Coronavirus Guidance Update – 17 March 2020
Dear Church Friends,
We have been closely monitoring the outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and, following the Prime Minister’s public announcement on Monday 16 March 2020, and advice from Public Health England, we are now taking these additional appropriate steps to ensure we keep our congregations, connect groups, and others who attend church events and programmes as safe as possible.
Updated changes and precautions now in place are as follows:
Closures
With immediate effect all church services and all mid-week programmes and meetings, along with the 3 main church sites including the Church admin office, will be closed until further notice.
Pastoral
We will be checking the phone regularly, so if you are concerned or worried, then please contact the church on 01709 562076 or email: info@libertyrotherham.org and we will arrange for members of the Church leadership or the Pastoral care team to contact you, to talk and to pray with you over the phone.
We are also concerned about your emotional well-being, and we recognise the challenges of having to isolate or withdraw from regular contact with Church, family and friends, and therefore we will encourage regular contact with each other, via phone or the Internet.
In addition to this, if you need any practical support in terms of food or household essentials, please let us know and we will do our best to resource them and deliver them for you.
Church Services
Because all our buildings will remain closed during the outbreak of COVID-19 until further notice, and any restrictions are lifted by the Government, we will be broadcasting Sunday morning services from Liberty Swinton and Liberty Rotherham, and hopefully an evening service from Liberty Thurcroft via Facebook Live >
In addition to the Sunday services we will be launching a special live weekday morning devotion at 10.00am via Facebook Live, and we will continue to run prayer gatherings on Friday evenings via Facebook Live >
Community
We recognise that we are here to serve the needs not just of the Church, but also serve the needs of the community. In the ensuing weeks and months we recognise that many individuals and families will struggle in terms of resourcing food and basic essentials for their homes.
We are intending to keep our FoodBank and BabyBanks open and operational for as long as possible, whilst ensuring the safety of our volunteers. We are also seeking to work in partnership with other churches to provide a strong, robust, public service, that will meet the ongoing needs of our community.
What is God saying?
For many years we have been praying for a revival in the Church and an awakening in our Nation. The western world especially, has increasingly viewed itself as being self-sufficient, and has no need of God. We believe that though this virus is not from the Lord, we believe that God is able to turn the bad into good. God is beginning to shake the nations of the world, to soften peoples hearts and make them aware of their spiritual need of God.
We are believing for a great revival to take place in our Nation and the nations of the world as this crisis unfolds and people begin to turn again to Jesus.
Conclusion
We are closely monitoring updates from Public Health England in relation to our services and events, and will update you the moment things begin to change.
We are praying for you all and we love you all dearly. If you feel unwell and develop a fever or persistent new cough, please visit: www.111.nhs.uk/covid-19
With much Love, Adrian, on behalf of the Church Council.
