As we've prayed and discussed together in various gatherings over the last two weeks, we feel that the Lord has distilled our task as a church down to three simple purposes: 

1) sustaining worship;
2) pastoral and practical care for one another;
3) and pastoral and practical care for those around us.

I fear that everything else - including morning prayer, pastoral visits face-to-face, worship services, small groups meeting in person and home communions - can and has to wait.

One: Sustaining Worship

Sunday 22nd March
The Archbishops have challenged us all to make the coming Sunday a Day of Prayer for the Nation. Although public worship services have been discontinued, they have strongly encouraged parish churches to be open for prayer if at all possible.

As our response to this call to prayer, we're planning to open Highfield Church at 10am and have the building open through to 7pm. Keeping open for as long as this should mean that everyone who wants to can come and pray without creating too large a gathering at any one time.

Diligent attention will be paid to cleaning and we will observe the latest guidance about social distancing. We will remove many of the chairs to make it easy for people who come to pray not to come within 2 metres of one another.

At the top of each hour, a short time of intercession will be led by one of the staff team, accompanied by a song. The rest of the hour will be given to private prayer, though some resources will be provided for those who come to pray to help shape their prayers. If you're in a group who is deemed vulnerable, please feel free to join us from home (we will email out the resources we produce to stimulate prayer so you can use them at home, perhaps stopping to pray with us at the top of the hour).

We hope that this will enable us as a church and people from our community to come and pray, be encouraged by God's presence and seek His face for the good of our nation.

Week Beginning Monday 23rd March
Unless the guidance changes, Highfield Church will be open for prayer each weekday from 12-2pm. This will replace our current daily Morning Prayer. Again, the building will be open mostly for private prayer, but a short time of intercession will be led from the front of church at both 12.30pm and 1.30pm. Guidance on hygiene and social distancing will be followed.

Streaming Services and Digital Engagement
We're working hard as a staff team on developing the capability to record and live stream a short service every Sunday. We hope to have this up and running from Sunday 29th March at the latest. We're also looking at engaging more with social media than some of us (like me, a social media dinosaur) have done up until now. We will share details of what is planned as soon as possible, but certainly by the middle of next week. We'll aim to collate daily posts in one weekly blog at the end of the week and distribute these by email (printed copies will be available at the back of church when it's open for prayer).

Two: Pastoral and Practical Care for One Another

Small Groups have a crucial role in the Body always, but especially at this time when there is real stress and justified anxiety everywhere around us. We're hoping that you'll make sure that you share within your groups any pastoral care and practical help needs you may have, and pick up the responsibility of supporting one another (Galatians 6: 2). Pastoral staff will be checking in with small group leaders to ensure that the leaders are being adequately cared for as well.

Prayer: A particular concern is those who aren't currently within small groups, especially among our older people who are being strongly encouraged to self-isolate. Taking up a suggestion made by Chris Sinclair, we're aiming to create groups of six, encouraging you to take up the responsibility of praying for each person within your six. Chris has made the admirable suggestion that we could pray for the other five people each time we wash our hands! We hope to have these sixes in place by the end of next week and would love you to sign up for one if you're not currently in a small group by Wednesday 25th March. Please click here for the form.

If you're aware of anyone who isn't in a small group and is at risk of becoming isolated, please encourage them to contact the office (or do so, with their permission) by also emailing prayer@highfield.church.  

The aim is to cover one another in prayer within small groups and within these groups of six, and pick up any particularly urgent prayer requests each day in our brief times of intercession at 12.30pm and 1.30pm. If you have a prayer request please email prayer@highfield.church.

Practical Help: We also aim to be able to serve through addressing some practical care concerns - such as simple shopping for basics, prescriptions needing to be fetched or similar - and hope to have this in place by Monday 30th March. If you have a current DBS, some time to give and aren't needing to self-isolate, please would you click here to volunteer your services and we'll get back to you with further information.

It would be ideal if practical care needs could be picked up by small groups for their members in the first instance. However, if anything comes up that's too onerous or you find cover in your small group is becoming stretched as people have to self-isolate, please email practicalhelp@highfield.church and we will do all we can to find someone to cover. Similarly, if you are not in a small group and need some practical help please email practicalhelp@highfield.church. 

Three: Pastoral and Practical Care for Our Neighbours

We learned during the Holy Pause about the significance of the church as a place identified by the community as sacred. People did come in and pray from outside the church fellowship. Given this, we're aiming to build on that experience by having the church available for prayer two hours a day.  If there is sufficient demand for an evening session, we will look at providing one if we can provide staff and volunteers to run it (probably on a small group night like Wednesday given that small groups cannot currently meet).

We also want to encourage you to support your neighbours in prayer and through providing practical care where that's appropriate and required. We will provide a simple card to give to your neighbours asking for prayer and practical requests (sent out in a printable form or available from the back of church). Please meet those practical help requests wherever you can reasonably and safely do so. But where there are help requests that you or your small group cannot meet, please email those requests to practicalhelp@highfield.church. We will, of course, look to work with other churches wherever possible. Please note our aim is to have this practical help in place by Monday 30th March. (All of this is, of course, dependent on the requirement to work within the guidance issued by the government, and, if this changes, we will review.)

Similarly, if there are particular, urgent prayer requests for your neighbours, please email them through to prayer@highfield.church. 

Three Simple Purposes
If we pursue these three simple purposes during the current crisis, we believe we can both be good neighbours and commend Jesus within our community. I hope and pray that we'll all embrace playing our part in pursuing these three simple purposes, and that we will grow as Christians and as a grace-filled community despite these difficult times. As Paul discovered, God's power is made perfect in weakness and my prayer is that we will discover that for ourselves and as a community in the weeks and months to come (2 Corinthians 12: 9). 

Every Blessing,

Mike

Mike Archer
Priest in Charge
Wednesday 18 March 2020