I have been reflecting a bit this week on what God might be teaching us through the current crisis.  Not that God sent coronavirus to teach us a lesson, I don’t mean that, but no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in God will be speaking.  We just need to pause and listen.

One of the things I think God has been highlighting over recent weeks, for me at least, is the importance of the church as family.  It has been exciting to see all the different ways that our church family have reached out to embrace each other, support each other practically, and encourage each other spiritually at a time when the one thing we cannot do is be together.  It has been humbling to see how engaged so many people have been with our online Sunday services, and other online meet-ups.  I would encourage you, if you are connected to the internet but haven’t yet managed to connect in to one of our virtual coffee times by Zoom, why not give it a try?  If you need some technical help getting Zoom working let me know and I can probably pair you up with one of our Zoom gurus who will be able to walk you through the process.  It may turn out to be easier than you think!  Oh, and café is starting up online too – see elsewhere in this bulletin.

I’d like to encourage you to do something else this week.  Pass it on…  It has literally never been easier to invite friends and family to church – all you have to do is share a post on Facebook, post a link, or pop it in an email and encourage someone to join us on Sunday.  And people are hungry at the moment for something that can’t be shaken when it feels like everything else we have put our confidence in has been shaken to the foundations.  Why not invite them along?  The wonderful thing about this family is that there is always room for one more at the table…

Paul Vaswani