BY MARCH 2020, I had been connected with the parish of Ockbrook with Borrowash for 26 years: first as a curate, after which because the Vicar. Over that point, the church family had grown to turn out to be one in every of the biggest within the diocese of Derby. I assumed that I knew my community well.
Then got here the primary Covid-19 lockdown. Like so most of the clergy, I felt utterly bereft. The church buildings closed; members of the church community were shut off behind their very own front doors. As someone who now recognises that his identity was thoroughly entwined together with his priestly ministry, I started contemplating the longer term in sometimes dark and distressing ways.
Someone suggested that we must always attempt to live-stream a church service. Initially, the thought sounded each crazy and well beyond our capabilities. Thankfully, we now have a couple of tech-savvy members, and so it was that I became one in every of the primary vicars within the C of E to do that. The first live-streamed service went out from the vicarage kitchen table on Mothering Sunday 2020, filmed by a crew from BBC East Midlands, who quoted me saying: “I’ve modified the sacred space for the atypical place, and the communion table for the kitchen table, and because of this many more individuals are reached and gaining comfort on this most difficult of times.”
BBCLive-streaming on Mothering Sunday 2020: the primary Sunday of the primary Covid-19 lockdown and the writer’s first live stream
Praying the Lord’s Prayer, I became unexpectedly and visibly emotional, which, in a later interview on the BBC, I suggested was perhaps because “I used to be reflecting the emotions that so many feel in the mean time and don’t know the right way to process.”
These online services ran for greater than a 12 months, reaching hundreds of individuals, everywhere in the world, a few of whom contacted me to precise gratitude for the comfort that they received.
At about this time, after a post on the local people Facebook page offering to assist any elderly and vulnerable members locally, I used to be inundated with offers of support. From that tiny seed, I discovered myself co-ordinating 50 local volunteers — most with little or no church connection — who were shopping, collecting medication, gardening, and offering basic food parcels. One of our church buildings was opened as a hub for food and loo-roll storage. And we were contacted by relatives from everywhere in the country requesting help for his or her family members who lived locally.
Once the colleges returned, I received a call from a neighborhood head teacher asking whether I could help a few student who had not eaten for plenty of days. From that initial conversation, the community foodbank was formed — which, again, I discovered myself co-ordinating with a small and dedicated team. To this present day, the foodbank continues to assist families who’re struggling to make ends meet, and has been generously supported by many individuals, groups, and businesses.
Although I’m sad that so many individuals died, and others had their lives turned the wrong way up, for me the legacy of Covid has been invaluable. Had I left the parish before then, I’d, I’m ashamed to say, have been utterly unaware of most of the real material and social needs throughout me, but hidden from me due to my give attention to the church community.
Covid really has modified me as an individual and the ministry that’s my vocation. The focus is now on softening the church partitions and fascinating in missional acts of compassion, believing that individuals won’t care much about what we all know until they understand how much we care.
IN SEPTEMBER 2021, All Saints’, Ockbrook (a Grade II listed constructing), was closed for refurbishment. We had for a few years been raising money to adapt the worship space to provide us more flexibility. The legacy of Covid-19 had a definite impact on that vision. We now also wanted an area that might be used for, and by, the community.
The congregation and wider community raised the £400,000 needed (through gift days, an auction of guarantees, and regular giving), which was a remarkable feat. In May 2021, the constructing reopened, and is indeed becoming something of a community hub.
BBCLive-streaming on Mothering Sunday 2020: the primary Sunday of the primary Covid-19 lockdown and the writer’s first live-stream
So far, it has been used for hustings for local elections; as a warm space; for a weekly dementia café; and for 2 thriving pre-school toddler groups. Over Christmastide 2023, we noticed that many individuals who come to those groups also got here — many for the primary time — to a few of our special Christmas events. We had a complete of 1048 visitors, which, from a community of about 7000, is humbling and inspiring.
Alongside this, the churches have also given sacrificially to fund a full-time children’s and youth employee, who has a dual transient: to work with, and co-ordinate, the church-family children and youth groups and volunteer leaders, and likewise to be an energetic presence locally. She has forged essential and substantive links with all the colleges within the neighbourhood, and has been seeing students who’re scuffling with the mental-health impacts of Covid.
AS I reflect on living through the Covid-19 pandemic, and the legacy that it continues to proffer me, I recognise it as one in every of those life experiences that come unbidden and unexpected, and for which one could never really have been prepared. At first, I felt totally de-skilled and useless. I led many funerals for people I knew. Both my wife and I were poorly with the virus, and I actually have been left with a number of the symptoms related to long Covid. But also, because it forced me to take the values of my faith in Jesus out into the community and work in partnership with caring people, Covid has been accountable for turning my world the wrong way up and inside out, in a life-affirming and deeply enriching way.
On a quiet day that I led in a neighborhood convent, just before the primary lockdown, two Bible verses appeared to jump off the page at me: “And surely I’m with you mostly, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28.20); and “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12. 9). These proved lamps to my path as I traversed some dark contours.
IN THE summer of 2024, I hope to finish the three-year M.Sc. in integrative counselling and psychotherapy from the University of Derby. Over the past 4 years, I actually have signposted many who’ve been scuffling with mental-health issues to talking-therapists. I actually have also personally benefited hugely from the talents and insights of assorted therapists.
As a counsellor and psychotherapist, I very much hope to have the opportunity to supply specialised help to many whose mental health has been adversely affected by Covid-19, especially clergy and church leaders, who are actually often living with an institutional expectation that it needs to be “business as usual”.
The Revd Tim Sumpter is Vicar of Ockbrook with Borrowash, within the diocese of Derby.
