By this point in 2020, you most likely have learned a new way to do something that used to be routine. Maybe it’s the way you shop for groceries, how you keep your friendship going or remembering to grab a mask when you’re leaving home.  Worship would be on this list.  We’ve worshiped in a variety of ways in the past few months, through a podcast, on Facebook Live, outdoors and spread out. 

During November, we will continue to worship outside.  When the weather isn’t favorable, we’ll go online.  Right now this means a Facebook Live service at 11:05 on Sunday mornings, and then a recording on the podcast the next day.  We are working to be able to have our services on a YouTube channel so that it is available to a wider audience.

Worship during Advent and Christmas will look different. With coronavirus cases rising, we are unsure that we’ll be able to gather inside safely.  Gerald Ensley, our Worship Chairperson, is working with me on some creative ways to make this season sacred and meaningful.  Some of these may become new traditions for us.

One of these we need some participation on right now!  Each day through Advent and Christmas we will post a picture of one of your home nativity sets.  Many people have table top (or sometimes larger) nativities, sometimes called a creche’.  If you have one, please take a picture that is close enough to show detail.  Send it to my email and include anything that goes with it – where it came from, a story of who gave it to you, if your child made it, etc.  If you don’t have a way to take a digital picture, please call the office and we’ll come to you. We need these by Thanksgiving.

There will be more new ways of worshipping and marking the season.  Our December newsletter will be out early to let you know what to expect. I hope you’ll open your heart and mind to these “new traditions.”.  This isn’t how we’d like to have church all the time, but it does make a way to gather safely and with best practices during this time of COVID-19.

Peace,

Emily