As everyone will know by now, we will be back in Church for regular services from the

beginning of this month, and this will be a great joy! So many people have spoken to me

about this, and to one another and others, over these last four months, and this is not at all

surprising for we are, essentially, relational beings – one to another and, of course, in

relation to God.

A lot has been written about the return to public worship lately, and there has been a great

deal of discussion within the Church at local, Deanery, Diocesan and national levels about

just what we have learned about “being church” during this period of lockdown, and how

this might be incorporated/adapted into the church going forward. Suffice it to say that the

next few months are going to be very interesting indeed!

As I have written, in prose and in poetry, these last four months have not been easy, and for

many people have been desperately hard and sad, and there certainly isn’t going to be a

quick or easy route back to “normality” and “business as usual”. In this respect we will all

have to be getting ready and prepared for the “new normal” – whatever that eventually

looks like.

In the meantime I look forward greatly to welcoming you back (whenever you feel ready) to

worship in our beautiful Church – which has missed you all! Not since the beginning of the

13 th Century and King John’s dispute with the Pope in Rome have the parish churches of this

country been closed for public worship – so we aren’t the first worshippers in Great

Budworth Parish to be locked out of church, but I sincerely hope we’ll be the last ones!

Some verses which have sustained and encouraged me over these last few months (as well

as some of the Psalms of course) are those from that very well known exhortation of Paul in

his letter to those earliest Christians in Rome, who were themselves going through very

difficult times: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or

persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...........No, in all these things we are

more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death,

nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor

height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love

of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen to that!

May God bless each one of us, and all those whom we love, in this coming month.

The Revd Alec Brown.