## BETHANY PENTECOSTAL CHURCH ## TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT - 2020 CHARITY NUMBER 1051791 ## SUNDAY SERVICES Like so many we have had a very different year! Everything started off as normal with our usual Sunday morning service, that starts at 11am, and is open to anyone to come and join with us in our worship – prayer – bible readings. People start to gather from around 10.15 for a cup of tea or coffee and a chat before we begin our service. In February we had a baby dedication during the morning service. Also in February we had a visiting speaker for a service. And again in February we had the co-ordinator of Warrington Street Pastors come and tell us about the work they do on Friday and Saturday nights helping those in need who are out in the town centre. After this the Pandemic struck and we had to close Church for a number months. We followed the government guidelines and didn’t open again until the government relaxed the guidelines on this. When we did open again we did so with all the protective measures in place. We socially distanced all the chairs and made 3 groups up – we split those from the congregation who were able to come back to church into 2 groups and they attended the service on alternate Sundays, this way the social distancing was maintained. The 3[rd] group were those who were shielding and unable to return to church at that point. We made hand sanitiser available through out the building along with disinfectant sprays and everyone used face masks. We made a one way system using different entrance and exits and made sure the building was well ventilated. During the lockdown we used WhatsApp to broadcast a Sunday message to all of our members and also many of the church members sent us their own messages and songs so that we could share these and everyone was able to stay in touch and encouraged. There was a point in the pandemic where the government allowed churches to open for private prayer. We did this and found it to be very well supported and appreciated. ## **CHILDREN/YOUNG PEOPLE ACTIVITIES** At the beginning of the year we were able to continue providing activities for our children. One the pandemic started we did not resume these groups again this year. However when we did resume our Sunday morning service we used a puppet and stories and videos in each service for the children to enjoy. ## **TOTS** In January and part of February we did have tots. However even before the government brought in the guidelines we felt it was necessary to close our tots group we felt like this was the responsible thing to do considering how quickly the virus was spreading. ## **CRAFT NIGHT** This only took place in January and then had to be cancelled for the rest of the year ## **ROMANIA** We were unable to visit Romania at all this year due to the pandemic. However we continued to stay in touch and help financially with the work we support over there ## **HELPING THOSE IN NEED** We did our best to help anyone who we heard about locally that was in need for food clothes bedding etc and any other kind of help we could offer in the circumstances that we all found ourselves in. ## **CHURCH WARRINGTON** In February Church Warrington organised a joint Sunday Morning Worship Service in the Parr Hall in the town centre. The speaker was Andy Hawthorne from the Message Trust in Manchester. This was a very successful event with over 1000 people attending. It was amazing to join together with the other churches across the town. ## **WARRINGTON WEST CHURCH** The leaders started to use Zoom to communicate and share with each other through out the pandemic. This helped understand how the churches and their people were doing and encouraged each other. ## **CHARITY SHOP** The Charity Shop closed for the pandemic and didn’t reopen until summer time. We put all the government protective guidelines into place. With social distancing – different entrance and exits – limited customer numbers – hand sanitiser – mask wearing etc ## **CONCLUSION** All though this was a difficult and challenging year the trustees feel that everything was done correctly to protect everyone using the church and that despite all of this we continued to be able to help and encourage everyone as much as we could B