Dear Friends

The Church of England’s  bishops met on 5 May to discuss how worship may begin in our churches once again. Clergy in this diocese are now allowed by Bishop Paul, if they wish, to pray or to live stream services from their churches. The reintroduction of public worship, however, would only begin to happen subject to government advice and appropriate social distancing/hygiene measures being in place. As you are probably aware, the Government has this past week issued information that places of worship may reopen at the earliest on 4 July if its 5 tests for easing the lockdown are met.  So currently we remain in a period of waiting to see how things develop.

That sense of waiting fits in very well with the church calendar as we move next week from Easter to Ascension Day, a time when the disciples were told to wait for the arrival of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49) who of course came at Pentecost.  The 10 days between Ascension and Pentecost are once again being marked by the global ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ (www.thykingdomcome.global) initiative this year, which gives us all an opportunity to pray for 5 people who we wish to become Christians. To begin that process, I will be celebrating a service of Holy Communion on Zoom on Ascension Day (Thursday 21^st May) at 7.30 p.m., which will be open to all in our team and the other churches in the West Warrington area. If you wish to take part, please email me (jeremy@westwarringtonchurch.uk) and I will send you the link. Speaking of prayer, there is also a Global Day of Prayer organised by the World Council of Churches this Thursday 14th May, inviting us to pray for an end to the Covid19 pandemic. I do believe that prayer makes a difference both in the lives of individuals and in the life of the world, so I encourage you to engage with it!

One of the very practical ways in which we, as a team, will be supporting those across West Warrington at the current moment is through the introduction of a telephone befriending scheme. This has been set up over the course of the past 3 weeks in conjunction with Councillor Amanda King and a local mental health charity called RISE. The scheme will provide an isolated or lonely individual a telephone companion who will call on a regular basis to check on their well-being and provide a friendly ear. Please consider joining this scheme, as we are looking for members of our churches to volunteer to make a weekly phone call. Your involvement really could make a difference to others at this difficult time. If you would like further details, please contact the scheme administrator, Heather Copperwheat, from St.Philip’s at telephonebefriending@westwarringtonchurch.uk

Stay safe and go well.                         Jeremy Tear, Pioneer Team Rector