Dear Friends,
If you had told me 46 weeks ago that we would still be doing live stream worship and doing our annual meeting over Zoom I would have been speechless. I would have wondered how we could adapt and I might have been filled with a little despair. Sometimes not knowing what is ahead is a good thing, and today 46 weeks into our Covid reality I am filled with, what would have been incredibly unexpected a year ago, a great sense of thankfulness.
Let me begin to count our blessings:
We are thankful for the technological skills of people like Howard Ignal, Godfrey Nelson, Katrina Zezza and Lorraine Nelson Wolf.
We are thankful for the dedication and flexibility of Elders, Deacons, and staff.
We are thankful for Lou Biskup our treasurer and Gerry Defiglio our assistant treasurer for adapting and serving in these unprecedented days.
We are thankful for choir anthems, a Christmas pageant, and other music and readings recorded and shared in new ways.
We are thankful for our passion for mission and we are thankful for continued efforts and for new ways to meet the needs in our community and world.
We are thankful for volunteer work crews that replaced windows in the old fellowship hall among other things.
We are thankful for fire pits, cemetery yoga, ice cream trucks, blessing of the animals, drive-thru-charist communion, outdoor baptisms and other fellowship and social activities that found a way to continue and thrive.
We are also deeply thankful for the stewardship of our congregation. Our members and friends continue to financially support our work and our ministry.
We are thankful for the large number of people who continue to “tune in” to our live stream service.
Thank you for the ways you have helped our community to faith adapt, continue and in some very real ways thrive even in this time of Covid. While we look forward to the days ahead when we can all gather together and sing and worship, we remember to give thanks, for God has, and is, doing great things.
We are indeed a vibrant community Church at the crossroads of a changing world, as our mission statement says, thanks be to God!
Yours in this ever-changing Ministry,
Paul