Bishop of Salisbury launches weekly video messages
Nicholas Holtam will be sharing his thoughts via YouTube
The first of the messages by the Bishop of Salisbury, Nicholas Holtam has been posted after yesterday's Sunday church services (24th January).
The videos are designed to help churches across the Salisbury Diocese with their sermons, but also to spread some hope to the whole community.
In the first one, Bishop Nick has praised the way churches have responded to the challenges of the Covid pandemic, in addition to moving to virtual services:
"We need to look after ourselves and one another, and we're taking to heart the language about needing to protect the NHS. But there's something else going on at the same time, which is about the way churches are serving their communities - organising telephone calls, making sure the vulnerable aren't left out and are looked after."
Some of the other weekly messages will be presented by the other Bishops across the Diocese.
But they'll always be made available for us to watch back at any time.
Here's the first of them in full:
The Bishop of Salisbury has also used his message to call on the UK to do what it can to help other areas of the world to get out of the pandemic as quickly as possible:
"We're really alert of what's happening throughout the world and that we have to look out for all our neighbours. It's not going to be enough to make sure the UK is vaccinated - we live globally now. We're not protected unless everyone's safe. You have to protect the smallest and the weakest in order for the whole body to be healthy."
He also believes there are lessons to be learned from the situation once we come out the other side:
"When we, to use politicians' language, 'build back better', we're actually taking the trouble to learn from the experience and to recognise that there is within it, the potential for transformation. We could actually live in a way that loved our neighbour as ourselves, we could do that so much better."
You can keep in touch with all of the weekly videos as they are published on the Diocese of Salisbury YouTube channel.