Lord's Day March 29 2020

And so another Sunday of virtual meetings. As last week, we began with some singing, kindly organised by our church musicians. When that was over, we joined the broadcast service from Aberystwyth on Youtube, persuaded by our son Gwion now with us from university and the fact it was live. When that had finished we listened to the recorded audio our own church had provided online. I preached from Mark 7:1-23 on how washing your hands is never enough.

The afternoon soon whizzed by and at five we were in Aber to hear my son again. He spoke on the cherubim of Revelation 4 in the morning and in the evening from Leviticus 8 and Psalm 133 on Christian fellowship. At 6.30 pm we Childs Hillians gathered for evening worship. I preached from Psalm 91. No hymns, just the sermon. Nineteen listening in again. A long day then and not much movement from me. Perhaps we could get used to this.

Lord's Day March 22 2020

As with most of you, yesterday was a strange and unprecedented day. I didn't go out all day, I didn't trim my beard (sorted now) and I didn't wear a suit and tie. That was different for a start. Eleri enjoyed opening her Mother's Day cards. They included this one

At 10 am our church musicians arranged for us to sing together on zoom. I say sing together but as you know the deal means singing together is not an option so they played piano and sang with the rest of us muted but (hopefully singing along. They made good choices - Praise my soul the King of heaven including the rare spot on verse

Frail as summer's flower we flourish,
Blows the wind and it is gone;
But while mortals rise and perish
God endures unchanging one,
Praise Him, praise Him, Praise Him, praise Him,
Praise the High Eternal One!

Also a version of Psalm 46 (my suggestion), one other from Christian Hymns and one not in there by John Ryland that includes the lines

Plagues and deaths around me fly,

Till He bids I cannot die:

Not a single shaft can hit

Till the God of love thinks fit.

Then at 11 (actually it was five past by the time we got round to it) we accessed the recording that I prepared on Friday. My teenage son found it hard to cope but it seemed to work well.

We then had an early lunch (rare thing on a Sunday and read the Bible together. I read some theology and listened to most of my son's service from Aberystwyth and to the Christian Instititute Update and Steve Nicholls' latest five minutes in church history. Later we had some visitors- we were very careful to keep our distance.

At out usual evening time we zoomed again. I preached a sermon from Psalm 46 and we had a good chat. There were nineteen of us - more than normal on a Sunday evening.

After that we did zoom with most of the family in Wales and that was good too. Not a bad day all told.

Morning service here.