Covid and the Church: This is how Churches in Crawley have responded to the pandemic

Churches in Crawley have had to adapt their services due to the on-going pandemic.
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A lot of Churches in the local area have seen their congregations being affected by Covid-19, as the rules on meeting people in public spaces have been strict to prevent the spread.

This has led to many Churches in Crawley having to find new ways to serve their congregations.

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St John's ChurchSt John's Church
St John's Church
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Many Pastors have chosen to go online and run their services remotely, which allows people to stay connected with their faith.

James Hamilton, Worship Pastor at St John’s Crawley said: “When we first began to hear about the Covid lockdown we had three priorities at St John’s Crawley - to continue Sunday worship, to enable prayer in our church building and to stay connected to our community, supporting Crawley in whatever way we could.

“As soon as the first lockdown began our Sundays went online. We live-streamed all of our services from the very beginning, enabled by our team of production volunteers.

“St John’s Online enabled us to continue Sunday worship, remain connected to our community and continue to see growth in congregation numbers as more people joined the church through the easily accessible online services.

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“Throughout lockdown the church building was open daily for private prayer, staffed by a growing team of volunteers who had a heart to enable the community to come into the church, light a candle and pray.

“We were able to continue to run Alpha, a course for those exploring questions about life, faith and meaning, by moving online and seeing an increased take up with the wider reach and more people coming to faith.

“In order to stay connected to our community we established a Keep In Touch (KIT) team, who ensured every person in our community had at least one phone call per week, facilitating the provision of any required needs we encountered.

“Restrictions-permitting we now run Sundays in person as well as online, encouraging our community to worship together at our 9am traditional service, 11am contemporary service and kids church and 6pm contemporary service.

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“Over the last two years we have felt the importance of gathering in community more than ever, everyone feeling seen, heard and loved and being able to worship together.

“At the start of the 2020 lockdown we established Love Your Neighbour (LYN) Crawley, a partnership with 24 of Crawley churches united in social mission, providing support for those in debt and the unemployed, and food provision for those in need, including helping Crawley Borough Council with government food parcel deliveries.

“Over the last two years LYN Crawley has run initiatives such as Love Christmas and Love Easter, with the vision to bless the community.

“Many of the 200 LYN Helpforce team members from different Crawley churches delivered Bags of Kindness to nominated recipients, full of gifts, purely to love and bless our neighbours.

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“This is Anna's story about how Love Your Neighbour Crawley has been a support through the pandemic: instagram.com/p/CN-gmSEH3KU/

LYN Crawley has gone from strength to strength, and on the 10th February will be launching the town centre Hub, in partnership with the Easter Team food bank, in the County Mall.

“Out of this hub LYN Crawley will be offering a listening and signposting service. Anyone can drop-in and be signposted to relevant agencies in Crawley that provide many forms of support.”

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