When the Corona Virus Pandemic started there were some changes to procedures for the short while until the parent church recommended closing the building on the Sunday before national lock down, both for services and all hall users. To replace actual services from 22nd March 2020 a script for the Sunday service was produced each week and made available by email, download or on paper delivered to homes. This continued right through to 1st August 2021.
It had been planned to open the church for prayer but national lock down forbade this, however work for the local food bank was allowed, so the church was opened up on weekdays to accept donations for the Woodley Food Bank, but also for CCA and other local charities (such as Lunch Bunch). This donation service was first known as a collection point, but was rebranded as Connection Point to note the social interaction this enabled. There was also a plant swap and later on some things were offered for sale each day, such as books, jigsaws, toys and bric-a-brac.
Also advantage was taken of the building being empty to do some decorating and enhancement works.
By April 2020 some voice recordings were available online to support the service scripts and then from 3rd May Zoom was used to broadcast the service live. From 30th May the cloud choir made hymn recordings that were uploaded to our new YouTube channel; the first song was "Beauty for Brokenness". From 30th August 2020 services (and hall users) returned to the church, but services were still broadcast on Zoom and were also uploaded to YouTube, as were some of the earlier Zoom-only services. From 20th December congregations were again banned, but the broadcasting could still be done from the church.
Congregations returned to the church from 23rd May 2021, but Zoom broadcasting and uploading to YouTube has continued. Slowly during spring 2022 the distancing and mask-wearing rules were relaxed and eventually removed from 12th June.
Woodley Airfiled Church closed in summer 2023 and may of their members moved across to join us.
Page last updated 12nd July 2023.