St Mary’s church opens for services 10.00am Sunday 19 July. The 8.00am and 6.30pm Sunday services will not take place for now. 10.00am Thursday continues for individual private prayer. Please read the following important Government and Church of England restrictions when entering the church and worshiping with us.

COVID-19 Worship at St Mary’s Lymm

The following summarises key points from the Government and Church of England coronavirus Guidance. More details can be found on the Church of England Website. The following is subject to any future changes to guidance or legislation.

The Church Premises

• In all services and private prayer the marked one way route through the church must be followed
• People should sanitise their hands using the sanitizer dispenser in the porch on entering the church and using the sanitizer dispenser by the south exit on leaving the church
• Please keep to the two metre social distancing. Floors and pews have been marked out. People from the same household can sit together
• Wearing of face-coverings is voluntary.
• Government guidance includes a request for names of attendees to be recorded and kept for 21 days to assist NHS Track & Trace. You will be asked to fill in a slip with the date, your name, your telephone number and place in the box as you exit the church or give your details to a supervisor
• The Lady Chapel. Fellowship Room and children’s area are cordoned off. All services , meetings will take place in the two metre marked out pews
• Singing, chanting and playing of brass or woodwind instruments are not allowed
• Refreshments can only be served at tables if a café is included in the church Therefore, no refreshments will be served at the end of the service
• Toilets will be closed for private prayer but one toilet will open for services. Hand washing facilities including running water and liquid soap and paper towels are available. People are asked to use the sanitising cleaning fluid provided to clean the toilet after they have used the toilet
• There will be two supervisors to guide and assist in the necessary sanitizing, following the one way route though the church and general help

All Services

• Collection plate will be at the back of the central aisle and offerings are placed on exiting the church via the central aisle. The offertory will not be brought forward
• Service sheets cannot be handed out but will be placed on the pews / table. If you take a service sheet/book you are asked to keep this (including the service booklets) as your personal copy and bring it back with you the following week. Alternatively place the sheets/booklets in the box provided and they will be sanitised

Administration of Holy Communion

• No sharing of the Peace physically
• No offertory processions where the bread and wine are brought to the Communion table The elements to be on the credence table
• The president (and anyone who prepares the elements) must sanitise their hands before touching the elements, and before offering the bread to communicants. If others assist in preparing the elements, then hand hygiene and physical distancing precautions should apply.
• the president can speak the words of the Eucharistic Prayer over bread and wine that he or she alone will consume, bread that will be consumed by other communicants must remain covered until being distributed (e.g. wafers in a ciborium with the lid on or covered by a pall, or bread on a paten covered by a purificator or other cloth).
• The president alone should always take the wine, consuming all that has been consecrated; other communicants should receive the bread only, in the hand. Intinction (dipping the bread into the wine) should not be practised.
• People are invited forward. The priest stands in the front of the dais. People approach the dais from the side aisles keeping 2 metre distance and queues either side of the priest to receive the wafer. They then return to their sets via the central aisle
• At the distribution, Holy Communion is administered in silence (i.e. “the body of Christ “is not said). The consecrated bread or wafer will need to be dropped into the hands of communicants
• The priest should sanitise their hands before administering the consecrated bread. The bread should only be administered into the hand with care being taken by the president not to touch communicants’ hands. If this does happen, both the president and communicant should sanitise their hands immediately
• If the priest is the only person who will touch the chalice and paten both during the service and after, then they can be cleaned in the normal way. If others may touch the chalice and/or paten, either during the service or after, then they should either be washed in warm water with liquid soap, or if this is not possible, stored safely on their own for at least 72 hours before using again, in case they have been infected with the virus.