Welcome to the Monday Mailing #22 –
Learn Something
What if the church lived out its calling to bring the Love of God in Christ to the world, in just this fashion?
Yesterday was a case in point.
We didn’t do well on the test. Oh, worship happened, with lots of fits and starts, but God was glorified. Session members said that they felt safe in returning. (Safety, check) We had a camera for the sanctuary, so those on Zoom could see those in the sanctuary – and vice-versa, but oh, we had issues with sound – and light.
We could say – been there, done that, it doesn’t work – and go back to just Zoom. Or, we can redo the Quiz. We could consider the issues with sound and lighting, and try again next week. . . and that is just what we are going to do. We are going to brain storm a bit about it, and see what we can do “fix the issues.” And we may not even get it right this week. . .but we’re going to try, because we believe that the faithful worship of God is that important. Truly.
If we are learning anything in this time of Pandemic, flexibility, creativity and resilience are tremendously important. Believing in yourselves as the community of God – the community of Faith, Hope and Love here on Western Ave – this is important. This is aspirational work. As a congregation, we – you – aspire to bring God’s Good News to a world in need, from this place.
And sometimes that takes practice. Sometimes we will get it so right we will encounter those thin places the Christian mystics speak about, where we catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God right here! Other times we will get it so wrong, we’ll need to ask ourselves what did we learn?, and retool our approach.
This Pandemic is showing us that very few things are off the board when it comes to bringing Good News to our world. Take the test again, and again, and again, if you need to. Learn something, share something.
Pastor Janice