by Martin Dyer | Aug 1, 2021 | Blog | 0 comments
Thank you so much to all of you who filled in the questionnaire or sent us your thoughts on how we open up TRINITY as we come out of restrictions. As you can imagine a huge amount of work, time, and prayer has gone into planning how we do this and it has been really helpful to have your thoughts. The Leadership Team and Church Wardens have sought to take on board hugely varied views and responses to the questionnaire, alongside balancing the resources we have available to lead and preach at services at this point, provision for youth and children's work, and available volunteers. Having looked at all the key areas, we believe that the planned Sunday morning provision is the only viable way forward in the short term.
However these decisions are also not set in stone, or setting a precedent, and initially cover the period from September – December. We fully expect to be able to come further out of restrictions as time goes on, but we will also continue to monitor Government and Church of England guidance, as well as monitoring local conditions. We also expect that our new Rector (whenever that may be) will want to make decisions for themselves.
With all this in mind from Sunday 8 August these changes will take place:
At all locations:
Masks – We ask you to continue wear a mask unless seated.
Seat booking – will not be required, but we will keep QR codes at all locations for those who wish to check in.
Socially distanced seating – there will be an area of socially distanced seating at all locations for those who would prefer to be more spaced out.
Cards will also be available – indicating you wish to keep a seat empty next to you.
Congregational singing – will be allowed at all services without masks.
Service Timing
The BCP service will remain on Wednesday at 9am at Southover
South Malling will revert to 9.30am
The online service and Southover will remain at 10.30am
The 4.30 at St John sub Castro will continue at this time on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month
Youth and children's work will remain at 10.30am, centralised at one site, and to be hosted at St John sub Castro from September
Phase 2/ From September onwards
It was clear from the questionnaire that communion in two kinds and more frequent live sermons were important to many of you. We are still planning on how we might allow both of these to happen, logistically
Refreshments and fellowship time will be allowed at all locations as soon as possible, but we will need a bit of time to rebuild rotas and in some cases find new volunteers.
We will restart a Sunday morning service at St John sub Castro, at 10.30am
We aim to transition from an online pre-recorded service to a live stream
Thank you for your grace and patience as we have grappled with these decisions.
With every blessings,
The TRINITY Leadership team & Church Wardens
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