Dear church,
From my bunker to yours, greetings in this time of quarantine. If your email inbox is anything like mine, every company and organization you’ve ever shared your email address with has sent you a notice of how they are responding to this Covid-19 Crisis.
Well, friends, it seemed fitting for your church family to do the same. So, how are we responding? Ah, let me count the ways.
1. SUNDAY SERVICE
Church service is happening online. And it’s so much fun! We have been blessed with an amazing group of people who are stepping up, and going above and beyond to help Sundays remain a successful time of worship and fellowship.
Worship is happening by filming our service, and then broadcasting that into our people’s living rooms via Facebook. I’ve seen some fun photos of people taking pictures of their families gathered around laptops and tv screens on Sunday morning. These photos bring joy to my heart.
These pictures actually remind me of those old black and white photos I’ve seen of our nation’s response during the second World War. In those old pictures, families were gathered around their radios to hear the news, and perhaps listen to Rev. Charles E. Fuller deliver his sermons. (For those who are interested, Rev. Fuller’s “Old Fashioned Revival Hour is available today on the Fuller seminary website. You can listen to his sermons by clicking on the blue words above.)
2. COMMUNITY SERVICE
Right away, we started to think about how our church can respond in this crises to the needs of our community. What we came up with was a grocery shopping program where anyone in Port Angeles, who feels that they are especially vulnerable to Covid-19, is welcome to call the church; and we will deploy a volunteer to go and pick up that person’s groceries. This is a service also available to the people of our church who fall within the vulnerable demographics.
3. OFFICE LIFE
Following the orders from our President and Governor, we have taken to closing our office to the public. We have sent as many people home as possible. Lynn and I continue to report into the office as necessary to plan and record the Sunday service, to help oversee the grocery shopping community service, and to respond as needed to daily issues that come up. However, while we are reporting in to take care of such essential needs, our office and building are officially “closed” to in-person traffic.
We’ve been able to set-up David with a “home office” of sorts; where he is continuing to manage some of our church business from his place of residence. We want to give a huge “thank-you” to David’s family for being so accommodating.
4. SMALL GROUP MEETINGS - WE’VE GONE ONLINE
A. In light of the stay-at-home order, some of our small groups needed to suspend meeting. Others, however, have gone online. The Young Adult small group, which meets Fridays at 5:30 p.m., actually shifted its focus: The group is starting a new study this Friday, April 3, 2020. The new study is going to focus on inviting people, who have intellectual objections to the faith, to come and have discussions with us about Jesus. We moved from being an inward focused discussion group to being purposefully outward focused in the hopes that some of our doubting friends might find this a fun thing to do in light of a sudden increase in free-time.
B. Youth Group took a break while we adjusted to the new normal; but it is going to pick-up again this Wednesday, April 1, 2020. The group will meet online at 3:00 p.m.
5. FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
A. KIDS
For the past two Saturday evenings, we’ve hosted a fellowship time for the children of the church called, “Movie Night with (not at) the Hughes.” To carry-off this fun time of social interaction we are inviting parents to connect via an online service called ZOOM. The kids are able to see each other, talk, giggle, and have fun in conversation. The parents all bring up the same children’s movie on their TVs; then, we count down so we can all hit “play” at the same time. This way, the kids get to watch the same movie together.
Last Saturday, the movie was Frozen II; and we actually had a set of grandparents join-in to watch the movie on their TV. They had as much fun as the kids.
B. PRAYER
Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m., we are hosting weekly prayer meetings online, which are open to anyone in our church body who wants to join-in. During these prayer meetings, we are asking for God’s direction and blessing as we seek to share the hope we have in Jesus with our friends and neighbors. Evil does not come from God; but he can certainly use bad things for good purposes. We want to be prayerful and intentional in how we respond to this crisis.
C. SUNDAY SERVICE CHATTING
Because our service is broadcasting on Facebook, we have a unique opportunity to connect with one another via the “comment thread.” This is where people are able to write thoughts and greetings to one another. We encourage chatting online during this worship time as we meet and congregate with one another.
D. PHONE CONNECTION
We are working as an elder board and office staff to be sure that we are checking in regularly with our church body, that is, to ensure everyone is doing well. If you’ve not received a phone call from someone from the church by the end of the week, please call us; and let us know. We don’t intend to miss anyone; but in the midst of the unique craziness of the time, it is possible.
6. SPECIAL THANKS
I need to take a moment to thank some key people whose work and dedication you may not always see. One such person is Rhys Crawford. Rhys has given hours and hours of volunteer time to our church to help us with all things tech. This includes filming the worship time and sermon, as well as editing the videos so that we can see testimonies and kids’ scripture reading. He seamlessly adds in AND integrates the worship lyrics and sermon slides to the video.
Rhys was also invaluable in helping us set-up David at his house so he could continue working for the church while adhering to the Governor’s proclamation.
Thanks also to “I.T. SUPPORT SERVICES” which is owned and operated by Roger and Rose Sanders, and for whom Rhys works. They have also been a great resource during this unique time of becoming ever more dependent on technology.
7. FINANCIAL SUPPORT
A. IT IS NEEDED
Although our building is not open, we are continuing to share the Gospel as we serve our community. Earlier in the month of March, we were in a situation of deciding which bills to pay after we covered payroll, that is, if we were even able to do that. I had to call some of the ministries our church supports, and had to let them know that our monthly support would be coming late.
Thankfully, when our folks learned of our financial hardship, several stepped up to give above and beyond their normal commitments. As the Spirit leads you, do remain faithful in your worship of God through your giving, even if we can’t gather in-person.
B. IT IS OFFERED
However, because the church depends upon the gracious giving of our people, it mirrors well the financial realities of our community. If you are struggling, please know that your pastor and church family are well aware of the growing financial hardships that many may soon be facing, or are facing already.
It is our intention to be generous with what is untrusted to our care; and as the church receives support from our members, so too will we return that support. If any of you find yourselves in need of food or some other emergency resource, reach-out to your church.
8. COMMUNITY CONNECTION
In just a few moments, I am going to be part of a meeting with several other Port Angeles Pastors, who dream together about how we can continue to celebrate Easter together as we’ve done in the past with the Sunrise Service. Gathering at the Civic Field is no longer an option of course. But is there something else we can do? Stay tuned, as we are gonna try and address that very question.
9. REGIONAL CONNECTION
Each week several of your church leaders and I are connecting with other Mission Northwest church leaders to brainstorm ideas about how to be responsive to church and community needs. It is an important time of connectivity and idea swapping.
A FINAL STORY OF ENCOURAGEMENT
While working in the office, I received a phone call from our sister church in Oak Harbor. With the challenges of streaming a service and social distancing, they have had trouble getting their worship team together for their Sunday Service. Their Pastor, seeing the quality of what we had online called and asked for advice, which we freely gave. He then asked if he could “borrow” our worship team for his church service. We were able to do this by sending him the recordings we had of our ladies leading us in worship.
This means that on Sunday, not only did Lynn lead you in worship here in Port Angeles, but Lynn, Stacie and Sarah also helped lead the folks over in Oak Harbor. How cool is that!