Connecting in the Time of COVID-19

Good Friday 2019

A year ago this month, we were busy with the quotidian ideal of our life together. The list of ways to connect and be involved as a congregation was lengthy. There was something for all ages and interests. Worship was in person; no livestream option.

Then, our lives underwent narrative wreckage, of sorts. Overnight, so it seemed, we were experiencing our version of the wilderness living of the children of Israel long ago. Social media became our manna in the wilderness. FaceTime and Zoom meetings became the new normal. The internet provided us the means for maintaining connections.

Some of us realized sooner than others that staying connected is not synonymous to communing with others. With no end to the pandemic in sight, we settled in to the new way of being church family. If a comparison were called for, I would say it was something along the lines of fresh fruit versus canned fruit cocktail. C. S. Lewis is to be credited for the comparison. “Fruit has to be tinned if it is to transported, and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities.” He goes on to add that some come to prefer the tinned fruit to fresh.

As a  congregation, we continue to explore ways to experience compassionate connections with others. Presently we are hosting guests on the first and third Thursdays of the month for Room In The Inn. Sunday school classes are meeting virtually with one in person offering. The Immanuel Book club is meeting each month virtually too. And thanks to the cleverness of one member, the annual offering of Hearthsiders will meet virtually over the winter months.

~Pastor Steven