Lockdown and CiC - important update

Greetings in the Lord Jesus!

I trust that by now you are aware of the second lockdown in England that is about to affect almost all CiC churches, chaplaincies, ministries and networks, and most importantly the communities we serve.

I want to reassure you that we are doing all we can to make sure the best information is available to you through the Coronavirus Page on the CiC Website.

Follow the links and you will be able to access the latest information as we know it. If you do have very specific requests do let me know and we will do our best to find answers.

We are aware that during lockdown CiC has continued to grow, most excitingly we now have ministers in all four nations: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This means that we are all now facing slightly different regulations according to which nation of the United Kingdom you are in, and we will try to provide links to relevant information for each nation as we go forward.

Interestingly the Catholic Bishop's Conference of England and Wales has issued a statement calling for the government to explain why churches and places of worship should be closed. We await this clarification and hope that there may be options available for us following the debates in the Houses of Parliament. However, as any legislation cannot be seen to discriminate against any place of worship or religion it may not be possible.

We are very aware that many folk are facing huge pressures, not least with income under threat, study being interrupted and support from friends, family and church at a distance. Please do all you can to encourage one another, call, text, whatsapp, Zoom, etc with any ministers you know and let's make sure we all benefit from not feeling isolated, ignored or forgotten, instead let us encourage each other in our most holy faith and believe together for wisdom for our rulers, excellence and resilience for key workers and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit who transcends all lockdown restrictions and meets us where we are.

A quick reminder that the Annual Members Meeting is on Wed 18th Nov at 11am sharp, you must book in in order to attend. For those of you who are new to CiC, it is a condition of membership that you attend in your first year with CiC and at least alternate years thereafter. So you must attend if you did not attend last year!

If you cannot attend it is also a condition of membership that you ask the Board of CiC to be excused, you can do this by emailing me, as two ministers already have.

For those of you who tried to book in but found there were no spaces remaining, this has been changed and there are now plenty! Over 100 ministers are currently booked and we're hoping to see more than 250 of you...

May you continue to minister the love of God in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the safe knowledge that He is able.

With my warmest greetings to you and those you serve,

Trevor