Dear Church
With COVID-19 seemingly every day is a new challenge. Already you are likely to be weary of the changes and news but sadly we still have some way to go.
With the federal government’s requirement that gatherings over 100 are banned, we will suspend our Sunday services for at least the coming 4 weeks. This period is likely to extend further, but we plan to be in regular contact and keep you updated. We are also suspending our weekly programs until further notice. Our Church leadership last night worked on our response plan and we will continue to monitor and advise you as the situation develops.
We encourage you to follow Government’s requirements and recommendations in addressing the COVID-19 spread. This is most effective when we as a community commit to working together.
While we will not gather in person, we will offer each week, at our regular 10AM time, a live online service. This will include family friendly content. We will endeavour to utilise the benefits of this medium for engagement. I am sure we will learn and improve as we go. Your feedback will be very helpful. You can access our online service through our website https://upbc.org.au. Once the live service has run, the sermon video and audio will be available through the website. Unfortunately, we cannot retain the worship songs due to copyright.
This challenge is a great opportunity to grow your household in engaging faith and life. Dinner conversations no doubt include COVID-19 developments. Why not reflect together on where God is at work through this? Why not spend time in prayer together? I suspect what might have been awkward in the past, could now be helpful.
This challenge is a great opportunity to serve others. Our regular shopping experience indicates selfishness is present, but people are also amazing as they help one another. How can we serve those close to us, including our neighbours?
This challenge is a great opportunity to share your hope in Jesus with others. Have you found people are increasingly open to spiritual matters? When you are in distress you have our powerful and kind God to appeal to. How could you share this with others?
This challenge is a great opportunity to strengthen our connections as a church. Over the coming weeks please do not consider church is ‘cancelled’. We can all support and encourage one another, even without our Sunday gatherings. We can phone, text, facetime, WhatsApp. You can connect to our Facebook page https://facebook.com/unleypark. Instead of less contact, we need more. We need each other.
These are ‘unprecedented’ times. Please pray for our leaders as they make decisions for the good of our nation. Please pray for our world, the toll of COVID-19 is incredibly distressing. We will be working hard to support you as you live in faith and hope and demonstrate God’s love. I strongly believe as followers of Jesus now is the time our light can shine to the glory of God.
In Him
Jason