COVID-19 Virus Response

State­ment of Cur­rent Response to Cov­id-19 vir­us by St Luke’s Enmore by Fr Jeff Park­er (Rect­or)

• As I have indic­ated in per­vi­ous weeks, I have been fol­low­ing the pro­gress of this issue very closely and that whatever safety pre­cau­tions we were asked to make we would make.

• Late this week we received advice from the Arch­bish­op as to what meas­ures we would be asked to under­take as tem­por­ary meas­ures to pre­vent, as much as pos­sible, the spread­ing of the virus.

• Some of these meas­ures will be awk­ward and unpleas­ant for many of you and I also share some of that, but giv­en the advice we have received, we have no option but to do fol­low that advice.

• Firstly, we have been dir­ec­ted not to shake hands at the peace.  This was some­thing we would have imple­men­ted before receiv­ing the Arch­bish­ops let­ter – it seemed com­mon sense to do so.  I men­tioned this in the pew sheet today.

• Hand san­it­izer has been provided at the rear of the church for use by all parish­ion­ers.  Inform­a­tion re cor­rect meth­ods of hand­wash­ing are dis­played in our restrooms.

• As far as our com­mu­nion ser­vice goes, there will be a few oth­er changes which are significant. 

• We will con­tin­ue to cel­eb­rate Holy Com­mu­nion as we always do but as a tem­por­ary meas­ure, the com­mon cup will not be offered.  We have taken meas­ures to provide small indi­vidu­al cups for those who wish to receive the wine.  This is not com­puls­ory.  I am oblig­ated to offer you the wine, but you are not oblig­ated to receive it.  I know this will chal­lenge the sens­ib­il­it­ies of many and I share that.  But these are extraordin­ary times.  As soon as we are able we will revert back to offer­ing the com­mon cup.  That is my sol­emn promise. 

• The col­lec­tion dur­ing these weeks will be a retir­ing collection.

• And the greet­ing of peace changes are also to be observed.

• At Morn­ing Tea, we have to change a few things.  We have been advised to, for the moment, avoid hav­ing plates of food on the tables.  We will be put­ting our minds to work­ing out how to respond to this chal­lenge.  The recom­mend­a­tion is to provide indi­vidu­ally wrapped bis­cuits or cakes where pos­sible.  But please join us for tea and cof­fee afterwards. 

• The oth­er area of pre­cau­tions is regard­ing children’s min­istry.  Our team is being asked to encour­age the kids in terms of hand hygiene and also sim­il­ar issues re food.   Toys etc will need to be cleaned before and after use.

• We are speak­ing with experts with­in and without the con­greg­a­tion about all these things to make sure we stay up-to-date and that we can resume our nor­mal prac­tices as soon as we can. 

• Lastly, if you or any­one in your fam­ily have been trav­el­ling inter­na­tion­ally in the last month or so, then its prob­ably a good idea to self-isol­ate at home for 14 days. 

I feel very keenly the respons­ib­il­ity I have in regards to act­ing in the interests of your health and, know­ing that mem­bers of our par­ish fam­ily are right across the spec­trum in terms of risk, I have worked with the war­dens on these things to take the neces­sary actions to meet that responsibility.

We can and we will get through all this, but we need to have flex­ib­il­ity and know that your par­ish lead­er­ship, includ­ing myself are tak­ing all these actions in your interest.

What I want to do now is to lead us in wor­ship.  There will be a time for ques­tions after­wards at morn­ing teatime.

Thank you for your attention.