THE coronavirus pandemic has seen many people have to adapt to the way they work.

And Cardigan vicar Rev John Bennett has been no different.

The work of the church has been hit like every other walk of life, with baptisms, weddings and funerals all affected as the doors of St Mary’s Parish Church locked for many weeks, while home visits have also been ruled out.

“It has been so different and I don’t think anyone saw it coming,” said Rev Bennett.

“It all came about very suddenly. I think everyone thought we would be all right and suddenly we were in lockdown and we could not do anything in terms of holding services for the best part of six months.

“The first thing we did was to split the congregation into support groups with a coordinator for each one. We did not want people to feel isolated and slipping through the net and we were in contact via phone and email and we could not visit.

“It was all about supporting people but could prove very difficult, especially for those who had to have hospital treatment, for example. Families could not visit and that’s very tough especially if someone was seriously ill or dying.

“The other thing we did was to look to go online. Initially it was from home as for about eight weeks we were not even allowed to enter the church. Even I was not allowed into the building.

“It meant developing new skills and putting services up on YouTube. We would record a service on Thursday and it would go online on a Sunday morning and has been attracting around 200 views.

“We want to continue with the online services as we are reaching people with the gospel who perhaps we have not before. Perhaps someone does not want to come into a church for a particular reason or is elderly and cannot make it.

“Perhaps we could record a Sunday service as it happens and then broadcast it soon after or maybe we could set up a live feed.

“It was great when we could open up the church again for private prayer and then about a month later for public worship in September.”

That in itself entailed a tremendous amount of work, with risk assessments for every church across the Bro Teifi area having to be drawn up. Even a handful of weddings took place in the autumn.

Christmas services will be held across the area under coronavirus regulations and Rev Bennett said: “It is so important to get across the Christian message in this time of Covid.

“Covid has created a huge amount of fear which we as Christians can help alleviate.

“Jesus said time and time again ‘do not be afraid’. We do not need to fear the future and what might happen as Christians.

“God is with us through this and is not aloof. Jesus was born as a human being and that’s very much the message this Christmas.

“The pandemic has caused many of us to take stock of our lives and reconsider what is important. I hope people will hold on to those values in the future.”