To the St. John’s Community,
My dear friends and fellow Christians, we live in the midst of extraordinary events.
I wonder if your heart and soul have been feeling like my heart and soul this past week - alternately despondent, angry, hopeful, hopeless, determined, overwhelmed. Worship for us is a grounding place for our hearts and souls in such times and we will continue to worship regularly at St. John’s, as our ancestors in the faith worshipped here before us through extraordinary events in the past, like the Civil War, the Spanish Flu of 1918, Two World Wars and the AIDS epidemic. But in the face of our communal response to the outbreak of the coronavirus, we cannot carry on worship in the same way.
So in response to the events of our day, and with a mix of sadness and determination, our co-wardens and I have decided to take the extraordinary step of moving to online worship services effective immediately and for the foreseeable future. We do this especially to protect our beloved elders who are most vulnerable to coronavirus. Tomorrow at 10:30 AM, a small group of us will join myself and Brian John to lead worship from the sanctuary and livestream it on YouTube at our St. John’s Channel where you can join us. Our Parish Administrator, Liz Cumberbacth will help coordinate our livestream.
You can find our YouTube Channel at this link - St. John's YouTube Channel
To participate in the service, we have the bulletin and psalm available for you as links to download - Season of Lent Worship Booklet & Psalm 95 Inclusive Language
You can find the other readings at this link - Lent 3 Readings
At the end of the service, we will offer a special blessing for Don Hernstrom and Liz Hill, for whom this is our farewell as they move to Florida.
All other in person events planned for tomorrow, March 15, are cancelled. Liz and I will work to set up online gatherings soon for these and future meetings - the Family Service, the Racial Equity Food Challenge meeting, and Youth Group. We will hold our Wednesday night Evening Prayer service online and our vestry will hold their regular March meeting online this Wednesday as well. Part of our discussion as your parish leaders will be how we continue on as a community and care for each other in midst of these extraordinary events. We will communicate with you regularly through email and through our parish website, www.stjohns-jp.org. While we will not be open to the public, Liz and I will keep the church's office hours and you can reach us by phone at 617-524-2999 Tuesday through Thursday.
We are embarking on an adventure of faith in challenging times, and while we do not know what will unfold, we do know the core Gospel values that will see us through - love, compassion, mercy, service to others, especially the most vulnerable among us. God is with us in all the times of our lives, ordinary and extraordinary. I am thankful and blessed to be with you all in these times in the name of Christ. See you online Sunday!
Peace and blessings,
Ted+