Tilehurst Methodist Church

Sanctuary

"Sanctuary" is the name of our Thursday evening prayer service. The service is based on the "service of evening prayer" in the Methodist Worship Book, but with the addition of music to listen to and a reflection from one of the service leaders. When we are able to hold Sanctuary services, they will take place at 7pm every Thursday evening, lasting around 20 minutes. You may wish to download a sample order of service to see the sort of mix of prayers, readings, music and reflection within a service.

While we had intended to meet in person in the church buildings, the current Covid situation makes that impractical. Instead, we meet on Zoom, with the same pattern of starting at 7pm every Thursday evening. Please see the emailed notices for the Zoom link. The prayer sheets for each service will be made available the day before each service, on this page (just below here). Please download them and either print them off or have them ready to read on your device. If there is a reflection shared during the service, that may not be available to download until after the service.

Prayer sheets

When we are able to meet in person...

Places within the church building will be limited in order to make the service Covid-secure. We expect to be able to open the church building to twenty people in total: two service leaders, seventeen congregation members, and one service steward. However, we aim to also make the service available via Zoom, either immediately or after a couple of weeks.

Due to the limited numbers, attendance in person will be need to be booked in advance. Please email Jon Skeet at skeet@pobox.com to book a place. (If the next service is full, we'll book a spot on the first available one and let you know.) If you wish to book a place for more than one person, please make that clear in the email.

Practical arrangements

Obviously in order to be Covid-secure, we need to make certain arrangements which would seem odd in normal times. Please read the following points very carefully. We appreciate that they may seem rigid and fussy, but we hope that by making you aware of everything in advance, there will be no surprises in the service itself, and we will all be able to focus on worship.

All attendees will have to wear a mask or similar face covering at all times, other than the service leaders who will wear visors. Please let us know if you have a medical exemption from wearing a face covering.
We expect to keep doors and windows open to provide ventilation, even in winter - please wear warm clothes and keep your coat on!
We will provide hand sanitizer as you enter the church.
Please do not arrive earlier than 6:50 (as the service steward and service leaders will be setting up before then).
Please arrive via the front entrance. You will leave via the rear of the church. Please advise us in advance if you use a wheelchair, and we'll make sure there's a ramp available at the rear door.
When you arrive, the service steward will welcome you, and then you will be asked to take your seat.

Please fill up the front row of seats first, then the middle row, then the back row. This avoids anyone having to walk closely past anyone else in order to get to a seat.
If you are attending as a group from one household, you may move your seats together.
On each seat we will provide a full order of service, with the complete text of all readings and prayers. This looks very long, but the service will still only last half an hour.

Each service will include an item of music, but please just listen rather than singing along to it.
At the end of the service, the service leaders will stand up and move their chairs to the side. After this, we would like the front row of the congregation to leave via the rear of the church, followed by the middle row, followed by the back row. Please take your order of service away with you and recycle it at home.
There will be no refreshments or toilet facilities available.

When we are able to include attendees via Zoom, we will include the details of the Zoom meeting in the weekly notices. At the moment we do not know whether we'll be able to invite a Zoom attendee to lead a prayer or reading, or whether Zoom attendees will be visible to those in the church building. We definitely expect this aspect of the service to evolve over time, and we're determined to provide a united, worshipful experience for the whole congregation.