Emergency plans for the church

The church in Cognin cannot meet for the time being because of the coronavirus crisis. All churches had to cancel their meetings last Sunday after our prime ministers asked for all premises where people meet and not indispensable to the life of the nation to close. Religious buildings could stay opened but people couldn’t meet. Then on Monday our president announced a lockdown. We are not supposed to go out. There are a few exceptions, and church services is not one of them.

But church life won’t stop. We decided to encourage fellowship in various ways:

  • Videoconference: we will meet via videoconference twice a week to share news and pray together. On Sunday morning, we will also listen to a short meditation on Scripture. It will be recorded for those who can’t attend.
  • prayer: I have sent a list of members and regulars to everyone so that we can pray for each other.
  • Family worship: rather than tell people to follow a streaming service, I will send them a framework for family worship and some tips. In this way, the whole church will do the same things. In my opinion, this will be much more useful than passively listening to a church service (which may not be very sound theologically), especially in our context.
  • Keeping in touch: I am encouraging people to stay in touch with each other and will get in touch personally with each family from time to time, especially those who can’t attend the videoconferences.

God willing, this time will be useful for our church and we’ll all be looking forward to meeting again in a few weeks/months.

Confinement chronicles, day 2

Day two of the national lockdown went smoothly. I had my early morning run in the countryside. The children worked for a while in the morning. The streets were quiet.

I took the bins out. There were two stands on the weekly market but hardly anyone. We could see people running around the park.

The main street was empty, few cars, hardly anyone around. I had a chat with the folks at the bakery. They will continue to have a lot of business I think as people buy more bread.

In the afternoon, I started getting in touch with church members and various people who attend our services regularly. I hate the telephone and hardly ever use it. But I have decided I will get in touch with most folks every week especially those who can’t attend the videoconferences we are organizing. Those I spoke to were well.