November 19, 2020
Good day siblings in Christ!
After much consideration and discussion, the worship team has recommended that we suspend in-person Sunday morning worship until at least January 2021. This decision was based on the increasing virus numbers in our county and town. I share what this may mean for Christmas Eve below.
For Advent, we are asking you to find a candle to be used as we light our Advent candle week after week. This year, the candle will follow us from Advent into Christmas. It is a way of connecting within our church. So, please find a great candle which is big enough to last at least 5-7 hours.
About Christmas Eve
As of now, the plan for Christmas Eve is this:
A recorded version of the service will be offered on Facebook and YouTube. We are looking for people to help create our service by recording themselves doing portions of our service which will be assigned to them. It won’t be just me and Phil. If you are interested in this, please respond to me and I will send details. We have at least 7 different parts. If we have more than 7 volunteers, I can find more sections to use.
If we are permitted in-person services, the service offered will be very short. It will be an opening prayer, the Gospel reading, a sermon, and listening to Silent Night, unless it is warm enough to go outside and sing a verse or two. We will offer a couple of these mini services with a reservation system.
A final decision about whether we will offer in-person services will be made on December 15 by our worship team. If a decision is made not to have these mini services, the online service will be our only offering for the evening.
There will not be a Christmas Day service this year. The service the following Sunday will be led by our Bishop, as we direct everyone to the Synod’s service on December 27. The Synod is offering this to allow for pastors and worship staff to take a break and we are grateful for this offering.
Whichever way we go, this will be a very different Christmas, but I think we all knew this. The wonderful thing is Christ is still present in our celebrations, the joy of the season is still present, and there will be a day when this is all over. We are closer today than we were yesterday to a vaccine. I continue to thank you for your patience in all of this. It isn’t easy, but I know we pray for one another and I am so thankful.
Be love,
Pastor Johnson