{"content":[{"text":"More useful resources from https://arthurrankcentre.org.uk/","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.041737,"width":0.597251,"height":0.024148999999999997}},{"text":"Still together apart","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.091868,"width":0.194199,"height":0.023367}},{"text":"On Thursday 19 March 2020, a small group from the Arthur Rank Centre, plus Revd Simon Mattholie of \n Rural Ministries, met together on Zoom (something none of us had ever heard of, let alone done, just \n days before!). We were working from home, as instructed by the Prime Minister three days earlier, and \n the first COVID-19 national lockdown was still five days away.","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.135995,"width":0.783268,"height":0.08654}},{"text":"It was clear Something was afoot, but we didn’t really know or understand what that Something was or \n what it might become. Our nation and our world was facing a crisis of unprecedented (a word that \n quickly became ubiquitous) significance and all we knew was that we wanted to be ready to respond, ‘to \n reassure and comfort folk’. But even in that first conversation we also acknowledged that there was the \n possibility we were looking at a long-term change in how we ‘do church’ and we wanted to create space \n for people to engage and wrestle with the implications of that.","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.249811,"width":0.7874819999999999,"height":0.11577900000000002}},{"text":"By the following week, the group had expanded to include individuals representing a variety of Christian \n denominations and parachurch organisations, united by their passion for, and commitment to, the rural \n church, and we committed ourselves to encouraging and equipping rural churches in the UK – and, it \n turned out, much further afield – to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the COVID-19 \n pandemic. We decided to produce a weekly email containing a biblical reflection, a prayer and a \n practical response and we committed to doing this until the pandemic was over which, we confidently \n believed, would be towards the end of May 2020.","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.386096,"width":0.7840449999999999,"height":0.137436}},{"text":"Eighteen months later, we are still living with COVID-19. Despite the lifting of legal restrictions in \n England earlier this week our lives continue to be shaped not only by our experiences of the last year \n but the ongoing reality of rising infection rates tempered by rising vaccination rates.","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.544,"width":0.764961,"height":0.05834499999999998}},{"text":"While our small group of rural advocates continues to work hard to support, encourage and equip those \n in rural churches, we believe that this weekly email has run its natural course and so this is the last \n offering. We are incredibly grateful to all those who have responded to what we’ve shared, and for the \n stories we’ve heard of creative, imaginative, small and faithful expressions of love, welcome, hospitality \n and compassion. It’s been an honour and a privilege to share this challenging, complex, often infuriating \n but often liberating, journey with you and we hope we’ve been able to bless you in some small way.","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.622813,"width":0.7872229999999999,"height":0.11775200000000008}},{"text":"Below are some brief reflections from members of the Together Apart group, looking back over the last \n eighteen months; we’d love to hear your own reflections on what these emails have meant to you.","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.761033,"width":0.777816,"height":0.038345000000000073}},{"text":"Thank you for being our companions on this journey!","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.819846,"width":0.39970900000000004,"height":0.018320000000000003}},{"text":"Louise Davis, Training Manager, Arthur Rank Centre","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.858634,"width":0.399451,"height":0.018320000000000003}},{"text":"louise.davis@arthurrankcentre.org.uk","bbox":{"left":0.094157,"top":0.897455,"width":0.285517,"height":0.018320000000000003}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}