Helping Hands:
There's a group of church members interested in forming a "Mask Drive" – to share the masks they have been sewing with the community. If you are interested in assisting, or would like to help sew (or know of someone that needs a mask!), contact the church.
Also, the gardens and grounds around the church are longing for a little TLC. Interested in lending a hand? We can form a safe and healthy work group. Send a note!
Reminder: The Morgan Park 5K Run/2.5K Walk (planned for May 31) is cancelled. Eve plans to be back in 2021 to head up the race!
From Pastor Paul: Toward Sunday
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ~John 14:3
Of the many things whirling around my mind in this time, at the center is how to sustain my faith in the midst of missing community interaction. I guess I hadn't realized just how much my faith is nurtured by the presence and sharing of others in Christian life. Oh yes, I keep my disciplines and practices, I engage my spiritual journey, continue to make myself receptive to God's good work through me, and study and pray and journal and write…but there's something about being together that draws me out of my thoughts and into my whole person. I 'll call it the Pentecost Spirit. I love and miss it, as I love and miss you.
So…gathering calls me, and from our words over telephone and computer, I know I am not alone. I keep thinking of how we could connect safely, being a group of comparatively smaller numbers. I think: Bible Study can be done with safe distancing…and couldn't we grill on the grounds and keep healthy space? …what about Sundays? If the wipes and sanitizer and masks were utilized? Hey – what if we opened the church at scheduled times so that people can have a quiet sanctuary place to be calm and pray? All of these ideas float out there, but wind up getting lost in the day-to-day concerns about social responsibility, about reminders that we haven't even seen the worst of it yet, about placing one another in potentially uncomfortable situations – about sounding like I'm in-step with the machine gun-toting self-centered bullies shouting "Don't tread on me" – OK, stop, Paul! Don't go down that road. Remember the tools you share with others about walking with faith – about living into resurrection. Am I sharing God's message of love, or contributing to the already rampant fear, anger, and scarcity around us? Am I creating more brokenness, or am I participating in repair? Am I saying "Yes" or "No"? Crucifixion or Resurrection?
On my morning drive to see the birds and flowers down in Chamber's Grove, I heard this quote over the radio: "I do not claim to have all the answers in Spiritual matters. There are also others engaged in a spiritual search, a spiritual journey. If I keep an open mind about what others have to say, I have much to gain."
It was from Ricky Defoe, Elder in the Fond du Lac Band (and thank you WGZS 89.1 for airing it), and it reminded me that God transcends in a myriad of different ways in as many different souls and as many different settings. God is present everywhere. Jesus said, in his Johannine prayer that began with these words: "I will come again and take you to myself." If I believe that God is ever present, and Jesus is always with me (as Resurrection has taught me), then what is it about sharing with one another that makes God's presence burn with such a hot flame when we are together?
…Or maybe it's just that habit of being together? A prompt from the setting of church? Muscle memory? In any event, we're trying an experiment: beginning on the 17th, Cathy Dale will be returning to Sunday morning worship so that we may share music and worship beyond the rambling words and wild hand gestures of your Pastor. Every Sunday, there have always been a few people here in the church, practicing safe distancing and responsible hygiene. The doors are always open. The folks that attend, albeit a small and widely-spaced group, will help to bring us back to a rhythm and setting that all are familiar with.
Church is not about the words a pastor says in a sermon or a prayer…it is about the shared love present when we turn our hearts and souls collectively toward the presence of Christ in our lives. Good prayer, like good food, means so much more when it is shared.
Keep in touch, friends!
Pastor Paul