You will have heard that England is going into lockdown from Thursday, 5 November, 2020. Before we can respond fully, we are waiting for the government to publish advice and legislation early this week. However, government has already made clear that places of worship will not be able to open for public worship for at least 4 weeks.
How should we posture ourselves?
Plans for OCC activity
On the basis of current advice, our current plan is that
- Sunday services will be streamed weekly, from The King's Centre (rather than from homes) - and will continue our IDENTITY series
- Join us in our lobby for pre-service prayer and welcome, and post-service prayer ministry and further chat.
- Content for 5-11s will be updated weekly by our wonderful children's team.
- Both of those will be available from our website, as earlier in the year
- OCC Youth will go online: Friday activity evenings, Youth Alpha and Sundays - we'll communicate separately with young people and parents
- Student Night will go online. We'll communicate details to our student group.
- Communities are mostly still meeting mostly online, and will need to stop meeting in person for a few weeks.
- Staff and leadership team meetings will go online.
We'll say more once the government publish the new rules. Look out for an update the Coronavirus page on our website, and for a bulletin-email from the church office. If you're not on our mailing list, join here.
Although many of us are going to find it tough, we've been through one lockdown, and together we can do it! We can still be church: a community that loves God, loves each other and loves our city - even as we need to stop meeting face-to-face for a few weeks. Let's continue to help each other connect with God, to look out for each other, and to look for ways to love friends and neighbours.
And of course, if you have any concerns, for yourself or others, please email @email
(This is based on the verbal announcement we made in today's OCC service, and will be updated or replaced early in the week, when we have more clarity.)
