Emerging from Lockdown

Over the past months, the team at Kerith have been working on what the next season is going to look like. We’re so grateful to everyone who took time to tell us what they’ve learned, appreciated and missed most during these lockdown months through our online survey and focus groups. We’ve also listened to leaders from other churches around the world and spent time in prayer as we’ve sought to hear what God is saying to us. It won’t surprise you that physically we’ve most missed gathering together to encounter Jesus and be in community. That goes for adults and for kids and youth, who have deeply missed gathering in their own age and friendship groups. We also learned there was a lot about the digital experience of church gathering across all of our sites that we really appreciated – and that in the future, people who can’t access us physically for any reason would really benefit from a digital way to stay connected, as would those who want to check church out online first before heading into a physical building. One of those clear messages we felt God saying was that he was going to surprise us with NEW things. The buildings in Windsor and now Farnborough that He has opened up to us 24/7 are an example of that – who knew that would be the case just a few weeks ago?! Not us!

So with all this change and newness and our own differing feelings of re-connecting too, we’re continuing to work through how we can resource both physical and digital expressions of church happen. Physically, we can't wait to get back to seeing faces again in 3D but we anticipate it will feel more like a NEW start up than just coming back to church as it was in early March 2020. People will have very different feelings about gathering as we re-emerge into physical community again. We want to do this right and keep each other safe.

And no matter what looks or feels different externally as we step our way back into a new ‘normal’ for Kerith, we know the core hasn't changed: Helping people find their way back to God through communities growing in their love for God and love for people.

As we’re considering our roadmap out of lockdown, let me encourage you to consider 3 things to prepare your hearts and minds for what God is inviting us to next:

1.      What feelings do you notice you have about gathering with others physically again?

2.      Despite (or perhaps because of) the challenges, what have you learned or appreciated about this last year?

3.      What lessons or helpful habits would you like to bring with you into what God has for us next?

The graphics below give you our gradual plan for coming back physically. It follows the key dates on the government roadmap, and so is subject to those restrictions lifting as planned. If you have any questions then please ask.

Blessings,

Simon