Friends,

Several of you took the time to send me an email or tell me in person that you watched the worship service online from this past Sunday, since we couldn’t be together in person due to the construction closure of Hamilton Pool Road. I’m pleased to know that my reflection stirred thoughts and memories for some of you. But even more than that, I’m pleased to realize how we have added new ways of worship to our life together as a congregation.

Back in March, 2020, when the global pandemic shuttered our building, we weren’t quite sure what to do or how to ‘be the church’ without being able to gather and worship and study and sing and pray in the same building at the same time every Sunday morning. As the pandemic stretched into weeks, then into months, then into more than a year, we learned, we adapted, we pivoted. Now we know that we can still ‘be the church’ regardless of whether or not we are able to be in physical proximity on Sunday morning.

Who would have thought we could worship together in such a meaningful way for months on end? Now, a road closure hardly even made us blink! We couldn’t be in our building, but still we sang and prayed and worshiped together. Our spiritual practices, our ways of ‘being church,’ have changed and expanded so much in the last 3+ years.

Imagine the new, expanded ways we will ‘be the church’ just three years from now! Perhaps in 2026 ‘being church’ will have changed as much from what it is today, as ‘being church’ today has changed from what it was in 2020.

Peace,

Pastor Jack