminder of the basic common-sense, ground rules for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive.
• Face coverings are now mandatory. Please wear one for the sake of the other people present. Note that service leaders, and anyone speaking in the service are exempt when speaking, as long as social-distancing is possible.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• Please take your service sheet away with you after the service.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres.
• Please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• Come early to guarantee a seat!.
• Due to the risk of virus transmission posed by energetic singing, congregational singing is not yet allowed (either inside or out)!
• Family groups and bubbles are discouraged from interacting with each other in the building or in the church grounds.
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• We aren’t yet allowed to serve refreshments after the service
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Giving. To keep you safe we aren’t passing a collection plate. If you value what we do and would like to support it, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme (where possible) to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish church here.
• Please observe all directions the stewards give you.

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we work to keep everyone safe. Please continue praying for everyone involved in managing the Covid-safe regime in our buildings, and also for our service leaders as they try to think of innovative ways of being church within the rules!

9) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays                10am-noon         St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays               10am-noon         St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays          10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays              10am-noon         St James’, Welland
• Fridays                   5pm-7pm            St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays              10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

It’s possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

10) Deanery Plan – Consultation

As part of its plan to restructure and streamline things, the Diocese of Worcester is planning to reorganise its deanery structures. Our parishes currently form part of the Deanery of Upton, which is among the smallest deaneries in the country, and not considered viable at this size. Two options have been considered – merging us with a larger rural deanery (Pershore and Evesham), or with the more local Malvern deanery. Personally I think Malvern makes a lot more sense, but you may feel differently about it. You can download the full details here, and if you have any comments please send them to the address in the consultation letter.

We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Reverend Barry Unwin
Vicar, Hope Church Family

After a two week holiday of glorious sunshine and excellent French food, I wouldn’t be being entirely honest if I started my post-holiday email by saying “it’s good to be back”! Instead I’ll comfort myself with the thought that if I had those things all the time, they would no longer be wonderful holiday treat!

One benefit of travel is you get to see how other nations handle things – and it’s been really helpful to see how another country is coping with Covid. The French are a couple of months ahead of us in coping with Covid, and its all being done with a lot less fuss than here. Face masks were being worn pretty much everywhere even before the government made them mandatory, and I see that from this weekend, they’re mandatory in church here.

This means that from this weekend, you will need to wear a face mask when attending our churches. (Note, we will have a small supply of them available in case you forget, and as always, certain groups are exempt.). I hope wearing one won’t be too distressing for you.

To help us get our services back to a more normal schedule, we’re take the decision to suspend our Daily Prayer videos for the time being. This will give Sue, Alison and I a bit of extra time each week to work on other things. I’m enormously grateful to Sue and Alison for all the work they’ve put into producing the videos and I’m glad that they’ve been a help to many of you each day. If you’d like to continue engaging with a Daily Prayer service, you can visit the Church of England’s Daily Prayer website where each day there is a spoken service and the words are available online. Click here for more information.

We’re also working on a new regular service schedule, which will see a couple of services happening each month in most of our churches. We’re still consulting on this with the service leaders and wardens, but all things being equal, we should be able to start the new regular service pattern in September. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you more next time.

Here’s a run down of everything going on this week, along with links to some fun things we’ve spotted this week, and our updated prayer list.

1) Services in church, this Sunday 9 August

• Holy Communion, Upton @ 9:30am
• Morning Worship, Welland @ 11am   (possibly open-air)

2) Online Services

Click the links on the list below to take you direct to the event at the appropriate time.

Sunday 9 August
Prerecorded, (stream at your convenience)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – PRERECORDED so you can watch anytime from midnight on Sunday (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – PRERECORDED – watch anytime from midnight on Sunday at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

3) Next Weekend (Sunday 16 August)

• 9:30am    Holy Communion  @  Hanley Swan
• 9:30am    Holy Communion @   Ripple
• 11am    Holy Communion  @  Earls Croome
• Service of the Word (traditional) – PRERECORDED available from midnight
• Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

4) Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.
Whilst there’s still some hope we might be able to run a few events in the open air later in the summer, we do face a very challenging future financially. If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference.
To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

5) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

6) What Covid-safe church will be like.

These are the basic, common-sense, “ground rules” for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive to assist with contact tracing in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19. This will be kept for 21 days and then disposed of.
• Face coverings are now mandatory. Please wear one for the sake of the other people present. Note that service leaders, and anyone speaking in the service (for example when leading prayers or reading the Bible) are also exempt as long as social-distancing is possible.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• Where single-use service sheets are supplied, please take them away with you after the service and dispose of them. Please do not leave them on your seat.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres. In practice during the distribution of communion, it may be hard to maintain the rule, and other risk-mitigating measures may be in place (for example the use of face masks or visors).
• To enable social distancing rules to be maintained, please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• At the moment we do not think demand will be such that we have to introduce a ticketing system, but we may have to do this in future weeks. In the event of the building reaching capacity we will have to turn you away, so you are advised to come early to guarantee a seat!.
• Singing is not allowed, due to the risk of virus transmission posed by energetic singing! Shouting and energetic liturgy is discouraged for the same reason!
• Hard though it will be, family groups and bubbles are discouraged from interacting with each other in the building or in the church grounds.
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service. In line with national guidance, childrens corners in churches are currently closed, and we are not yet in a position to offer any Sunday School or Breakfast Church provision.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• There will be no refreshments served after the service
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Cash collections are discouraged. If you give using cash, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish here.
• Please observe all directions the stewards give you.

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we try to work all of this out in a way that is safe for everyone concerned. Please continue praying for everyone involved in reopening buildings and restarting services: we need it!

7) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays                10am-noon         St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays               10am-noon         St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays          10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays              10am-noon         St James’, Welland
• Fridays                   5pm-7pm            St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays              10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

Notwithstanding that, please help us keep the buildings clean and safe by minimising the things you touch while in the building, using the provided hand gel, observing social distancing, and following all safety instructions in the building.

Please do not enter the building if you are experiencing any of the key Covid-19 symptoms:

• a new continuous cough.
• a high temperature.
• a loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia)

It’s also possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

8) Deanery Plan – Consultation

As part of its plan to restructure and streamline things, the Diocese of Worcester is planning to reorganise its deanery structures. Our parishes currently form part of the Deanery of Upton, which is among the smallest deaneries in the country, and not considered viable at this size. Two options have been considered – merging us with a larger rural deanery (Pershore and Evesham), or with the more local Malvern deanery. Personally I think Malvern makes a lot more sense, but you may feel differently about it. You can download the full details here, and if you have any comments please send them to the address in the consultation letter.
We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Reverend Barry Unwin
Vicar, Hope Church Family

Dear Friends,

As we’re into the holiday season, and I’m currently on leave, this note should have been brief, except that in response to the introduction of the new face mask rules on Friday 24th July, the Church of England has launched a huge swathe of revised guidance for worship, including reference to face coverings. I haven’t had time to read it all, but the little bit I’ve seen made me want to revise the letter I’d prepared for today.

Before I comment on the guidance, let me give you word for word, what the Bishops (headed in this instance by the Bishop of London, who is a former Chief Nursing Officer for the UK) have told us.

Q. Should I wear a face covering in a church building?
A. Face coverings are currently mandatory on public transport and will be mandatory in shops and in supermarkets from 24 July 2020. People are also encouraged to wear face coverings in enclosed public spaces where there are people they do not normally meet, such as a place of worship. We strongly advise that face coverings should be worn by all those attending a place of worship, including ministers, worshippers, staff, volunteers, contractors and visitors, where there may be other people present; remembering that they are mainly intended to protect other people, not the wearer, from coronavirus COVID-19 and that they are not a replacement for physical distancing and regular hand washing.

Having worn face masks quite a lot this week whilst travelling around Paris and visiting various visitor attractions, as well as in shops, and bars, I’m not a great fan of them, though I take some comfort from the thought that at least it isn’t as warm back in England as it is here, so they won’t fog your glasses up as much as they’ve fogged my sunglasses this week! But the lesson learned from the many Asian nations that suffered from the SARS outbreak a few years back, is that face coverings make a real difference. Hopefully they’ll make a real difference with Covid here too, and help us get rid of it for good.

I know a lot of you will not like the idea of wearing them, and particularly the advice to wear them in church. Note first that the advice is not mandatory. This is not a law, just advice, so we won’t be turning people away if they don’t wear them. But I do think there is a strong Christian case for wearing them.

The case isn’t built on a self-interest plea about the possibility of a mask preventing us catching an unpleasant disease, but instead on Jesus’ call to us to love our neighbours as ourselves: to do as we would be done by.

Early next month, shielding ends for over two million clinically extremely vulnerable people (many of our regular church attenders and some of our service leaders are in this group), and they’re being “released” at a time when we’re wanting to get the economy moving again, to travel more and get life back to normal. In other words, perfect conditions to increase the spread of Covid-19. Face masks in public spaces may well be the price we all have to pay to protect the most vulnerable.

As I’ve already said, I don’t like wearing them, but I think it’s a sacrifice worth making if it stops me harming someone. I hope you’ll come to see it in those terms too.

I’ll update you more on the revised guidance in a subsequent letter, but here’s the rest of the note I had originally planned to send…

Last weekend we had another event to celebrate – the first service at Earls Croome Church since lockdown began. I’m enormously grateful to Margaret Herbert and her team who have taken the lead on getting the building “Covid-safe”.

This weekend we’ve our first service at the Hook for months, and next weekend the first service at Ripple. So things are beginning to look a little more normal. As to whether the Prime Minister’s suggestion that normal life will resume by Christmas, I’m a little more sceptical, but let’s hope for the best, and plan for the worst!

With more “physical” church services happening we’re slowly scaling back our online services. We won’t be running any more “services of spiritual communion” on a Sunday morning, but we are going to keep a monthly-midweek one running for the next few months.
We’re also about to review whether to continue producing the Daily Prayer videos. Some of you have really appreciated them, but we’ve noticed a slow decline in numbers viewing the service in the last few weeks. Please tell us what you think we should do with these daily videos. It’s very much a “use it or lose it” type situation!
Here’s a run down of everything going on this week, along with links to some fun things we’ve spotted this week, and our updated prayer list.

1) Services in church, this Sunday 26 July

• Morning Worship – 11am – Hook
• Holy Communion – 11am – Welland

2) Online Services

Click the links on the list below to take you direct to the event at the appropriate time.
Sunday 26 July

• Prerecorded, (stream at your convenience)Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – PRERECORDED so you can watch anytime from midnight on Sunday (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – PRERECORDED – watch anytime from midnight on Sunday at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

29 July

• Service of Spiritual Communion – Live – 6:30pm. LIVE – using Zoom. You can download a service sheet here.

Every Day except Sunday

• Daily Prayer – a short service of prayers and readings.

Services for Sunday 2 August

• Holy Communion, Hanley Swan @ 9:30am
• Matins, Ripple @ 11am
• Evensong, Hanley Castle @ 6:30pm
• Service of the Word (traditional) – PRERECORDED available from midnight
•  Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

3)Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

Whilst there’s still some hope we might be able to run a few events in the open air later in the summer, we do face a very challenging future financially. If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference.

To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

4) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

5) What Covid-safe church will be like.

AsTAs ofaof 23 July the basic, common-sense, “ground rules” for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• If you are currently shielding (ie in the clinically extremely vulnerable group) please continue to observe government guidance, which is currently to stay home and not attend a place of worship prior to 1 August.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive to assist with contact tracing in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19. This will be kept for 21 days and then disposed of.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• Where single-use service sheets are supplied, please take them away with you after the service and dispose of them. Please do not leave them on your seat.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres. In practice during the distribution of communion, it may be hard to maintain the rule, and other risk-mitigating measures may be in place (for example the use of face masks or visors).
• To enable social distancing rules to be maintained, please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• At the moment we do not think demand will be such that we have to introduce a ticketing system, but we may have to do this in future weeks. In the event of the building reaching capacity we will have to turn you away, so you are advised to come early to guarantee a seat!
• There is no requirement to wear face masks, but you may wish to do so if it helps you feel safer. Some service leaders will wear them during the distribution of communion when it is not practical to maintain a 2metre safe distance.
• Singing is not allowed, due to the risk of virus transmission posed by energetic singing! Shouting and energetic liturgy is discouraged for the same reason!
• Hard though it will be, family groups and bubbles are discouraged from interacting with each other in the building or in the church grounds.
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service. In line with national guidance, childrens corners in churches are currently closed, and we are not yet in a position to offer any Sunday School or Breakfast Church provision.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• There will be no refreshments served after the service
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Cash collections are discouraged. If you give using cash, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish here.
• Please observe all directions the stewards give you.
I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we try to work all of this out in a way that is safe for everyone concerned. Please continue praying for everyone involved in reopening buildings and restarting services: we need it!

6) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays 10am-noon St James’ Welland
•  Tuesdays 10am-noon St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
•  Wednesdays 10am-noon St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays 10am-noon St James’, Welland
• Fridays 5pm-7pm St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays 10am-noon St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

Notwithstanding that, please help us keep the buildings clean and safe by minimising the things you touch while in the building, using the provided hand gel, observing social distancing, and following all safety instructions in the building.

Please do not enter the building if you are experiencing any of the key Covid-19 symptoms:
• a new continuous cough.
• a high temperature.
• a loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia)

It’s also possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

———–

We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Barry Unwin

Dear Friends,

Just a short note this week. I hope I find you well.

Getting back to my desk after a brief break has been pretty tiring, lots to catch up on, and plan, and some good news to share.

First, with Upton reopen for worship we were able to welcome year six from Upton School in for a leavers assembly. This was a wonderful (if socially distanced) event, recorded for the rest of the school to watch in their classrooms on the last day of term. It was a truly moving occasion, and I felt blessed to be able to take part in this relatively normal rite-of-passage! It really feels like some parts of life are returning to normal!

Other bits of good news include our plans to reopen both the Hook and Ripple churches for worship. The Hook should have its first service for four months on 26 July, and Ripple will follow suit a week later. Huge thanks go to Kate Chester-Lamb and Roger Gillard, for taking a lead, and their teams of volunteer helpers who have worked through all the details of how to do this safely!

I also wrote my first Bridge Magazine article for 4 months today – the Bridge will be back in early August, another glimpse of normality, and just to complete the set, I’ve a hair-dresser’s appointment booked for tomorrow so I can finally get my curly hair back under control! Bliss!

Briefly, a few other bits of news. And remember, please also scroll down through the rest of this email to see details of readings for this Sunday, links to some fun things we’ve spotted this week, and our updated prayer list.

1)     Services in church, this Sunday 19 July

• Morning Worship – 11am – Earls Croome
• Holy Communion – 11am – Hanley Castle

2) Online Services

Click the links on the list below to take you direct to the event at the appropriate time.
Sunday 19 July

Live

• Service of Spiritual Communion – Live – 9:30am. LIVE – using Zoom. You can download a service sheet here.

Prerecorded, (stream at your convenience)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – PRERECORDED so you can watch anytime from midnight on Sunday (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – PRERECORDED – watch anytime from midnight on Sunday at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

Wednesday 22 July

• Service of Spiritual Communion – Live – 6:30pm. LIVE – using Zoom. You can download a service sheet here.

Every Day except Sunday

• Daily Prayer – a short service of prayers and readings.

Services for Sunday 26 July

• Morning Worship, The Hook @ 11am
• Holy Communion, Welland @ 11am
• Service of the Word (traditional) – PRERECORDED available from midnight
• Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

3)Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

Whilst there’s still some hope we might be able to run a few events in the open air later in the summer, we do face a very challenging future financially. If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference.

To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

4) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

5) What Covid-safe church will be like.

These are the basic, common-sense, “ground rules” for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• If you are currently shielding (ie in the clinically extremely vulnerable group) please continue to observe government guidance, which is currently to stay home and not attend a place of worship prior to 1 August.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive to assist with contact tracing in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19. This will be kept for 21 days and then disposed of.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• Where single-use service sheets are supplied, please take them away with you after the service and dispose of them. Please do not leave them on your seat.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres. In practice during the distribution of communion, it may be hard to maintain the rule, and other risk-mitigating measures may be in place (for example the use of face masks or visors).
• To enable social distancing rules to be maintained, please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• At the moment we do not think demand will be such that we have to introduce a ticketing system, but we may have to do this in future weeks. In the event of the building reaching capacity we will have to turn you away, so you are advised to come early to guarantee a seat!
• There is no requirement to wear face masks, but you may wish to do so if it helps you feel safer. Some service leaders will wear them during the distribution of communion when it is not practical to maintain a 2metre safe distance.
• Singing is not allowed, due to the risk of virus transmission posed by energetic singing! Shouting and energetic liturgy is discouraged for the same reason!
• Hard though it will be, family groups and bubbles are discouraged from interacting with each other in the building or in the church grounds.
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service. In line with national guidance, childrens corners in churches are currently closed, and we are not yet in a position to offer any Sunday School or Breakfast Church provision.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• There will be no refreshments served after the service
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Cash collections are discouraged. If you give using cash, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish here.
• Please observe all directions the stewards give you.

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we try to work all of this out in a way that is safe for everyone concerned. Please continue praying for everyone involved in reopening buildings and restarting services: we need it!

6) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays 10am-noon         St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays 10am-noon         St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays 10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays 10am-noon         St James’, Welland
• Fridays 5pm-7pm            St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays 10am-noon         St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

Notwithstanding that, please help us keep the buildings clean and safe by minimising the things you touch while in the building, using the provided hand gel, observing social distancing, and following all safety instructions in the building.

Please do not enter the building if you are experiencing any of the key Covid-19 symptoms:

• a new continuous cough.
• a high temperature.
• a loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia)

It’s also possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

———–

We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Barry Unwin

Dear Friends,

I’m writing this from Cornwall, where I’m having a short break with my family. It’s been good to get away for a few days this week after the challenges of co-ordinating work to reopen some of our churches for individual prayer and/or worship over the last few weeks.

We spent Monday on one of my favourite beaches in the UK, Pedn Vounder, about half-way between Penzance and Lands End. The sun shone brilliantly throughout, the high cliffs protected us from the chilly north-westerly breeze, and we spent the day surrounded by beautiful white sand, swimming in crystal clear seawater. It was a wonderful reminder to me of why Psalm 8 tells us that God has set his glory in the heavens: the beauty of creation reveals God’s power and might and majesty – and in this summer season, despite the strangeness of Covid-19, there are so many reminders to us of God’s goodness all around us. So let’s not be afraid of the challenges ahead, but face them knowing that the God who creates so much wondrous beauty can do wonders in us too.

Last weekend I presided at communion for the first time in nearly four months, and it was a joy to focus again our Lord’s sacrifice as well as to share some, limited, face-to-face fellowship with the small numbers who joined us. The building had been immaculately prepared, and all the advised precautions were taken to enable us to reopen safely. Thank-you to those who joined us for worship – I hope the absence of song wasn’t too strange!

Over the next few weeks we’ll continue to slowly restart worship in various different venues around the benefice. As I’ve said previously, congregational leadership in helping manage safety, building capacity and the number of service leaders available to us are the major restrictions on how we can proceed, and therefore please don’t expect worship to return to your church immediately! Many churches across Worcester diocese (both large and small) are not reopening yet – indeed the Priory in Malvern will not be reopening for services until at least August.

Rather than waiting for a service to come to your familiar place of worship – let me encourage you to be willing to travel between our buildings for regular worship. It was good to see a number of visitors in Hanley Swan last weekend (from Ripple and Upton) and I’d encourage more of you to be willing to travel like this. Collective worship, wherever it takes place, is good for us, and its good for inter-church relationships as well!

Some of you I know are not yet able to travel to church, or do not yet feel safe doing so. We will continue to provide church online (and on DVD) for the foreseeable future, though we will be cutting back the provision somewhat as there aren’t enough hours in the day to do both physical church and virtual church well!

Before I tell you when and where services will be this weekend, please can you read through this guidance note setting out the “ground rules” for a Covid-safe church service.

• If you are experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms (high temperature, new continuous cough, loss/change to your sense of smell or taste) please seek medical advice and do not attend services. We are continuing to provide services online.
• If you are currently shielding (ie in the clinically extremely vulnerable group) please continue to observe government guidance, which is currently to stay home and not attend a place of worship prior to 1 August.
• We will need to take contact details from you when you arrive to assist with contact tracing in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19. This will be kept for 21 days and then disposed of.
• When you enter and leave the building, please use the hand-sanitiser provided.
• Where single-use service sheets are supplied, please take them away with you after the service and dispose of them. Please do not leave them on your seat.
• The social distancing rule is 2 metres. In practice during the distribution of communion, it may be hard to maintain the rule, and other risk-mitigating measures may be in place (for example the use of face masks or visors).
• To enable social distancing rules to be maintained, please only sit in the seat(s) you are assigned. It helps us increase capacity if family groups/bubbles sit together.
• At the moment we do not think demand will be such that we have to introduce a ticketing system, but we may have to do this in future weeks. In the event of the building reaching capacity we will have to turn you away, so you are advised to come early to guarantee a seat!
• There is no requirement to wear face masks, but you may wish to do so if it helps you feel safer. Some service leaders will wear them during the distribution of communion when it is not practical to maintain a 2metre safe distance.
• Singing is not allowed, due to the risk of virus transmission posed by energetic singing! Shouting and energetic liturgy is discouraged for the same reason!
• Hard though it will be, family groups and bubbles are discouraged from interacting with each other in the building or in the church grounds.
• Children are the responsibility of their parents/guardian during the service. In line with national guidance, childrens corners in churches are currently closed, and we are not yet in a position to offer any Sunday School or Breakfast Church provision.
• Please exit the building as soon as the service ends.
• There will be no refreshments served after the service
• Holy Communion will be served in “one-kind” only (bread) as the common cup is seen as a greater infection risk.
• Cash collections are discouraged. If you give using cash, please consider setting up a standing order or using the Parish Giving Scheme to support our work. You can find out details relating your parish here.
• Please observe all directions the stewards give you.

Still want to come? Then this Sunday (12 July) Jane Fraser will be presiding at a service of Holy Communion at 9:30am in Upton and our lay reader Alison Martin will be leading Evening Prayer in Welland at 6pm.

Next weekend (19 July), we hope to have a service of Holy Communion in Hanley Castle, and a morning worship service in Earls Croome, though this is still subject to change. Please check next week’s newsletter for final details!

I’m grateful to you all for your continued patience as we try to work all of this out in a way that is safe for everyone concerned. Please continue praying for everyone involved in reopening buildings and restarting services: we need it!

Briefly, a few other bits of news. And remember, please also scroll down through the rest of this email to see details of readings for this Sunday, links to some fun things we’ve spotted this week, and our updated prayer list.

1) This week’s Online Events

Click the links on the list below to take you direct to the event at the appropriate time.

Sunday 12 July

Live

• Church Family (modern music version) – Join in the planned premier post on the Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/hopechurchupton) from 9:27am, feel free to comment and chat using the links on Facebook.
• Service of Holy Communion – 9:30am – Upton
• Service of Evening Prayer – 6pm – Welland

Prerecorded, (stream at your convenience)

• Sunday Service (traditional hymn version) – PRERECORDED so you can watch anytime from midnight on Sunday (also available through our Youtube channel).
• Church Family (modern music version) – PRERECORDED – watch anytime from midnight on Sunday at www.hopechurchfamily.org/virtual or through our Youtube channel or join the live Facebook Premiere at 9:30am.

Wednesday 15 July

• Service of Spiritual Communion – Live – 6:30pm. LIVE – using Zoom. You can download a service sheet here.

Every Day except Sunday

• Daily Prayer – a short service of prayers and readings.

Services for Sunday 19 July

• T.b.c. Morning Worship, Earls Croome @ 11am (please check website or this newsletter next week for final details).
• TBC Holy Communion, Hanley Castle @ 11am  (please check website or this newsletter next week for final details).
• Service of the Word (traditional) – PRERECORDED available from midnight
• Church Family (contemporary)– Facebook Premiere at 9:30am and PRERECORDED available from midnight.

2)Church finances – you can make a difference!

Like all small charities, your local church is suffering a significant financial shortfall as a result of lost income from collections and special fundraising events we’d have run through the summer.

Whilst there’s still some hope we might be able to run a few events in the open air later in the summer, we do face a very challenging future financially. If you are in a position to give an additional gift at this time, it would make a huge difference.

To make this simpler, we’ve set up a new GIVING page on our website (https://hopechurchfamily.org/giving), with all the information you’ll need to give a one-off, or regular gift to any of our churches.

3) Services on DVDs and CDs

Every week I produce the services on DVD and CD for a small number of folk across the area who don’t have internet access. It’s been a lovely way for them to stay in touch. If you know of anyone else who would be helped by this ministry, please let me know.

4) Churches Open For Individual Prayer.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteer cleaners and organisers we’re able to open three of our churches for a short period each week for individual prayer. You can visit to pray at the following times:

• Mondays 10am-noon        St James’ Welland
• Tuesdays 10am-noon        St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Wednesdays 10am-noon        St Mary’s, Hanley Castle
• Thursdays 10am-noon        St James’, Welland
• Fridays 5pm-7pm           St Gabriel’s, Hanley Swan
• Saturdays 10am-noon        St Mary’s, Hanley Castle

To help keep you safe, the buildings are being cleaned before and after each opening period, and the three-day gap between each building opening will act as an additional “safety buffer” in which the scientists tell us any virus particles that the cleaners have missed will die.

Notwithstanding that, please help us keep the buildings clean and safe by minimising the things you touch while in the building, using the provided hand gel, observing social distancing, and following all safety instructions in the building.

Please do not enter the building if you are experiencing any of the key Covid-19 symptoms:

• a new continuous cough.
• a high temperature.
• a loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia)

It’s also possible that we may need to close one of the buildings occasionally for a funeral, or other service, or because we haven’t been able to maintain cleaning safety. We’ll do our best to inform you of this.

———–

We long for the day when we can all gather together again, but in the meantime, stay safe, stay prayerful, and God bless!

Barry Unwin