The Digest - Wednesday 20 May, 2020

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Wednesday 20 May, 2020

Rev Ruth Bierbaum, mental health chaplain, offers our Beacon of Hope today

We're in the middle of Mental Health Awareness Week and so our Beacon of Hope this week comes, rather appropriately, from Rev Ruth Bierbaum, a Mental Health Chaplain in the Diocese.

She talks of the hope she has seen in the comfort and support that has been given to patients through online services and spiritual support.

Latest guidance

The National Church's Recovery Group, led by Bishop Sarah Mullally, is currently working on a suite of guidance designed to help and support PCCs, incumbents, and cathedral Chapters, as steps are taken towards the re-opening of cathedral and church buildings.

Their latest guidance includes some material to help churches in the following areas:

These will be available on the Church of England's COVID-19 page later today.

Mental Health Awareness Week – money, debt and scams
At this time, concerns about money, debt and scams are adding further pressure to people's mental well-being.

Our Community Engagement and Social Action team has collated details of organisations and agencies that can offer mental health support, as well debt advice and avoiding scams.

You can find them all on the Covid19 Community Outreach page.

Zoom - remember to use it safely
We're aware that many churches were affected at the weekend by maintenance to Zoom, which left many people unable to connect. We've also been made aware that some had their Zoom calls interrupted by unwelcome visitors.

Please can we take this opportunity to remind you to be careful not to share Zoom links to your meetings, online coffee mornings, or services on social media, on websites or anywhere where they can be viewed publicly. They should only be sent directly to participants you want to attend.

Here is some further advice on how to keep your Zoom gatherings secure:

It happened. Twelve new LLMS licensed by Zoom

With church buildings, including Rochester Cathedral, still closed for public worship, the annual service to license new lay ministers to the Diocese, was unable to take place in the Cathedral as planned.

However, technology stepped in, and a new cohort of 12 Licensed Lay Ministers (LLMs) were licensed on 16 May via Zoom! We've been introducing them all to Diocese on our social media channels.

Looking ahead to Pentecost

Are you preparing an online service for Ascension or Pentecost? If you're looking for some free usable material, then look no further than the Thy Kingdom Come website.

There is a selection of easily downloadable music, prayers and short Thy Kingdom Come reflections from Archbishop Dr John Sentamu and Archbishop Justin Welby designed to be included in your own services.

These are available to download here.

Also, don't forget that the Church of England is providing a resource of rights-free music for Church of England churches to use on streamed services, via the A Church Near You resource hub providing they have a CCLI streaming licence.

The Diocesan Office is now closed until further notice. A Reception service is still available remotely. If you need assistance, in the first instance please email the Diocesan Reception on: reception@rochester.anglican.org

During office hours you can also ring 07384 826866 or 07468 709671. If you do ring the main reception number (01634 560 000), you will hear a recorded message detailing all this information for you.

All other teams are working from home and should be contacted in the first instance via email. All contact details can be found here: www.rochester.anglican.org/contact/