We are a church family, whether we can meet together or not! At the moment, in line with government advice, our meetings and ministries are postponed until further notice, but that won’t last forever.

For now the office is closed, but we’re still available

• The phone is diverted to a mobile, so you can still call it
• E-mail is still in use, and you can contact the church on info@allwelcome.uk

I thank God for the technology that’s available to us today. Here’s an update on some of the plans for taking Welcome Church online. All the information you need is in this video, and there is a brief summary below as a reminder too.

Please do watch the video through to the end though 😃

A summary of the plans:

First, we’re reshaping the website:

You will see it change a lot over the next 24 hours, with adjustments being made to get us ready to function online.

Second, pastoral care:

We need to pray for one another and care for one another at this time. Life Groups will set up Whats App groups, and to to help people communicate centrally with us as a church, we’ve set up a new email address: care@allwelcome.uk

Please use that address to let us know when Coronavirus is impacting on you and your family. This goes straight to the pastoral team. We can’t fix everything that may happen, but we can pray and get others to pray too.

A Plan For Sundays

On Sundays we will meet online. This will develop over time, and this Sunday it will work as follows:

• At 10am a preach will go live on our website (www.allwelcome.uk) for you to watch or listen to, while others do the same at home too. Why not post comments as you listen along?
• The Welcome Kids team are working on something for the children. Details are still being finalised for that so watch this space
• Because we’re not able to meet together physically, we’re not in a position to stream worship right now, so on Sunday why not use Spotify or YouTube to find some worship songs you love and get into God’s presence before you watch the preach?
• Youth are making a plan for Friday evenings too, and they will communicate that directly to our young people

Daily Encouragement

From tomorrow (Thursday 19th March) we plan to post a short daily encouragement video and podcast on our website at about 4pm each day (Mon to Sat).

• This is intended to serve both us and our town more widely. Please be ready to share it with anyone you think it would help, perhaps by email or on social media.
• This daily video will appear on the church website, perhaps on this blog, and also on our Facebook Page (NOT THE GROUP – see below for info!)
• We will also share it on Twitter and hopefully via Instagram, so do follow us

There’s a lot of fear and worry about right now. This is a chance for us to step up and pastor our town; these videos will help with that.

Regular Communications

As time goes by there will be other messages we need to communicate. These will be posted in the Facebook GROUP, and will also come out by email. Please take the time to read and watch them so you know what’s going on.

An encouragement:

1 Peter 5v6-7 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

The nations have been humbled at this time by a virus too small to see with the human eye. It didn’t take much for it to happen!

We may have all sorts of anxieties, but we also have a Heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us. He has not forgotten us. He will not abandon us. Let’s submit calmly to His will for our lives in this season, knowing that he loves us and will raise us up again in his own time. And let’s pray for our nation and our government.

And remember: the church was made for a time like this

(** For clarity: we have a FaceBook PAGE and a separate GROUP.

The GROUP has a pink logo and things posted there can only be seen by others in the group; it’s great for internal communication and fun.

The PAGE has a purple logo and can be seen by anyone in the world with access to the internet – it’s great for public communication. If you want to see what’s posted on the page it’s best to go to it and ‘like’ the page.

I know some people have been confused by this in the past! 😃)