We as a faith community are doing alright.
While our building has been closed our community has moved in to the virtual space. After two weeks of streaming with our music director, associate pastor, and my daughter at the Trinity building for morning worship, we moved in to live broadcasts from our homes. After a tip from my husband we figured out how to have the worship team use a zoom meeting which we could then broadcast to Facebook live. Many other churches are prerecording their worship and making excellent experiences for their folks. Our live, imperfect broadcasts are a great fit for the nature of our community. I love being able to interact with those watching live through the comment feature and people can still watch worship later and engage then. It also means we can adjust on the fly to current events and give our resident prankster parishioner the chance to pop up in the window in the middle of a song!
Our weekly gatherings for dinner church, snack church, coffee with the pastor, and mom’s coffee are tolerable substitutes for our physical gatherings. We have even been able to connect with folks who don’t live locally, or who have a hard time making it to some of the gatherings. It’s been good to see each other and while the tech issues and different format take some adjustment, we’re still able to gather well.
We’ve found ways to continue to connect. I’ve been checking in on people via phone and everyone is in a small group. We’ve got a group on facebook where I post a weekly question to help us know one another a little more. Again it’s not the same as when we are able to visit at coffee hour or get together at each other’s homes or out to lunch, but it is a way to continue to love one another.
Our biggest are of struggle has been how we continue to love our neighbors. We gave all the food for the rest f the school year’s backpack buddies program to the local elementary school so they could distribute it to families in need. Some of our other partners aren’t open, so we’re donating to the Oregon Food Bank as a way to care for our houseless siblings and others in need. Leadership is continuing to think about how we can better express love for others as the pandemic continues.
We are fortunate in these times that people continue to donate to the parish. We were able to get the federal pay roll grant to tide us through for a couple of months. We’ve been able to reduce some of our expenses around the building. We cover a lot of those costs from donations from our 24 different building user groups. It is surprising how much toilet paper we go through during the week! Since no one is using the heat or the tp there is no need for these building user groups to donate to cover the cost, and with the PPP we can use the gifts of church folk to cover the insurance and other fixed costs that the user groups pay for with their donations. Telling out user groups they don’t have to make any donations to us during the closure has been important gift to these nonprofits and support groups. Our preschool in particular could not have survived if they had still been paying for the usage costs on their space. The generosity of this parish and the wisdom of our leadership has meant that we could bless and support all those who share our space.
Our parish continues to evolve and shift. I am so thankful for our people who continue to show up, to love one another and our neighbors no matter the challenges or changes.
-Eilidh
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