For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11
I have been working on putting together pictures for the candid pages of our new Pictorial directory. If you haven’t made an appointment yet with our photographer Steve Alfano, please do. We need your picture. It is such a blessing to be able to pull out the directory to put a name to a face, especially during this time of quarantine. We still have some appointments available for this Saturday evening. The links to make an appointment is in this email in the announcement section, or you can call the church office and we can help you. Anyway, I have been looking at pictures to put in our new directory. I always see the candid pages as a kind of a yearbook, as Cary Gray used to say. It has been a walk down memory lane, with these pictures. From our saying thank you, blessings, and goodbye to Ginny and Jim, to us saying hello and welcome to George, Kathy, Ben & Lizzie. From us saying goodbye and thank you to our old sanctuary, packing up and worshiping in Moore Hall, and when the new sanctuary was finished being told we needed to worship from home online. Looking back and seeing God’s timing in all things. So much has happened over these past 15 months it really is kind of amazing. We added much needed tech in the sanctuary remodel because we knew would start streaming, little did we know how truly needed that was. We would be in a world of hurt today if we didn’t have the tech we have now. God’s timing. We are blessed. Looking at the ways we have innovated to continue serving and reaching people. Through Zoom meetings to Drive through Ashes for Ash Wednesday, to zooming and delivering pizza for our Messy church families. We have even used some good old fashioned no contact delivery of printed sermons and Daily blessings to reach those who don’t use tech. Your church has been busy in ministry and we are blessed.
We are blessed to be able to continue to worship, serve and learn together through some of the most difficult circumstances. We are blessed to be part of a church family who cares for each other and for the community. We have continued doing ministry through our Food Closet, Shower Ministry, collections for Family Promise, American Family Housing and Mental Health Association and have had two blood drives all in quarantine! Church Committees, Vacation Bible Camp, Youth Group, Wednesday Night Study and Tuesday morning Bible study along with some UMW events have all learned to be online. We can be the church that we are called to be! We can see how God is working in our mess if we stop, breathe, and look around us. God is good all the time and all the time God is good. We can adapt, take stock in what works in ministry and what doesn’t and move ahead in this new world and changing times. The church has always had to adapt, and we will continue to learn and change and keep being in ministry with our church family and beyond. I heard a person say on one of my Zoom conferences, that the church has left the building. That is true, we don’t have to be here on campus to worship or to minister to one another. We do have a beautiful campus for when we can come back safely, we have a campus that can adapt in more ways than we ever dreamed of and we can reach people online in ways we never thought of. We are blessed to be able to adapt and to live out our calling to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Suzanne
Gracious and Loving God, we thank you for the gifts of creativity, perseverance, knowledge, and faith. We are blessed to be able to use all our gifts to help others and to bring a glimpse of your kingdom here on earth. Help us to remember that you will always have the last word. Help us to see the breath and to see the beauty that surrounds us, and to remember that you are God. Help us to remember that hold us in your hands and that we have the strength to get through this because of you and because of you we can help others as well. Amen.