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I know it feels like a long, difficult haul, for almost everyone. The worshipping at home. The not hugging, not smiling, not singing and just not being together, in that beautiful building we call our church on the hill in Glen Morris. We are tired and cannot wait to get back to 'church'.

And yet, as we approach this Sunday, this Pentecost Sunday, perhaps we can look at all this from a different angle.

I have taken some liberties with a post I found on another Christian website and give credit to Bob Jones, the founder of REVwords.com. 

May 23, 2021 is Pentecost Sunday - the birthday of the Church. 

Why not go retro?

And radical.

And party like it's A.D. 33. 

What if every Minister and Board seizes the moment and leads the way in celebrating the Church as who we are, not where we gather.

Return stronger, having celebrated God’s Church at home.

By choice, because we can.

With love, because we must.

Every congregation, large and small, on a levelled playing field, in households.

Acts Chapter 2 kinds of gatherings.

When the days would be used as teaching moments to show our children and each other that faith is bigger than a building and more powerful than a pandemic.

Identity is the origin of significance.

Where pastors delegated the ministry to households.

Where the depth of the experience, not the length of the service, was the goal.

The might and fire of the Holy Spirit would fill rooms and hearts across Canada.

We can be that Church. 

We, the Church, will return stronger, empowered by that Spirit.

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We will be different when we return to 'in-person' gatherings. We have learned a lot about ourselves, each other and what it means to be a church moving into the future. The changes may be difficult but exciting. And we will work on them together because WE are the church.

I must admit that I've enjoyed so much of what has happened online for us each Sunday. When did we ever have the opportunity to gather with a group of 20-40 people for 30 minutes each week before worship just to connect with each other? Not even our in-person coffee times have had that kind of connection, where the chat is organic and often supportive.  We've laughed, we've teared up, shared some great stories and gotten to know each other in the most wonderful way. I will really miss that. And maybe that's something we will try to re-create when back to our new normal. 

Whatever way we do it, the spirit will be in us to be that church, the one that is exciting and new and reaching out to each other and the world. And I'm excited to be a part of it.

Lynn McRuer shared a video with me this week which I am including today. It offers the feelings of choir members and the loss of singing together. But it ends with a 'recorded from home' virtual choir rendition of a piece our choir often sings. It's called 'We Are One' and embodies how we are managing to cope with what we are currently living with and how we will move forward. As one.

 

Karen Murray-Hopf

Communications & Media Coordinatoor