We're back at BMA from this Sunday!

• covid-19
• worship

We have some wonderful news to share: we have been given the green light to meet again in Bourton Meadow Academy from this Sunday (25 October, 2020).

Video Transcript

Hi everyone. I'm standing outside Bourton Meadow Academy.

It feels strange: it's the first time I've been here for about six months but this follows after the good news on Sunday that we are allowed back to hold our worship services.

We’re to do that this coming Sunday morning, God willing, and we’d love to see you there.

Of course, you need to make that decision if it’s the right time for you and your family to come back.

First, we’d say that if you are showing any symptoms of COVID: a new frequent cough, a new high temperature or a change in the way you experience taste or smell or if you’ve been in touch with anyone who has the COVID virus, then we would ask you not to come to church on that Sunday.

Of course, you’re still working through it with your family, if it’s right for your family or if you yourself are in one of those vulnerable categories you need to work through yourself if it’s right for you to come back to church at this point.

If you do decide to come back to church, that’s great. The first thing you’ll need to do is book in on our new online system. We’ll send out links for that but you need to book yourself in for a Sunday morning and anyone else in your family or social bubble. We need to do that for the track and trace system and also so we can set the church up and maintain social distancing.

Once you’ve done all that you’ll arrive on a Sunday morning and you will enter the building by this door here. You’ll get to come in, you’ll be greeted at the door, there’ll be hand sanitiser at the entrance and the exit and throughout the building that you will be able to use.

You’ll be greeted and shown or pointed to a seat. That seat is yours for the morning. We need you and your family to stay in those seats for the whole duration of the morning. Sadly, we’re not able to offer children or youthwork at the moment, so young children will need to stay seated with their parents for the entirety of the service.

We’re also not allowed shared objects so it would be great for you to bring your own Bible, maybe a water bottle and maybe a small activity – a quiet one – for the children at that point.

We’ve got to keep the hall well ventilated so maybe a jumper or an extra layer or two would help.

We’ll have access to an emergency toilet, but we’d like to keep it that way: emergency. It will be a short service so it’s there if we need it.

Towards the end of the service we’ll leave through the second door which is behind me here. You’ll be instructed to file out at the end of the service. Sadly, we can’t mingle or stay around and talk. Of course, if you did want to meet up with someone you could do so off-site, of course following Government guidelines, but for us we’ve got to clear this site as quickly as possible at the end of the session.

I know this is lots of information to take in. If you want to talk through or ask any questions feel free to give us a shout and of course this is going to be hard and maybe it’s going to look very different to what we’re used to, but after six months apart it’s going to be a wonderful experience to be back together and worshipping God.