<div id="pc1"><div id="p1" name="p1"><div>May 17th came and went, and a good number of lockdown restrictions eased. Congregations in risk-assessed and Covid-compliant churches were allowed to increased to an unlimited capacity for funerals, to 30 for weddings, and we had a Sunday service in church on 9th May, combined for personal attendees and those participating online. Whilst limited for church services, St Andrew’s nonetheless attracted visitors as the now-popular teas/coffees/cakes served from the porch diverts the local walkers, weather allowing, through the churchyard. The church has also been open for private reflection following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh and then for a churchwide prayer initiative ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ between 13-23 May (thykingdomcome.global). This saw a steady trickle of people in and out of the building during the daytime. We held our Annual Parish Church meeting on 27 May. However, the planned event for Pentecost in the churchyard was cancelled due to very soggy and blustery weather. This would have permitted congregational singing, which is allowed in the grounds of a church, socially distanced, but clearly much less attractive in the wind and rain. <br></div><div><br></div><div>So we still see a variety of things we are not permitted to do, and are prevented from doing, as well as opportunities for doing things differently. And that will be the mantra for our church leadership in the months ahead. June 21st may bring further new changes, but the 2.2 million people who are members of around 40,000 amateur choirs across the country, including our own Benefice Choir, are still silenced after the government decided that singing still creates a Covid risk and updated its guidance to say that ‘non-professional singing can take place only in groups of up to six people indoors.’ We accepted the news resignedly, leaving it to others like the assistant director of music at Ely Cathedral, who posted, ’10,000 football fans singing in football stadiums, dozens singing in pubs, yet only six non-professionals are allowed to sing in our cavernous cathedrals, theatres and concert halls.’ <br></div><div><br></div><div>However, St Andrew’s will be warmly welcoming a number of wedding couples who have decided to go ahead with deferred marriage services. Even these will not be unaltered with the implementation of major changes to the way in which marriages in England & Wales are to be registered. On May 4th, a single electronic marriage register was created by reforms to the Civil Partnership, Marriages and Deaths Act 2019 ‘to make the system simpler and more efficient.’ Bringing the Victorian system right up to date, it also means that the registration can now include the names of mothers as well as fathers on the registers. Signing the marriage certificate/register at the end of the wedding will no longer be a requirement, and the legal marriage certificate will not be issued in church. Instead, the parties will sign a marriage schedule. This will contain all the necessary document required to later be registered onto the online marriage register maintained by the Registrar-General within a certain timescale. Whilst ‘The Registers’ will still form part of church weddings, all the Registers have been removed from church safes and lodged with the Registrar. </div><div><br></div></div></div><div id="pc2"><div id="p2" name="p2"><div>We are adapting to how to maintain worship and those who attended the Benefice Easter Day service will have seen/heard a taster, as the music was adapted for a solo singer, as the real and virtual congregation listened. Similarly, some wedding couples have chosen to have solo singing of hymns and music. We are grateful to Jude Wilton, from Upper Harlestone, who has helped out with her wonderful voice, and to East Haddon Church for lending us the digital piano to assist with the more modern selections requested by our wedding couples. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Funerals provide a similar challenge and at the quite lovely funeral of late Brampton churchwarden, Ray Broom, our curate, Kathryn, provided the solo singing in a church with more people than would have been permitted than before May 17th. The service was led beautifully by our Reader, Virginia Henley, which had been Ray’s request. Virginia is an asset to our ministry team. Ray had been such a constant in our Benefice in recent years, and after his relatively sudden death, many of us, including the Funeral Director, commented how odd it will be not to see him meeting and greeting in church. A gentle man, through and through, he was given a fitting tribute as we commended him back to God and he was committed to burial in the churchyard, reunited with his beloved wife. We send his family and the Brampton community our heartfelt condolences as he rests in peace with a funeral service which was Covid compliant but which did not cheat or diminish. <br></div><div><br></div></div></div>So it becomes more clear as we look forward to the next phase of the roadmap on 21st June, that there is, and will be, no such thing as ‘back to normal’ as we continue to adapt. Whilst this feels scary, I am drawn back to my thoughts and feelings on 17 April both before and after the funeral of Prince Philip. Beforehand, I felt as though the Queen and nation was to be robbed of the kind of liturgy, music and occasion required for such a momentous part of the country’s history. Afterwards, gulping away my emotion, I realised how wrong I had been, how adept the Church of England, its clergy and musicians had been in putting together a most excellent service. Whilst it was sad to see the Queen on her own, as many bereaved family members have been over the past year as they gather for family funerals, it was a reminder and challenge what can be done. That is now our challenge as the new normality dawns. Liz and I look forward to working with the Rector, her Curate and Reader, as we plan our own roadmap for the journey ahead in our Benefice and Parish life. As Easter Day, the Duke’s funeral, changes to Victorian wedding tradition, and Ray’s funeral showed us, our current scaled-down, stripped-back approach can be no less (and possibly more) meaningful as we move away from the proverbial goat tracks and create new undiscovered pathways across church life.<div><br></div><div>Sam Dobbs</div><div>Churchwarden </div>
J<span style="font-size: 0.875rem; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">January is an odd month. After all the flurried, hurried clamour to get our LED lights up and Christmas trees lit – some as early as before even Advent began, we then began the nuances of when to take down the decorations. I saw some come down the day after the Christmas Bank Holidays, others wait till New Year, others until Twelfth Night, and then others (like me), dismantling things bit by bit even now, mid-January. I was away this past second week of January for work, on my first (and not last) sortie to Harrogate where the town is still festooned in LED lights, to my delight and in defiance of those who tell me ‘it’s bad luck to leave the decos up after 6 January’.</span>The Christmas tree at St Andrew’s was delivered in the second week of December, a kind gift from our patron. It was decorated beautifully by a local family. And there it sat, all Christmas long, in a church that remained largely empty, because our dear friend ‘Rona’ ensured we all stayed away to protect ourselves and each other, cheated yet again of another opportunity to sing carols and hear the readings of Christ’s birth. So in the aftermath of an odd Christmas, we start an equally odd January, bemused by stories of refugees, disaster, inhumanity, sleaze, partygate and illness. So maybe we need some constant reminders of the Christmas light, and this is why I was slightly smug and content when the Rector didn’t actually mind the Christmas tree still being up in church, with the crib still out on my own sideboard on the second Sunday of January. Because Christmas doesn’t end on Twelfth Night. It leads to the visit of the wise men, celebration of the Epiphany and a reminder to carry the light of Christmas into the new year. Some churches leave the decorations up till Candlemas on 2 February.This new year will need illuminating as it brings with it all the hopes and fears that the carol sings of. Uncertainty in leadership, finances, worries about health and wellbeing all mean we have plenty of stuff to pray about. I am aware of people around us for whom Christmas was going to be their last, and I prayed at the wet but meaningful Holdenby House Carols in the Rain, that we all might celebrate Christmas as though it were our own last; not in a morbid sense, but with the need to concentrate on our own stairtread as we climb the staircase, rather than trip up because we focused too much on the top stairs.The church buildings may have been quieter and emptier, but there was continuing prayer throughout the period and discussions on how we might celebrate Christmas next year. Whether or not the lights are still twinkling, the decorations still in the garden or safely stowed in the loft, the message of the word made flesh bringing light into the world sustains us in the challenges, hopes and fears, as normality ensues in the barer undecorated houses around the community.As we move into February, St Andrew’s Church Council will meet and receive reports which will include the success of the Christmas Market whose profits will benefit church funds, alongside the sale throughout the year, of greetings cards and refreshments. We’ll hear the financial report and how we squeezed through 2021 with £6270 worth of tax efficient planned giving, and with receipts, grants and fundraising, pushing total income up to £16,437. We then paid £6091 to the Diocese for the provision of our priest and housing, who claimed only £650 in expenses. Our church running costs rose from £3603 to £5409 with utility bills at £1044. This meant that our total outgoings were around £14,637, turning last year’s deficit of £2099 to a surplus of £2040, which is ironic when for many months last year, our churches were unused.Contrary to popular belief, the church is not rich, and its assets are largely not disposable which is why we will rely on as much creativity as possible in keeping the place in good order and open for us and future generations. We have authorised repairs to the bells (so they can be rung for the Platinum Jubilee) and await reports on repairs we know will be needed to the roof and the East Window. I refuse to be gloomy though, because small signs of growth keep coming. We already have three baptisms planned in the next four weeks when we’ll welcome six newest members of the church. There are plans for the Jubilee, to incorporate the wider community, our neighbours at Harlestone Park. There are hopes to explore more Markets and events – from ‘Dragged back to Church’ (watch this space) to Cocktail Cabaret, from ‘Tea and Toast’ for mums and carers dropping kids off at school, to Arts & Crafts, Calligraphy, Toys Swap Shop and Quiz Nights. No longer can it be about ‘bums on seats’ on Sundays, but about church being its people and having the building open to all. And the people who sustain this can no longer just be those who occupy the Sunday seats. We need the wider community to be involved, regardless of what they do on a Sunday, and certainly not as a condition of being in church at a service or contributing to the collection plate, welcome though both things will always be.So herein lie some hopes and fears for the year ahead. I may herd in the now unlit reindeer on the front garden, or hop up the ladder to remove the icicle lights. Or then again, I may leave them and repurpose them in some way for the Jubilee. Either way, I want to be reminded of the Christmas messages to sustain my New Year. Because of family events, I didn’t get a chance to contribute to the last edition of the newsletter. So I now wish you a Happy Christmas and New Year as we move into February. Characteristically unapologetically for either the months behind or ahead. You chooseSam DobbsChurchwarden
https://unherd.com/thepost/priests-praying-in-their-churches-is-an-act-of-defiance/
