In March of 2020 Holy Trinity had to do the unimaginable. We shut our doors and closed our buildings due to a global pandemic. This was hard. We grieved. And in many ways, it is still hard, and we are still grieving.
But then that prefix “re” keeps rising to the surface.
We began to re-think…
Re-group
Re-learn
Re-imagine
Re-form
Re-focus
…what it means to be the Church in the world.
While we had to shut down our church buildings and not gather for in-person worship and fellowship with one another, our congregation never closed. Rather, we opened hundreds of house churches and discovered anew that the church is not a building but a community of people out in the world continuing to follow a first century Rabbi and his good news that “the Kingdom of God has come near”.
I can’t say it enough, I am so proud of our congregation in so many ways. We had to regroup, refocus, and relearn how to be a community of faith in new and different ways. I’m so proud of how we responded. While the pandemic isn’t over (new variants of the virus are still emerging), with breakthroughs in vaccinations and more research on how the virus is spread, in August we are thankful to be able to regather again.
So, what's next?
We will open the doors of our Worship Center for in-person worship beginning August 15th and move back to our normal worship times of 8:30 and 11:00 AM. We will live-stream our worship at 8:30 AM. It will be available to view live on our
YouTube channel at 8:30 each Sunday and be seen at your leisure any time
afterwards.
Here is what our in-person Worship will look like and what our expectations will be:
- While worshiping indoors, all in attendance will be masked; vaccinated or not vaccinated. We want to keep one another as safe as possible, since we will be speaking and singing some of our liturgy. We also want to protect our children under the age of 12 who are not able to be vaccinated at this time.
- Worship and Music leaders will unmask when using the microphones to address the assembly but will remain masked at all other times, especially when serving Holy Communion.
- We ask that the congregation practice social distancing while in-doors. We ask family/friend groups (pods) to sit together and to keep several chairs apart from other pods.
- We ask that fellowship and longer conversations be held outside when the weather permits.
- On Aug 15 (and on the Sunday’s that follow) we will serve Holy Communion.
- We will not have a nursery until Children are allowed to be vaccinated. The Cry Room and Nursery will be open to parents if you need this space to take your own child for a break.
- Please sign-up for worship online through our weekly emails so that we can use this for contract tracing.
- We continue to urge you to be friendly and helpful to visitors and those who are new to our community of faith. We have a good reputation for being warm and hospitable, let us continue to strive for this in our community life together.
- We ask for your patience and support as we relearn once again how to worship together in our indoor worship space. Again, we are all relearning how to be a worshiping community under the same roof.
COVID-19 was apocalyptic. That is, using the word “apocalypse” from its original Geek, “an unveiling” or “to reveal”. COVID-19 revealed a lot about our world, ourselves, the communities we live in, and the Church.
COVID-19 revealed again three areas of common life the Church has not had a stellar record on; Science, Race and Gender, and being the Church without being tied to a building.
While I’m proud of our congregation with the work we have done in these important areas of life, community, stewardship, and faith, there is still a lot of work to be done. We are committed to keep working and learning and relearning how to engage these critical and important topics and issues. We ask you to partner with us in this journey.
As we regather with one another, we will once again re-center ourselves in our core values of “Worship, Faith Formation, Lutheran Campus Ministry, and Outreach” while remaining rooted in our mission of “Loving God, Loving Neighbor”. We are in our 75th year as a congregation in the Lutheran expression of the Church. What a great opportunity in the days and months ahead of us to reflect on what God has done in the past, what God is doing now, and what God will do with and through us as a community of disciples following Jesus together.
See you in person soon!