To help at this difficult time there are a number of things available online which you may find useful.
Don’t forget the church Facebook page. Not only does that have the live stream of daily prayer from the Vicarage but also other useful and inspring material.
Also on this website you can find the Collects and Readings for Sundays and other Holy Days.
The Resources for Children, Young People and Families page has links to things which will be of particular interest for children, young people and families.
Digital resources from the Church of England
The Church of England has a page is dedicated to the isses relating to coronavirus. It is at https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches#digital-resources. Towards the bottom of that page it lists a number of digital resources which are there are available for people to engage with.
Those include:
- Guidance on Spiritual Communion and Coronavirus
- EasterPilgrim: The Lord’s Prayer – A 40-day journey through the prayer Jesus taught his followers – one which continues to shape the lives of Christians across the world.
- Time to Pray app – everything you need for Prayer During the Day, with variations according to the day of the week and the season of the Church’s year. Download for free.
- Daytime prayer and Night prayer service audio – building on the existing daily prayer feed, this includes daytime prayer and night prayer for each day. It will be available as a downloadable app in the coming weeks.
- Prayer for the day – each day the Church of England publishes audio and text of the Prayer for the Day.
- A liturgy and prayer resources page contains:
- Prayers and intercessions for personal or group use
- Special prayers for use if it isn’t possible to meet in church
- A simple form of prayer for the morning and evening, which can be downloaded, printed, and shared with those remaining at home or who are unable to access the Internet.
- Smart speakers – daily prayer and #LiveLent audio content can be accessed via smart speaker apps.
- Mental health reflections – 13 daily reflections that seek to provide hope, reassurance and comfort. We have also published five tips to help tackle loneliness and isolation.
- Faith at Home – a national campaign that builds on the work of Growing Faith and Everyday Faith to support the faith development and pastoral care of children and young people.
- Daily Hope phone line – Daily Hope offers music, prayers and reflections as well as full worship services from the Church of England at the end of a telephone line. The line – which is available 24 hours a day on 0800 804 8044 – has been set up particularly with those unable to join online church services during the period of restrictions in mind.
These resources are offered to help those who are struggling to find words at this difficult and stressful time, and to enable Christians to worship in solidarity with one another even if it is not possible to gather in church.
Resources from our diocese
The diocesan website has a page of information which includes some useful resources. Among those are:
- The DVE (discipleship, vocation and evangelism) team have produced a useful pdf with ideas and links for prayer during this time
- The Mission Team has pulled together a wide range of helpful resources to use at home with children and young people of all ages here.
Advent Online
Advent Online is a set of resources to be used each day by individuals and clergy. There are five topics: music, scripture, tradition, art, and literature.
For each day of Advent, there will be an offering of music, visual, written, and scriptural content that will cover the themes of hope, peace, love, and joy; but equally not shying away from the themes of lament and waiting. Churches might directly share the resources to their parishes, or individual Christians might use the site for their own personal devotions.
The website is at https://adventonline.faith
Interactive Daily Office from the Iona Abbey Worship Book
The Iona Community are providing an interactive form of daily prayer, which uses Powerpoint slides, which can be accessed at https://iona.org.uk/about-us/prayer/daily-office-from-the-abbey-worship-book/
Until 11th May Wild Goose Publications (the publishing house of the Iona Community) are making the audio version of the play ‘Every blessed thing – an evening with George MacLeod’ available as a free audion download. Details are at https://iona.org.uk/2020/04/14/free-audio-download-from-wild-goose-publications/
The Corrymeela Community.
Corrymeela is based in Northern Ireland. It is a movement of people rallied around one inspirational idea: ‘Together is better’. It is providing Prayers for Community in a Time of Pandemic through its website and Facebook page.
oremus (which is latin for “let us pray”) has an almanac which contains the collects and readings appointed for each day as well as the orders of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer.
The Arthur Rank Centre is an ecumenical Christian charity, which has since 1972 served both the spiritual and practical needs of the rural community through a programme of community and social projects, resourcing and training. On the Together Apart: A rural church response to coronavirus page they are providing resources for rural Christians and churches to use in their own homes and communities as well as signposting to a whole host of advice and expertise around many of the range of practical issues we will face over the next few weeks and months.
ROOTS is an ecumenical partnership with weekly resources to enrich worship and learning. At the moment it has free worship at home resources for everyone.
The Taizé Community, which is in France, is providing live streaming of its services and also podcasts and other resources. It also has an online programme for families. Details of that can be found on our Resources for children, young people and families page.
Apps for daily prayer and reflection
PrayerMate is an award-winning Christian prayer app that seeks to help you actually pray for all the people and causes you care about.
Pray As You Go is a daily prayer session. It is not a ‘Thought for the Day’, a sermon or a bible-study, but rather a framework for your own prayer. The style of prayer is based on Ignatian Spirituality.
A message from the staff at New Cross Hospital’s I.C.U.