Matt Earwicker

As many of you know, we are allowed to reopen our churches for public services from this Sunday, 5th July.

We have decided, however, that we feel it is better to wait until 2nd August, both because the risk is still moderately high, but also because a number of our regular visitors and members of our communities are still shielding until 1st August, and we want to restart together.

Each church is doing a risk assessment, and the result of that will determine how many each church can safely accommodate at this time; which will not be a large number. It may be that even when services recommence, they will not do so in every church in the benefice on the same date, because we do not want to put people at risk.

Please do keep checking this website, as well as facebook, for more current information.

We look forward to welcoming you back to one of our services soon, and in the mean time, don’t forget that St Mary’s Calstone, All Saints Yatesbury and St James Cherhill are already open for private prayer (the last from Sunday to Wednesday each week).

As I wrote last week, we spent this week considering whether we felt it would be possible to open our churches for private prayer without putting people at risk. The following decisions have been made:

Calstone and Yatebury will be open at the times they were open before Lockdown.
Cherhill will be open at normal times, but from Sunday to Wednesday each week (starting tomorrow, Monday 15th).
Heddington and Compton Bassett do not feel they can open safely yet so will remain closed for private prayer.

All the decisions were taken using the Church of England’s risk assessments, and will all be reviewed on a regular basis. This is for private prayer only. Any other use is still prohibited by the government.

The churches which are open have posters with guidelines on how to use the church safely. Could you please follow those guidelines – nothing in them should be a surprise given what we hear in the news all the time, and since our churches do not have running water, could I recommend that you wash your hands thoroughly before and after coming to the church.

We hope that this small improvement proves a comfort to some, and doesn’t put anyone at risk. Please revisit this page for future updates.

Online services will continue for the foreseeable future.

With blessings

Matt (for the various PCCs)

You are probably aware that the government has given permission for places of worship to reopen for private prayer from Monday 15th June. This is great news for all of us,

It is now up to individual PCCs and clergy to decide when and how it is safe to do that in each church. Some churches will feel that they cannot meet the necessary requirements to keep people safe, and will continue to remain shut. Others will open, but with limitations on how or when the churches can be used in this way.

Next Sunday, I will post an update with the decisions of each PCC, and (if the decision is to open the church) some general guidelines on how we can use the buildings safely.

Please bear with us as we try to find a balance between opening up your buildings for you to use, and not wanting to put anyone at unnecessary risk.

With blessings
Matt