On Monday 4th January the Prime Minister announced that the whole country would go into its third Coronavirus 'lockdown'.

2019 had ended with the 'tier' system where restrictions depended on where you lived. The government had tried to make sure that everyone would be able to spend time with friends and family at Christmas but, in the end, even Christmas had to be restricted to just one day with no sleep-overs and restricted numbers inside a household.

On the 6th January, and in common with most churches in the country, we reluctantly took the decision that, although the government did not specifically say 'no' to worship services taking place, we would cease to meet because it was very clear that we should all be very careful not to pass the virus on to anyone else.

During the latter part of 2019 all the village churches had tried to find a way for people to 'shield' themselves at home and yet continue to worship together. For the Anglicans and Methodists this took the form of 'Zoom' services, which they shared. At the Baptist Church we had a system where the person designated to lead the service would produce a 'document' that we emailed to our congregation so that we shared a common service but without the time constraint of joining at a specific time.

The beginning of January was also the time when we updated our website. The village website (Audlem Online) had completely refreshed its website during 2019 to make it better suited to the various ways that people used the internet and this gave the three churches in the village a better way of being integrated with Audlem Online. As a result we changed our Service Sheets from being emailed to being directly available online. Furthermore it made it significantly easier to include hymn and sermon videos within the service.

Covid-19 vaccinations also started in early 2021. Bill Cowen became the first person in our congregation to have his vaccination on 7th January.

So it was that Covid-19 became the dominant feature of 2021.

On March 28th we were finally able to meet again in person provided we maintained social distancing, used gel on our hands and did not linger long after the service! The following Sunday was Easter Day. Several people were still shielding so we continued to make the service sheets available from the web site so that all of us followed the same worship. There was tangible relief at being able to be in the same place as other worshippers. For several people, and for a variety of reasons, this was the first time they had come to church since early 2020.

In June the regulations relaxed as more and more people had been vaccinated and on 4th July we had our first visiting preacher, our good friend David Scott. Worshipping together and with visiting preachers meant that we could no longer publish the same service sheet for our in-person and online services. So the online services began to take a different tack. Online services used specially selected YouTube sermons from churches with large congregations alongside YouTube hymns.

And that is how we continued for the remainder of the year. There was no Garden Party for the second year in a row. On the 14th September the Prime Minister revealed Plan A and Plan B to handle the winter period. On the 8th December we moved to Plan B because the Omicron variant was becoming dominant and more and more people were testing positive for Covid. Like 2020 there was no Carol Singing at Leighton Hospital because by then the hospitals were under so much pressure.

But that will be how the story starts for 2022.