Like many others The Watering Hole had to cancel our Service of Remembrance in our usual place of worship but were determined that a service would still go ahead. Each year the church plant hold a service of remembrance and many people come from our local community.
The church plantstarted as an SEC/Area 3 initiative to start a church in a town where there is no church. Service attendance fluctuates between 20-200, depending on the type of service and the time of year.
With the help of Zoom they were still able to put on what has become their third biggest visitor attended service of the year. It is estimated that in WW1 16 million people lost their lives. In WW2 60 million people are believed to have died. That is both services and civilians.
As a local congregation TheWatering Hole hold this service not to glorify war but to honour the kindness, bravery and sacrifice of many for complete strangers. This year during the Zoom Remembrance Service were attendees from the NHS who are key workers at the forefront of the current worldwide Covid battle. Earlier this year it was reported that 620 NHS health workers had died directly due to exposure to Covid while working and that as many as 1 in 6 workers in our hospitals at one time may have tested positive for the virus.
While these figures are not as shocking as the war statistics, nevertheless this is the battle for today − affecting each one right now. People in attendance were in tears as they heard from many of the especially invited key workers. They shared gruelling stories of fear, sacrifice and bravery. Then they were in tears as these key workers were reminded of Jesus' words in John 15:3, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
The key workers were acknowledged and thanked for their time and presence and were prayed over. The message of the day centred around how God could help each one of us cope with this and our own personal battles − whatever they might be.
People were given little Bible verse cards (see below) to remind them that God is bigger than any battle we face and that He has already won the greatest battle over evil.
