Covid 19 and attending church in person 

South Street Baptist Church is now open for live, in person services each Sunday. We look forward to welcoming you in person to church - this page sets out the guidance we ask you to follow to keep everyone safe.

For those who don't yet feel ready to come to church or who are unable to come to church in person our services are filmed and go online on our YouTube channel the following week. Only those taking part in the service are filmed, not the congregation.  

We are no longer imposing any restrictions, although we ‘encourage’ the wearing of face coverings and sanitising hands.

To open for in person services, we have undertaken a full Covid-19 Risk Assessment, a copy of which is available here.

 Guidance for attending church in person

Whilst infection rates remain high we would encourage following a lot previous advice

 In the morning, before you come to church assess your own health:

Do you feel unwell?

Do you have a temperature? Do you feel hot to touch on your chest or back?

Have you developed a new, continuous cough?

Has your sense of smell or taste changed?

Covid symptoms can also include a headache, runny nose or sure throat. Contact NHS 111 to check your symptoms.

If you answer yes to any of these questions, you may have Covid 19 and should consider not coming to church. Contact the NHS to arrange a PCR test.

Even if you think you do not have Covid, please consider not coming to church if you think you may have a cold, flu, tummy bug, etc.

 Even if you think your illness may not be Covid, we ask you to seriously consider whether you should be in close contact with other people. If you are unwell, please stay at home until you are better so that you do not infect others

 We will continue to keep windows and doors open to bring fresh air into our building to reduce the possibility of any infection spreading. Please do not close them.

 However, ventilation is limited in an older building like ours so we recommend that when inside the building we all continue to wear face coverings. Some members of our congregation are not yet fully vaccinated and others, even though fully vaccinated, may be at risk of serious illness still from Covid. Wearing a face covering reduces the possibility of transmitting Covid.

 Consider sanitising your hands using the hand sanitiser station when you come in and regularly if using equipment in the church.

We continue to recommend the use of lateral flow tests for those coming to the church or centre. Around 1 in 3 people with Covid 19 have no symptoms and may spread it unknowingly. Testing ourselves reduces the risk of spreading the virus. Testing kits are available from pharmacies, GP surgeries and online.

We realise that different people will have different views on the level of risk they are willing to accept. We give this guidance to do what we can to keep everyone safe and reassure those who are vulnerable to serious illness from Covid 19 or other respiratory illnesses that may be prevalent this year.

 We will review this guidance regularly and relax it when we feel it is safe to do so. Until then we ask you to be kind and to go on caring for those you meet with.

Advice on assessing your own personal health risk can be found at:

https://urc.org.uk/images/Communications/docs/Personal_Risk_Assessment.pdf

The church and Palace Gate Centre have undertaken a full Covid-19 Risk Assessment to enable us to make our buildings Covid secure under current government legislation.  The guidance on this page is drawn from the risk assessment for coming to church.  For full details of the Risk Assessment please go to: 

 https://palacegatecentre.co.uk/about/covid-19/

We continue to produce a recorded service each week that is available to watch at our YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7aywP526kDGh04Xfsor2w

We can make this service available as an audio CD or as printed sheets. Please email us or ring 01392 279485 if you want these.

For those who prefer radio, we do make available our service online just to listen to at:

https://soundcloud.com/southstbaptistexeter

You do not have to download the file to listen to it and SoundCloud can be used on a range of devices.

The church continues to offer pastoral support online or by telephone, and to support essential activities in the Palace Gate Centre.