Dear church family,
Someone once told me that there are two rules to follow in order to be successful: First rule – never tell everything you know …..
But really, I plan to tell you everything I know! And that is a challenge because lately current information changes from week to week. Phase 3 of the Saskatchewan plan to reopen the province begins next week. However, Augustana will not gather for worship at 1201 Broadway just yet. There are a number of practical matters that have to be arranged before we can safely return to worship in our church building. And even when we do return to worship in our building it will be different. We will still celebrate Word and sacrament, but we will learn to do so according to the needs of our time. Music will remain part of our worship, but there will not be congregational singing. Congregational participation will be part of our worship, but will be spoken not sung. We will sit with appropriate physical distances between households. Worshipers will likely need to reserve their place at worship so we can ensure that we do not exceed our attendance limit. If we need to, we will have more than one worship service a week.
We will continue to have on-line worship services for the foreseeable future so that those who can not attend services at 1201 Broadway can still worship with us. Those who are most vulnerable will still need to worship at home. During our time worshiping together/apart our worship attendance has increased significantly, perhaps we need to continue on-line worship on the other side of this pandemic.
Weekly assignment – because this is the festival of Pentecost I have a different assignment for you this week. At Pentecost the disciples were given the ability to share the gospel in the language of those around them. How might we share the gospel in a way that is understood by those around us? What kind of language would we use? Probably not “churchy” language. What body language would we use? What “actions that speak louder than words” would we use? Thank you for your phone calls and messages to one another, I hear that they are appreciated.
For a darkly humorous view of what returning to worship in church buildings might look like check out Pastor Erik Parker in his blog “The Millennial Pastor.”
May the Spirit of God blow into your lives,
Pastor Marilyn
Link for worship this week: https://youtu.be/WITGv3RnLnE
On the website this week: the link to worship and the June newsletter
PS: One thing we need in preparation for returning to worship in our church building is Plexiglass. If you happen to have an extra sheet of plexiglass in your garage, can we use it?