Christian Coffee House - Prayer/Chat thread. No rubbish church coffee allowed.

[Madhairday]

With the latest prayer thread coming to an end, we thought we would create a new thread for prayer and general chat too - we had chat threads running for years alongside prayer threads, and we thought it would be great to combine them. I try and collate some of the prayer requests from the last thread in the next few days. In the meantime, dive in! Lurkers/newbies - you are welcome to post. Feel free to start any chat subject about Christianity, church, worship etc, and do share any prayer needs.
Would love to hear from those who were on previous threads and haven't been around for a while, too. Come and let us know how you are.

Thank you. I've been "at Greenbelt" today. Currently watching Johnny and the Baptists.

I caught the end of the service from Greenbelt on R 4 this morning, just before I left for the service on the lawn of the church. About 60 people there and a wonderful service. Very emotional.

Hello! I've popped in on and off over the last few years. I have the attention span of a gnat and tend to lose you all though. I was formerly known as picklemepopcorn.

Some lovely resources mentioned here, I'll have a look later. I'm feeling a little out of sorts at the moment, disappointed by the return to church arrangements, and generally how my church has been over lockdown. I'm wrestling with whether I'm bad tempered and unreasonable or whether we really have let people down. I've felt a huge distancing from the church community.

Ooh, I've never been to Greenbelt - I'd have liked to experience it from a distance!

Glad results have gone well, generally. Just prayed for Soozi's DS, for rest, peace and gradual restoration. My A level students were affected by the grade fiasco - it was good news when they backtracked. And my DD got what she needed for college and is happy. I'm quite looking forward to the DC and me returning to school and hopefully something approaching normality!

I am impressed with those of you who've gone back to church in some way. I am starting to miss it now, but have not done anything about getting in touch with anyone in my old church or trying to find a new church in the town I've moved to...

Hi all,

Dropped in and out of these threads over the years, I’m really fed up of no church meetings now. Would like to join in fellowship with people. I don’t think Gods people are meant to be separated. I know needs must, but I would love to just sing worship songs with other people. X

We've had zoom church since March now and although it felt very weird at first I do think there is a sense of fellowship, albeit distanced. We've also got prayer groups and home groups via zoom. I've told DH that zoom church reminds me of the opening credits of the Simpsons - we are all scurrying around and then manage to sit on the sofa just in time before it starts. If anyone has thought about trying zoom church services I'd say give it a go. It does feel a bit strange singing hymns from your sofa but every time you do it, it feels a little less odd. We also hang around for a little time after the service has finished to share a socially distanced coffee which I think helps us all to feel a little more connected.

Our zoom services are going pretty well, but a significant group haven't accessed them at all. That means meeting in church is particularly important for them, and I don't feel we've addressed that very well.

I have totally avoided zoom church. It feels too exposing, even more so now that I've been absent so long. Mind you, I've always hated using the phone - and zoom seems like double the pain!

It doesn't have to be exposing - many people switch their cameras off and everyone is muted. Some folk dial in on their phones and their names don't come up on the screen, just their telephone numbers. And because they have dialled in the cameras are not switched on.

I do wonder if it looks a bit like gogglebox to the minister. If he has everyone on grid view and scrolls through it what does he see? He'd probably catch us having a giggle about something.

I've quite liked zoom church. I hate doing any thing else on zoom! The only thing I don't like is my church have a tendency to do a kind of "oh... Tina's here. Hi Tina" when you join which I'm not a fan of. I've found turning up 5 mins late stops that

We've been streaming our services via FB live. Definitely seems to help some feel a little more anonymous and less on the spot, and still great sense of community in the comments. I've found that it opens up church in loads of ways to those who can't physically make the building (in fact I have an article on it in this month's Christianity for anyone who gets it :) )

Yes, ours was on FB live and YouTube and was still recorded yesterday, not sure how many people watched it. I know there were people abroad who watched and people who have recently moved. I am looking forward tremendously to proper, in person choir practice, because that is not a success on Zoom.

Yes, I don't think singing or playing together works well over zoom and am looking forward to that side of communal worship. I think it will be a very long time before we have that here though due to the aerosol effect caused by singing. One advantage of singing from my sofa though (muted of course so no one else can hear me) is that it doesn't matter how out of tune I am!

I suspect we will have online church for quite a while due to the constraints of the church building. Either that or we'll need 2 or 3 services each Sunday to adhere to 2 metres social distancing.

I suppose what worries me is that we haven't made the in church service especially welcoming to those who haven't been on zoom. We've told the vulnerable to stay away. Those who enjoy zoom are mainly staying on zoom. So who is left for the in person meet ups?

Yet we are meeting in small groups in pubs, in our homes, not to mention schools...

We are back in the church building. It helps that we have chairs and not pews so 2m distancing is fairly straightforward. There is no singing and no after church coffee which is odd but my congregation really didn't get to grips with online so we are back. Some are still shielding and I'm trying to visit as many as possible in their gardens whilst the weather holds. The larger churches are having different challenges as they can't get everyone in for one service so do they mix online and in person or do lots of services? It's a real challenge.

We're very much an all age congregation with limited space: we are switching to alternate Sundays:

this week the in person service is aimed primarily at families with children and young people (all SD), whilst the online service is aimed at others. Next week it swaps.

A lot of work for our leadership though, must pray extra for them!

We are planning on outdoor services during September, not sure what will happen afterwards. It is a very old church, so pews and not chairs and lots of nooks and crannies to clean, as well as a toilet. Very curious to see what will happen on Thursday when we have the first real choir practice in the church.

Gosh Oma, that's brave!
We're not doing music at all. I'd have thought one person or married couple singing and playing up by the altar would be pretty safe for a congregation probably 8m away.

Anyhoo, I've realised it's actually been really useful for me, it's broken the sense of responsibility I felt. I just need to step up as an individual now, rather than as part of a leadership team. My son calls me a loose canon, which is hilarious because I'm such a team player. No more, I'm going rogue!

We’re back inside. 1 household per pew with alternate pews closed off and a max of 30 people. That’s nowhere near enough to fit everyone in over the course of a week though.

I did go the other week but I might just stick with online for now.

My church hasn't physically reopened yet, but is hoping to in a couple of weeks. We are quite lucky though that almost everyone has been able to attend on zoom, even most of the elderly. And we have a very musical congregation so there is always someone to play the hymns. I can sing as loud as I like because only my dc can hear me and tell me to stop

@Dutchoma I thought choir practises couldn't happen yet, in any setting? Have I missed something or am I misremembering?

I don’t know, it is Tim who has organised it with an amazing floor plan, everyone an allocated place, 2m apart, temperatures being taken, we need to bring out own pencils, tissue and water and take our music home. The doors will be open, so the place is ventilated. And before we leave we need to make sure that the church cat is evicted.

I beg your pardon @Dutchoma, have just checked and 14 Aug guidance says that
"Small groups of professional or non-professional singers will be able to sing in front of worshippers both outdoors and indoors from 15 August. Singing in groups should be limited to a small, set group of people and should not include audience participation"

So I was not up to date: Tim is doing a wonderful job!

Yes, I thought afterwards that we had the guidance of the RSCM, so would be perfectly alright. We had the choir practice tonight and it was absolutely wonderful. We were al really spread out and so it was a bit hard to hear each other, but on the whole it was an amazing experience. Tim did indeed a wonderful job.
The most moving thing was that one of the members of the church, who sang in the choir for a long time (and before my time) died this morning (not Covid related) So we practised and sang Rutter’s Gaelic Blessing in her memory: Deep peace...

Oh I love the Rutter. How I'd love a choir practise (used to sing loads but haven't done it for 15 yrs really, children!).