January 27, 2021
Good day siblings in Christ,
This will be in our upcoming newsletter, but I wanted to share what Ash Wednesday will look like this year. Yesterday, we received a message from our Bishop discouraging having any type of processional imposition of ashes i.e. standing in lines for ashes or ashes to go. He is recommending sending home packets.
On Monday, the worship team and I had the same idea prior to the Bishop’s request.
This year, we will be making small packets of ashes and delivering them or shipping them to your home. Inside the packet, there will be a small service that can be done or you can participate in our Ash Wednesday service which will be streamed at 7 p.m. that evening.
If you would really like me to impose them to you, I will be happy to by appointment. Simply send a note asking for a time on Wednesday, drive up, and I will place ashes on your forehead. A little forewarning though–I will be wearing a mask and a face shield, so don’t be scared. We are doing it this way, so I can properly wash my hands following imposing the ashes.
I know this is not ideal. It is not ideal to me either, believe me, but as I keep saying we are in the home stretch of everything. We do not want to get sloppy while we are this close to the end of this terrible virus. Dr Fauci stated by summer we may be at a place where things are beginning to look more like the pre-pandemic times, so we are almost there. We can do this.
As for re-opening in general, we may conceivable start to reopen by mid to late February. We know there will not be a mass crowd on the first day and most of the council are not worried about our members wearing masks and whatnot. We are looking at items such as virus rate, schools being open, and vaccination percentages. If you happened to look at The NY Times this week, there was an app showing how areas are rated currently by the CDC. Our area is still in the extremely high risk rating scale. Now that the holidays are behind us, we should see numbers begin to decline again. We are almost there.
Be love,
Pastor Johnson