Coronavirus: Shropshire churchgoers rallying to help
Churches across Shropshire are jumping into action to help congregations stay connected, healthy and safe.
Reverend Tim Carter, Vicar of All Saints, Wellington, said the community had really come together over the last few days to help keep people connected.
Technology is allowing him and his staff a level of parishioner interaction unheard of during previous pandemics, including the livestreaming of services via Facebook.
But Reverend Carter said it was more important than ever to watch out for those for whom social isolation is the norm so that they don't slip through the cracks.
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"Leveraging the technology to keep in touch is going to be really important," he said. "Setting up Whatsapp groups and that sort of stuff.
"It brings to the fore the challenge of helping people who are socially isolated. It's something we find all the time. Socially isolated people are hard to help because they're socially isolated. They fall through the cracks at the best of times. They're difficult to spot and at times like this it is even more difficult."
As talk of coronavirus increased, Reverend Carter said he noticed fewer and fewer people coming to regular church events.
Within days services had been cancelled, groups that use church facilities had been temporarily shut down and fears about social isolation were on the increase.
But through clever use of technology and old fashioned community spirit, Reverend Carter hopes people can be kept safe and happy.
“People were concerned, but it hadn’t affected their day-to-day behaviour very much,” he said. “Through last week I started getting calls saying people were self-isolating. That escalated.
Contingency
“We ran our normal services over the weekend and probably had half the attendance we usually do. We had a planning meeting Monday morning starting to think about when we were going to shut public groups and services.
“We thought we’d come up with a contingency plan, but by the afternoon we’d been told by the Church of England to close everything.”
All Saints had already looked to the future in terms of live-streaming services on Facebook. With worry about coronavirus becoming increasingly relevant, the team decided to bring their plans forward for two events over the weekend.
“We have a monthly Saturday evening event and had as many people watching it from home as we did in the building,” Mr Carter said. “We did that again for the Sunday morning service and had 100 in the building, 30-to-40 watching it on Facebook.” There are already plans in place to run an online service on Sunday morning, and church staff are looking into the possibility of letting people into the church as a place to sit and reflect.
“It’s a big building, people can dot around it and be quite safe,” Mr Carter said. “We’re looking into that.
“But it’s all very well streaming to people on Facebook, but people who can’t use internet, how do we help them?
“It’s really difficult.”
Church looks for support to keep food bank running
Weeks after being hit by floods, Barnabus Community Church is now having to pick up the pieces from coronavirus.
Dave Matthias, of Barnabus, said it had already been a difficult month, and now its entire programme of gatherings had been suspended.
Barnabus, which runs Shrewsbury Food Bank, will now be working to look out for its congregation, encourage support for its food bank and bring work to bring neighbours together.
Mr Matthias said: “It has been a difficult month for us as our site has been flooded twice, and although we have managed to keep the food bank open we are now without our offices and our main auditorium.
“But those are just buildings, the church really is the people. That is something we have been reminded of as our buildings have been significantly damaged, and is ever more the case now as our entire programme of gatherings has been suspended.
Family
“There are several ways we can use new technology to distribute teaching, encouragements and resources. Our social media presence is very active, and we are using Facebook Live and YouTube, alongside more traditional methods like phone calls.”
The church’s response to coronavirus is built around three key tenants.
Mr Matthias said: “Firstly we want to look out for those we know within our own congregation, especially those in at risk groups without family locally. We can be family for them.
“Secondly we are encouraging our people in the town and surrounding villages to be actively involved with their neighbours, or whatever schemes are popping up organically in their local communities.
“Thirdly, we are encouraging people to continue to support to food bank as the demand for food will rise considerably and there is a challenge of supply because of the panic buying."
