Worship ideas - virus

Spiritual Communion

Bishop Stephen has shared on the Diocesan webpage that 'throughout Christian history, some Christian people have found themselves isolated from the sacramental life of the Church for all sorts of reasons and particularly in times of plague, famine and warfare. At such times the Church has encouraged people to make what is called a spiritual communion. It is a way of uniting yourself with Jesus and entering into a communion with him even though you are not able to receive the sacrament.'
The webpage link is here https://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/spiritual-communion and you can also access the church at home services by clicking here or below.

You will find other ideas to help you worship at home on this diocesan page:

https://www.chelmsfordcathedral.org.uk/church-at-home.html

Worship ideas through this Coronavirus time

Update: 20^th March

There is now a Resources page where you can download resources that Sarah references or will be of assitance to you in worshipping our Lord and also in engaging in Communion. Please, visit this page. It will become increasingly populated with resources.

We hope that you find some of these ideas helpful for worship together and apart through this
unprecedented time.

Remember we come to the one ‘who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.’ Ephesians 3:20-21

Corporate Prayer

Daily prayer – 1 pm, 9 pm
Join with others of the St Mary’s family simply praying the Lord’s Prayer (or another prayer) at 1 pm and/or 9 pm each day.

Sundays
Why not pray at the time of your usual service? There will be something online for you to listen to/watch(?) on Sunday with some liturgy, prayers and a shorter talk. Look out for the link.
We will be sending out some Morning Prayer resources to those not on email too if we have your contact details!

House groups
We hope that you will be able to still meet but virtually. You could try using Skype, WhatsApp or Zoom to link to others. Stephen has put together a very helpful guide to signing up for Skype (Microsoft Word format) or here (PDF format).

Prayer card
We hope to still provide the prayer card each week with a range of prayer pointers, not only around the
virus!

Online and app resources
There are lots of resources on the web and you may already have a number that you are using. I’m not
going to list all of them here – and I won’t be able to add everyone’s suggestions but you may find some of
these useful:

A Time to Pray

https://www.chpublishing.co.uk/apps/time-to-pray

This is a Church of England app that has morning prayer and compline for each day and is very easy to use.

Encounter Prayer

https://www.encounterprayer.net/download-our-app.html

This is the app of the Christian Healing Mission. There is a thought for the day you can see on the app or you can register for it by email on: https://healingmission.wordpress.com/
It has content that is short and always encouraging and points you to the heart of the Father, the presence of Jesus and the power of the Spirit.
Don’t forget YouTube for worship songs as well.

St Mary's Church