Plans and Prayers for the Days Ahead

I have good news. We faced a major roadblock this week that would have prevented us from holding an outdoor worship service at the Daiken Amphitheater next to the church. Thanks to Mayor Tab Bowling and Parks and Recreation Director Jason Lake, that roadblock has been removed. We will hold an in-person evening worship service at the Daiken Amphitheater located next to the church next Wednesday, July 15 at 6:00 p.m. Bring lawn chairs and blankets for all the members of your household. You will sit appropriately socially distanced from others not from your household. Bring a mask for every member of your household that attends. You may park in the church parking lot, on nearby streets, or behind the church.

We will sing some familiar hymns and songs, hear a brief message from the scriptures, celebrate Holy Communion, and rejoice in the opportunity of seeing each other’s faces. You may wonder how we will celebrate Communion safely. As you enter the park area to place your chairs, a greeter will direct you to pick up a “Celebration Cup” from a table on or near the sidewalk. This is a sealed cup that contains both the bread (wafer) and the wine (grape juice) for celebrating the Sacrament. After my message, Toby and I will lead you in the Service of Holy Communion. Once I consecrate the elements, we will partake of the bread at the same time followed by the cup. We will sing a closing hymn, I will give the benediction, and then return to our vehicles. This will be a 40-to-45-minute service. If you feel safe attending an outdoor service in this setting, I hope you will come.

This outdoor service will be a foretaste of the corporate worship we long to resume inside the church. The Public Health Response Team will meet on July 14 to decide whether to proceed with our plan to resume in-person worship on July 26 or to further postpone our return. These decisions are not easy because so much is at stake. We are in a global health crisis that threatens the well-being of us all. Allowing everyone to make his or her own choices on how to respond to this crisis is no longer defending personal freedom. We will not contain this virus without the loss of many more lives if we leave safety measures up to individuals. We need courageous leaders to make decisions for the body politic, decisions that do not serve individual self-interests but the health of people they were elected, appointed, and called to serve. Without God’s help, leaders will give up where they had the power and ability to change our destiny by requiring certain sacrifices, and leaders will give out trying to change the narrative of this disease that is not going away as fast as our appetites for life-as-it-used-to-be would desire. To that end, there is a familiar prayer that I ask you to pray for yourself and the leaders of our country, state, city, and church: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.” Replace the “me” and “I” with the name of our president, senators, representatives, governor, mayor, city council, and church leaders and pray it often.