Bible Study Returns!!
After the success of our last study Revd Joy will be leading a 10 week course on Zoom starting this Friday 11th September at 10am. Revd Joy is preparing a study to include the characters from the lead up to Christmas ranging from Isaiah to the shepherds. Revd Joy spoke about this on Sunday and explained that each week is a unit in itself so if you have to miss a week you don’t have to ‘catch up’. If you are interested in joining the study please let me know so I can send further details and Zoom invitations rather than filling everyone’s inbox with emails.
Linda Doidge lindadoidge@gmail.com
Worship reopens in Brittany
Just like every other business and institution, churches were closed for public worship from mid-March until June. Christ Church Brittany is the only English language worship opportunity available to the public in Brittany. We have centers in Huelgoat, Rostrenen, Plöermel, and Redon. Only in Plöermel do we have our own permanent space and for the rest we work with the local catholic parish or schools. Our deep desire has been to open our services back up in a responsible way. All four centres were able to successfully open up in June. We follow the guidelines of our national body and the local authorities, and we use a lot of common sense. Now we feel confident that we can balance the need for public safety and meaningful worship of the Lord and fellowship in the Christian community.
Meanwhile we have developed an online service available every Sunday and accessible on our website. An unforeseen benefit of online worship has been connecting to friends in England and elsewhere who loved worshiping with our community. Also, we discovered folks who in Brittany are isolated for one reason or another, being able to connect even after we were able to open up the worship centres. Funerals during the lock-down were difficult for everyone and where allowed we offered our help and support. Congregations have discovered what Zoom can offer in the way of bible study groups or coffee mornings! We have also found zoom useful for business meetings; why didn’t we think of that before?
None of us knows the path this covid pandemic will take in the autumn or winter but we are determined to adjust, learn, and find creative responses to whatever comes along. Humans are made for community. We need to be in a circle of love, ideally that is found in the extended family, but the Christian family is a great substitute and complement in the fractured world in which we live. Technology cannot replace face-to-face community! But it can expand the reach of that community and keep us going until the pandemic ends. We look forward to planning our special services for harvest, remembrance and Christmas. They will be different in style but the heart will be the same.
Play list of previous Sunday services on youtube found here
Continuing our series on the sermon on the mount.
Summer series 2020 on Sermon on the Mount