Until recently, going to “church” has meant walking into our building at 13th and Pearl, and gathering with you, my beloved community. After several months of social isolation because of COVID, I began to suspect that church, as we knew it, was over. Now I am beginning to understand that church is not the building, but the beloved community. The people. You and me.
In the past weeks, here are some of new ways I have experienced “church.”
Standing on the grass in the courtyard of St. Thomas beneath the trees dancing in the wind, beside my masked friends, hearing the familiar words of the Eucharist.
Seeing you praying, reading scripture, or singing in your living rooms and yards for the Sunday on-line service.
Sitting beneath the magnificent vault of the blue sky over the courtyard of St. Mary’s, watching wisps of cloud float by, surrounded by bushes, flowers, butterflies, and other parishioners in chairs.
Standing in the pulpit at St. Mary’s, preaching to a camera on a tripod to Bingham and to you in my imagination filling the empty pews.
Saying the Our Father together during worship with a small crowd under the sweeping wooden roof of picnic shelter at Lively Park at the annual picnic. And then saying it again on the lawn for the camera so everyone else could see it later online.
And the biggest surprise of all: many, many Zoom worship services, meetings, and small group programs, where I get to see my computer screen filled with a “real-time,” living mosaic of us TOGETHER: praying together, listening together, sharing, loving, grieving, and growing together.
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.” He did not say, as long as you are in the church building, or as long as you are in person. All that is required is to gather in his name.
I encourage you to gather in any way you can. Check out the Zoom services, the online services, Zoom coffee hour, and the small in-person, socially-distanced services. Together, we are still church, and Christ is clearly in our midst. Together, we are learning many new ways to be church, and to be the body of Christ in a struggling world.
Questions? Email: christine@saint-marys.org
