COMMENT / The Rt Revd Libby Lane, Bishop of Stockport on Towards a Safer Church: resources for prayer and reflection in worship

Churches offering services from the Book of Common Prayer are seeing unprecedented engagement with hundreds choosing to ‘tune in’ to more traditional offerings. 

Since the government announced that public worship in churches could restart after more than three months of lockdown, churches have been taking innovative steps to help keep their congregations as safe as possible:

A prayer ahead of Racial Justice Sunday this week written by Revd Dr Anderson Jeremiah, a member of the Archbishops’ Anti-Racism Taskforce.

The churches of St Peter’s and St Philip’s in Highfields and Evington in Leicester began livestreaming services on Facebook and YouTube from the start of the first lockdown last year.

Efforts by an innovative university chaplain has seen a prayer group grow and two upcoming baptisms from students and staff on campus amid Covid-19 lockdown.

An online Community of Prayer is to be launched after a cathedral saw digital worship numbers soar after Covid-19 restrictions came into force.

While our churches are now allowed to open their doors for private prayer, for many it has not been possible or practical to do this – yet many such churches are still a sacred space in their community.

Prayer services dating back to the early days of Christianity have enjoyed a big revival at a Middlesex church during the pandemic.

A prayer to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Stephen Lawrence Day.