Closing of churches

[Raven Scott]

In the UK churches are closing their doors.  Is this an abdication of their role or a justified decision?

I, as a gospel preacher, am intending to carry on where ever I can.  Any suggestions to how I can achieve this/

God bless you all in the USA 

[Mark Bell]

Howdy,

              Guess I'm not good at keeping up with these blog post.  Not been on since covid-19 began in March.  What we did here in Kim, Co was to post online sermons and visit folks.  The other thing was to renovate our church.  We spent 10 weeks renovating our building and in the process becoming closer to the members who volunteered their time helping.  God has protected each of us and we have had 0 cases of the virus.  We started back on Mother's day with live services at the church.  Giving has increased and people are excited about what the Lord is doing.  God is the author of all that happens in this old world so we simply trust His leading - and He has never lead us wrong yet!  I lived in London for about 3 1/2 years while working at Audley Street (Naval Forces Europe and US Embassy).  Love the UK!  God bless!

[Raven Scott]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your comments.  Like you I am not very active when it comes to blogs and things.  I tried sending out sermons and also my wife and I use the phone to stay in contact with our members.  I am a Methodist local preacher so i tend to have a wide range of contacts in the various small village churches in our area of Dorset, i the south west of the UK.
Sadly we are controlled by a central Methodist organisation, and these people have so many rules concerning the chapels that  unless we have people enough to fill the admin roles we cannot carry on.  the chapel I belong to  has a very old congregation that can no longer fill the ever growing requirements demanded of it.  The Uk government closed chapel meetings at the outset of the virus outbreak and has new rules that make it impossible for small churches to survive.
We have been told that our small chapel has to close because we cannot meet our admin duties.  We have been in existence for nearly 170 years.
I sometimes wonder what Jesus would make of the red tape, that ties up the chapels in such a way.  I long for the days of meeting freely in small groups and just praising the Lord as a family.

I'll carry on preaching in other chapels, while they manage to stay open, but I'll miss the small group.
Maybe I'll star wandering from village to village in the style of the old circuit riders that spread the message in days of old in the USA.
God bless your church and may it always prosper.

Raven

Mark Bell said:

Howdy,

              Guess I'm not good at keeping up with these blog post.  Not been on since covid-19 began in March.  What we did here in Kim, Co was to post online sermons and visit folks.  The other thing was to renovate our church.  We spent 10 weeks renovating our building and in the process becoming closer to the members who volunteered their time helping.  God has protected each of us and we have had 0 cases of the virus.  We started back on Mother's day with live services at the church.  Giving has increased and people are excited about what the Lord is doing.  God is the author of all that happens in this old world so we simply trust His leading - and He has never lead us wrong yet!  I lived in London for about 3 1/2 years while working at Audley Street (Naval Forces Europe and US Embassy).  Love the UK!  God bless!