People's Stories

These are inspiring stories from and about people who have newly accessed church online. Send us yours!

"I've always wanted to go to church and now I can!"

The comment that has moved me most of all is a lady from Facebook who wrote to me saying she has never been able to go to church but always wanted to too. The lady in question is autistic, she doesn’t like long services or crowds of people. She thanked me profusely for giving her the gift she always wanted, as you can imagine I felt deeply humbled.

A word of testimony:

A member of my congregation has severe cystic fibrosis so cannot get to church. I have never met her because she was too ill to see me. I included her in all my correspondence, emails and phone calls and she wrote the following:

Thank you for your emails and service sheets. I don't always clock in at the time you post the services, but it is nice to have them there to use in a quiet moment in my day. When the lockdown is lifted, it would be really nice if in the long term some of these services could continue online for those of us who can't make it to the church building. I would use them from home or hospital. I feel so supported by you, and God at the moment. We are in a terrible situation but I really do feel safe in a spiritual sense.

She then asked me to send my emails and service sheets to her parents (who don't come to church) and they have begun tuning in to both Morning Prayer and the Sunday Services and even emailing me to thank me for including them.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever:

Today is Sunday. Whatever today holds, every one of us is outside our comfort zone.

In an hour I shall join our church’s online service and then a zoom ‘after church coffee group’.

Why? For security? For a sense of normality? To recreate what cannot be at the moment?

It won’t give me any of those because, in itself, it can’t.

So why? Well, last week it’s where Jesus met me and spoke to me of His love and His presence with me in the lockdown. And I’d like to meet Him again this Sunday. And during the week.

I don’t want online church to try to recreate the past. I want it to give each of us the opportunity to touch the numinous, to meet Jesus. And I want it to find new ways of giving this to others trying to chart their way through these strange times, and beyond.

Christine Jackson

A story from Kyiv:

Children are the ones who have been hit hard by the quarantine. Young kids have much difficulty surviving in the 4 walls with no peer communication.

On Sundays, we open a separate Zoom conference for them where a Sunday School teacher first has an interactive Bible lesson and then leaves them online to talk and show-off to each other. I must say that the kids stay online the longest “fellowshipping” afterwards!

These miss each other indeed.

From a keyworker in the NHS:

"I love this and the singing. I work at the hospital for NHS and I'm not able to attend church as often as I would like to as I have to work every weekend, unless I book holiday. Therefore I'm overwhelmed I can listen to services on here. I do try to attend evening services whenever I can as this church is where I did Sunday school as a little girl and has been my family church all my life for services also our family funerals and weddings. This is the only church I have ever attended and want to attend therefore I'm so grateful to be able to listen to the services.”