Yesterday the United Church of Christ posted a series of more than 40 prayers in observance of the National Day of Prayer. Some of you may have seen them on UCC social media or as I shared them on Beloved’s Facebook and Twitter pages. The prayer from the Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick Gray read “In this holy time, when we are physically distant and yet our interconnectedness is undeniable, help us to feel the great web that holds all of us.”

We as a congregation are connected by the bonds of faith, mutuality, and care. The web of that connection has always been evident when we’ve gathered in person – and it has been at least as apparent and meaningful in our recent time of exile from familiar spaces and routines. 

This time has not been easy – and, I say with a smile, it has not been perfect – but we have continued to develop ways to connect through various safe means for worship, fellowship, activism, prayer, study, and other expressions of our kinship with the planet and with one another as God’s people. 

We are a faithful, loving, and interdependent people, in the good times and in the difficult ones.

In recent weeks I have been praying, thinking, and researching about the question of resuming in-person worship. I have been watching the disease trends in our state, listening to the political and ideological debates, and reading long threads of discussion among faith leaders from all over the country.

Over the last two days, I have been in conversation with the other clergy within our congregation, with Vince Perry as our Music Ministry Team Coordinator, and with our ad hoc Community Health Ministry Team. I have also paid attention to the choices made by our elected officials at the local, state, and national levels. 

After much prayerful consideration about all of these matters, I am writing to you this afternoon with my strong recommendation that our 5 pm Evening Worship remain exclusively online until such time as it is safe for all of us – even those in particularly vulnerable categories because of age, chronic health condition, or caregiver status – to gather in person together. 

This is a difficult decision for many reasons. We are all eager to worship together within the walls of our wonderful building. Yet with COVID still a significant threat, it remains unsafe for us to do so in any practical way – and especially unsafe for some members of our community.

I say this with the awareness that such a time frame will likely be measured in months – possibly many months – rather than in weeks – and that such a decision casts us beyond all of our usual navigational markers other than God Godself. 

As hard as it is to envision continuing to do this work in this way, I find it untenable to make our primary expression of church life a gathering that we have to tell some people to stay home from for their own safety. 

I cannot see being the church together – our church – if we do not practice embodied solidarity with one another and most especially with those who are most vulnerable, even when it is not easy. 

Either we are in this together as a community or we contribute to the sort of privilege-based exclusivism that we have historically worked so faithfully to avoid. 

With the clarity that would come from such a decision for ourselves, we can continue to put our primary energies into improving and sustaining online (live Zooming, recorded for YouTube, website, and social media) opportunities for engagement, to the work of connection through phone calls, emails, texts, and Messenger, and to coming up with any other safe modes of communication, connection, and broader community that we might creatively devise.

It is also potentially possible that much smaller groups from within the church might begin to gather in some organized way for reading and prayer at some as-of-yet-undetermined point during the summer.

THIS IS SO HARD – it is all so hard – and it is a further grieving for us all. I am deeply saddened to have to make this recommendation. But I make it resolutely and believe without hesitation that it is the necessary step.

Please let me hear from you. I’d like to hear how this recommendation sits with you. I want to know how you are doing. I definitely want to know if you need anything.

And I want you to know that you are loved. God loves you. Your church loves you. And I love you. This passage from the 8th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans has been my steady guide in these recent weeks and I hope you too know its powerful reassurance – “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Let us dwell in that peace as we continue to find our way forward.

Amen – and blessings to you all,

Rev. Jennifer