Church service goes digital

A collaborative Good Friday mass will be available online for Marlborough churchgoers.

The Covid-19 lockdown has seen the traditional service at Blenheim’s ASB Theatre cancelled, so churches across Marlborough have banded together to create the different service.

Elim Christian Centre Blenheim senior pastor Tom Hatch said the combined Marlborough service was ‘‘looked forward to by so many locals’’.

‘‘Obviously there’s lots of disappointments through this whole lockdown, but there’s also so many incredible opportunities like putting the combined Good Friday service online,’’ Hatch said.

He said people had raised concerns that Zoom video conferencing would not hold up, so they had decided to pre-record the service, which would be live on the Elim Christian Centre Facebook page at 10am on Friday.

‘‘What’s cool is you don’t need a Facebook account to be part of it – you can just click on the link and be part of it there.

‘‘We’ve had to help a lot of our folks understand that, because not everyone has a Facebook account,’’ Hatch said.

Tom and his wife, senior pastor Suzanne Hatch, were in charge of some of the music, which would be recorded from their living room.

‘‘We put it out there to as many of the churches that we have contact with and said ‘Hey, look – this is what’s happening. We’d love for you guys to be part of it and join us together online,’ ’’ Hatch said.

Those also contributing to the service included C3 Blenheim, the Blenheim Baptist Church and the Marlborough Salvation Army.

Hatch thought that while the lockdown had been challenging, it was positive during Easter that families would be together.

‘‘I’ve been really encouraging the folks in my church – don’t focus on what you can’t do, focus on what you can do.

‘‘This lockdown doesn’t define who we are. It just makes what we do different and what we do is in a different place.’’

St Mary’s Church acting parish priest Father Pat Mcindoe said he knew people were accessing different online services.

‘‘There’s quite a few opportunities for that. One [person] was telling me how they watched Shine TV yesterday with Bishop Patrick Dunn from Auckland.

‘‘It’s good Marlborough will have something for everyone to remember this time, too.’’ He said ‘‘even though buildings were closed’’ it showed there were still ways to ‘‘celebrate and connect’’.

Hatch said it was good that shops would not be able to open this Easter, due to the lockdown.

‘‘We shouldn’t need to wait for a lockdown, or a holiday – I think everything should be closed on a Sunday.’’

Four new coronavirus cases have been added to the Nelson–marlborough tally.

They are one confirmed and one probable in Marlborough, and two probable in Nelson.

However, only the probable case in Marlborough is actually new, as the other three presented last week but were not officially logged until yesterday.

This takes the region to 44 cases; 33 confirmed and 11 probable. Marlborough has 12 confirmed and six probable, while Nelson has 21 confirmed and five probable.

The new probable case in Marlborough is a man in his 50s.

The confirmed case in Marlborough (a woman in her 40s) and the two probable cases in Nelson (a woman in her 50s and a man in his 30s) had been added ‘‘retrospectively’’ by the Ministry of Health, a Nelson Marlborough Health spokesperson said.

Eleven people in the region had recovered from the virus, the spokesperson said.

All cases were travel-related and in self-isolation at home.

A man in his 70s had been discharged from Nelson Hospital, and a patient in Wairau Hospital had been discharged on Friday.