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State of play in Aghavea

It's been a strange year so far!  We'd only just gotten back into our lovely refurbished church building and then along comes a pandemic!  Just as we had thought that church life had been about to return to the old normality, the world decided to do something completely different!

We have discovered that "church" doesn't have to depend on where we meet, or even "if" we meet up on a Sunday - we can always find a different way to encourage and worship together.  I'm delighted that so many have been following our daily and weekly services streaming on Facebook - and if you don't have a Facebook account, no problems at all, just follow the links to the services from our own webpage here!

I would like to thank everyone who have been working so hard behind the scenes to keep our church running so smoothly.  I would like to thank Albert and Frances for their dedication and skills in producing the Annual Church Reports.  Normally, they would have been delivered by parishioners and neighbours around the time of the Annual Easter Vestry - but this year the Coronavirus pandemic got in the way.  I would like to thank the volunteers who delivered the reports around the parish - Frances, Blayney, David, Norman, Wayne and Hazel.  All the preparation was completed under the new "social distancing" regulations!  Another wonderful team effort from the folks in Aghavea!

I have been thoroughly impressed by the dedication and effort that everyone has put in to keeping themselves and their neighbours safe during this strange time, and have been humbled before God to see the love that has been genuinely shown in our communities.  If this isn't the perfect image of what God intended Church to look like, then I'm in the wrong game!  Much as I have been calling about, it's always wonderful when the folks tell me about having spoken to other parishioners and neighbours, and how they've been coping with this unusual life we've become so accustomed to.

Finally, I'd like to finish with a brief thought from this evening's New Testament lesson.  Romans 13: 10 states "Love does no wrong to a neighbour.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law".  By showing love to one another, and by keeping each other in our thoughts and prayers, we are fulfilling all that Jesus had intended for us to accomplish as his believers.  By showing love to one another, we are truly being Christian!  I hope that we can safely negotiate the rest of the period of isolation, and get back to church soon - but in the meantime, we are already "being Church" by caring and loving each other.

May God keep you safe, and always bless you all.

Johnny
Rector


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