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UPDATE of our Covid Risk Assessment

On Tuesday 3 May, our PCC updated the risk assessment for meetings and services in our building:

A PCC UPDATE TO OUR COVID RISK ASSESSMENT

As the country has moved forward with guidance around the wearing of masks and social distancing, we have updated our risk assessment at St Mary’s. 

With many people attending weddings, funerals and baptisms without wearing masks, and members of our church family asking if it is necessary to wear masks, we would like to propose that we have changed our guidance to be less rigid. We are also allowing seating in all areas of church.

There is no requirement to wear a face covering inside the building, including when singing. However, if you feel more comfortable please continue to wear a face covering. We ask that if you feel ill that you take part in the church service online. If you choose to attend the church service onsite with symptoms, kindly take a lateral flow test first. 

You are welcome to sit in any of the pews in the centre of the church but if you would prefer to stay at a distance from people other than your immediate family please sit in the side pews.

As the warmer weather should be with us for the next few months, we will continue to ventilate the building before, during and after services. 

We will continue to serve communion in one kind only in the chancel but we won’t operate a one-way system anymore.  

We will use the West door both for entry and exit. The South door will also be open if people want to leave that way.

All Change!

All Change!

Watch a short video update from Christoph and Edda here…

From Sunday, 25 July: 

We can sing again in church! At a time when Covid numbers remain high, we are taking careful steps to ensure that everyone feels safe when they come to church:

We will continue to keep all our hygiene measures and social distancing in place. By reducing the distance between individuals and ‘bubbles’ to about 1m we can increase our capacity at St Mary’s a little.

Please continue to sign up beforehand. We will keep some free seats for those who turn up and are not aware of this arrangement.

Being able to sing was at the top of your list in our survey a couple of months ago. To make sure we keep one another safe, we are asking you to continue to wear a mask inside St Mary’s Church. Of course you don’t have to wear a mask if you have a medical exemption.

You can choose where to sit.

We will refrain from shaking hands when sharing the peace and at the end of the service.

We will delay sharing the common cup at Holy Communion while Covid infection numbers remain high.

As soon as we have established a new coffee rota we will serve coffee and tea after the service – probably at the back of church to avoid a bottleneck in the vestry. Please let Victoria know if you want to help with coffee.

From next Sunday, 1 August:

The 9.30am service at St Mary’s will move to 10.30am.

The service will be streamed live from the church on Youtube.

Only the front of church (chancel and sanctuary) will be visible on the live-stream. If you want to avoid being seen on the video (which is publicly available on the internet), please do not walk into the vestry from the church five minutes before the service or immediately afterwards. Please speak with our parish secretary Victoria if you are on a rota to read, lead, pray, etc. and do not want to be visible on the internet.

The month of August will be a time of experimentation – we will learn a lot and probably make a few mistakes. Your feedback is very welcome!

Combatting Zoom Fatigue

(This is from a longer article by Curt Thompson. Read the full article here…)

By now, most of us have noticed. And either we or someone we know is talking about it. Zoom fatigue. Irritability. No fever, cough or body aches necessary. Just the normal, run-of-the-mill symptoms of social distancing. And mostly, people are describing how much more exhausted they are at the end of their days compared to what their lives were like before three weeks ago. All of this highlights one element of what it truly means to be human that our encounter with the coronavirus has drawn our attention to: our bodies.

God made our bodies as part of what it means for us to be human, and much like asking someone to breathe air that is only 15% oxygen instead of the normal 20%, we’re asking our bodies to do things they were not made to do. Even so, along with other suggestions I have offered regarding COVID-19, here are some additional things you can do to help:

  1. Make it a practice to take at least three 5-10 minute walks every day. Shorter, more frequent movement not only extends your body’s movement over the course of the day, it also gives you something to look forward to throughout the day, thereby reducing your anxiety along with your irritation.
  2. If possible, change your location of work in your home. This may be challenging, but different physical locations within your home over time gives your body the awareness of movement by virtue of being in a novel location.
  3. When possible, stand while doing work, especially when using a screen. This practice enables your body to work even while being less mobile.
  4. As you are able, limit the number of people on videocalls to three or less. This may sound unreasonable, or impossible. But the fewer people your brain—and body—has to keep track of, the less tired you will be. This may simply sound like common sense. That’s because it is.
  5. Greet as many people as you can whenever you are able. There is little cost to acknowledging the presence of another person, and we need to be acknowledged even by strangers. Not only will your thinking mind give and receive it, your body will as well.
  6. Plan for daily singing/worship while standing. Sing along with your most loved YouTube worship video as a means to use your body to tell your mind and soul that you are quite alive—and that you are not alone.
  7. Talk about your anger. There may be nothing more important than having a close friend or counselor validate that your anger is real and isn’t crazy. Not to mention that talking to someone about your feelings connects you to another person, which in and of itself will reduce your irritability and give you a greater sense of agency.
  8. Practice contemplative prayer. This form of prayer, especially while standing, strengthens your capacity to live in the present moment which protects against the irritability that emerges in the face of immobility.

Our bodies are hard at work. And although we are in a season in which we are asking them to work differently and harder than usual, know that you are not alone, and your work is not in vain.

Faith@Work

Christoph speaks to Olivia Drewett, a junior doctor in Bristol, about her work and faith.

 

 

Sunday Worship on 24 January 2021

Our theme for today is “How to grow in the wilderness”. As we navigate the current crisis, we will explore Jesus’ time in the wilderness and how we can experience growth in hard times. Find all the links below the video.

Sign up for Alpha…

 

 

Church Coffee Online at 11.15am…

 

Open the Book Video: Jospeh the Dreamer…

Activity Sheet: Jesus calls the disciples…

 

Sign up for The Wellbeing Journey…

Jane and Dexter Brown on Dentistry in Lockdown

Last autumn, Dexter Brown wrote an article about Dentistry during the Covid pandemic.
As we interviewed his wife Jane at Church Coffee Online today to ask how things were going (find the link below), we are publishing the article here again:

Lockdown and restart: a dentist’s perspective

By Dexter Brown

(Dentist Jane wearing surgical gown, mask, visor and gloves)

On the 23rd of March, I saw my last dental patient and locked up the surgery. The doors did not open again until 9th June. Dental problems did not go away but dental surgeries were told to close and all we could do was give the three A’s: Advice, Analgesics (painkillers) and Antibiotics, as physical contact with patients was prohibited. I spoke to over 60 patients during this period, with issues ranging from minor problems to serious infections.

It felt so medieval in such a modern high-tech profession and era to be resorting to basic DIY dentistry. I guided patients who had sharp and broken teeth to file off edges with nail files. I talked an elderly shielding lady through extracting her very mobile lower tooth and how to deal with the bleeding. She was developing a spreading infection in her face and was terrified of leaving her home for care. Removing the tooth resolved the issue.

One gentleman had a crown (cap) which had come off a tooth. I talked him through how he could correctly relocate it back into his mouth – he practiced and was able to do so. He came to the surgery and collected dental cement for use at home. He called back later to relay that the procedure had ended in disaster and that he now needed a plumber not a dentist. In the course of trying to recement the crown, whilst he was looking in his bathroom mirror, the crown slipped from his fingers, fell down the sink plug hole and lodged itself in the U-bend!

As Covid-19 is a respiratory disease and the virus is therefore present in the mouth, it may be transferred to the atmosphere of the surgery through drilling. Protocols have been developed which require a surgery to be left for an hour after treatment, to allow aerosol to settle. Then every exposed surface in the room has to be wiped down and disinfected. This has slowed the through-put of patients, and where our practice saw up to 30 people a day, we are currently seeing a maximum of 10.

Dentistry has always been a highly clinical and safe place to visit, and I can reassure you that this remains the case today.

 

At today’s Church Coffee Online we spoke to Jane about life in lockdown. You can catch up here:

 

 

 

St Mary’s Church closed for the next weeks

We have entered another and potentially even more dangerous phase of this pandemic as the new variant of the COVID virus is spreading rapidly in the South East. It would be disastrous not to make every effort to protect people at this time, especially as we are so close to a mass roll-out of the vaccines.

We have therefore decided to cancel our services at St Mary’s Church on Christmas Day and then for the next two Sundays. We weren’t going to have a service on the 27th anyway and we won’t have one at St Mary’s on the 3rd of January either – although there will of course be one online. We will then review our plans and give you an update.

The Leadership Team of Denham Parish Church

To watch the complete Rector’s Update on this matter, please click here…

All about our Christmas online services…

 

An important Rector’s Update from Christoph

An update from Christoph Lindner about Christmas at Denham Parish Church and how we can show care for one another as we celebrate the great care that God shows in becoming one of us. (5 minutes)

Archbishop Justin Welby on showing restraint this Christmas

The Archbishop of Canterbury is urging Christians to show “prudence and caution” in the week ahead as Christmas approaches.

In an exclusive interview with Premier (just before the Prime Minister’s announcement), Archbishop Justin spoke of already deciding not to include his 90 year old mother in celebrations this year in order to protect her. A decision he described as “agonising”.

“There’s one of my colleagues here, who has had long Covid. She says, ‘when I see someone wearing a mask, it says to me, “I care for you”.’ In other words, us taking precautions is a sign of loving our neighbour.”

Christmas isn’t just being scaled back on a personal level. With many churches still to re-open for physical gatherings and others cancelling carol services because of new tier restrictions, some could say that one of the biggest evangelistic opportunities of the year has been missed.

Archbishop Justin is more optimistic. He suggests the current times give more weight to the message of the Christmas story.

“I think we express the message of where people are at and what they’re feeling at the moment by a clear focus on the person of Jesus Christ.

“Because at Christmas, Jesus doesn’t come to a palace, he doesn’t come to security. He didn’t come to a place that was comfortable. You’ve got the most vulnerable human being on the face of the planet, which is a baby, in a cave or stable with no bed, no medical attention, in a crowded war-ridden country at a time of extreme uncertainty. That’s the message.

“That’s how God gets involved in this world. He comes right into the dirtiest, nastiest, most difficult parts of it and is utterly with us – Emmanuel, God with us. Not God at us or God looking down on us, but God with us. Keep to that message.”

With online services taking place, there will be opportunities to invite friends and family to a carol event this year. While that might provide a chance for the sharing of faith, Archbishop Justin says the actions of Christians can be as powerful.

“First of all, we have to demonstrate the faith. That means love one another and love those in the world with the love of Christ.

“It doesn’t matter how good we are at communication skills or how skilled we are in Zoom or YouTube or Twitter or whatever else it happens to be. If there isn’t love, dream on sunshine, nothing’s gonna happen.

“So first thing: love. Love God. Love one another. Love those around us. Second, be ready at all times to give a reason for the hope that is within you. Have you heard that said before somewhere?”

Read the full article here…

Sunday Worship on 9 August: RESET Family

It’s summer and Sunday Worship comes from the Rectory Garden today!
Find all the links mentioned in the service below the video.

Church Community Coffee Online, from 11.15am…

Sunday Club with Kath Sole…

Activity Sheet (with Colouring in Sheet)…

YouVersion Bible App…

(To listen to David Suchet’s Audio Bible, look for NIVUK)

 

Download our new Denham Parish News as PDF…

Take part in our COVID COMMUNITY SURVEY…

Stay in touch…