Paul Jardine According to the dictionary a transition is “the process of changing from one condition to another, or the period of time in which this happens”.
Remembering way back to the first lockdown… everything was locked down!
In some ways it was easy to accept and put up with (well, there was no other choice).
But remember the strains and the arguing when we started the transition from lockdown to limited restrictions.
Why are they allowed to open their shop?
What are you all doing on the beach?
Why can you visit that nursing home but not this one?
The transition is the time when comparisons are made, and apparent injustices occur.
Grace was in short supply along with wood and foreign holidays. How would we ever survive?
The Belvoir transition:
“We should not so much be consumers of our future,
as shapers of our future”
(Michael Wardlow).
Belvoir rose from the rubble thirty years ago after a bomb blast that forced this church to re-think its future. The very rooms and access were re-shaped, the furniture and the colours were transformed. The style was renewed, attitudes were re-formed, people found new seats and new ways, and a new era of life and vitality was born. Thank you to all who were part of that transition and the thirty years in between.
Transition is upon us once again.
Overnight our way of being Belvoir was cancelled and 18 months later we are being encouraged to find ways back into life (although we discovered many new ways during lockdown, and these are now part of both our new present and our future).
One of the most obvious transitions is the options for joining in worship and prayer together. None of our services can ever look just like it was two years ago. At every service, in any week, we try to use the same theme, make the same announcements, share the same news etc so that every service is a genuine moment when Belvoir as a church worships together.
The week begins with the phoneline on Monday morning. We continue on Thursday. The church is open from 9am for prayer with our service at 11.30. This includes a fortnightly communion service. Sunday morning is at 11am and is shared around three rooms, main church, family centre and the main hall (Primary School children have their own programme in there). Sunday evenings is at 7pm and alternates fortnightly between live and Desert Island Discs (click on website link). On the live weeks we are in two rooms – 11 to 16s in the family centre and a different style of service in the main church: both at 7pm.
There are plenty of options and all are carefully choreographed for safety.
The Select Vestry, since September, has a new sub-group called “Spaces”. The task is to connect with everyone who uses the buildings and outside spaces with the hope of finding out three things –
- What are the spaces being used for, and when and for how long? We want to be using the best spaces at the best times and in the best ways.
- What can we improve about our spaces? Is there access from the outside? Are the toilets easy to get to? How can they be equipped for the best use?
- What possible uses might there be in the future, both inside and out? What will Belvoir church look like in the next 25 years. What will we be using the spaces for? We live in a fast-changing world; shopping, education, health, everything is re-shaping to fit the needs and demands of our society. Church is no different and we too are looking at ways the wider church is responding to society and what that might look like on the ground (literally) right here in Belvoir.
The Spaces group will hopefully be reporting to Easter Vestry next year so put that in the diary!