With some things remarkably familiar and some things quite different we gathered today for the first service back in our church building since lockdown. With at least two chairs between each of us the service began. Hymns were played beautifully by David our organist, but no one sang. Andrew our Minister had to guess if people were smiling at him as we were all wearing face masks. And we offered a friendly wave to each other instead of shaking hands as a sign of the peace during a socially distanced communion.

Andrew reminded us that we have been given an opportunity to do ‘a new thing’ as we meet again and begin to consider our future. Andrew spoke of the Bible and stories from the Bible that deal with ‘real people and real situations’ and as an illustration recalled Jonah and his own strange lockdown inside the whale!

With an eye on the future of our church we will test out over the coming weeks what God has in store for us, what His calling is; fittingly our last hymn told us that ‘wherever on life’s path I go my saviour will be there.’