Ash Wednesday, Snow Sunday | Feb 12
For all those who are braving the weather for COVID vaccinations...Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. For all those who have suffered injury due to a fall on the ice or an auto accident...Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. For all those who are cold, who don’t have an adequate place to warm up, have had utilities cut off...Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. For all those who must make a trip here or there, to work or for medications, to check on a relative or get groceries...Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.
We join our voices and our hearts together, Faith, in praying for the urgent needs during these days of bitter cold and winter weather. Anything we can do to help each other and keep each other safe, we must do. You’ve probably heard we are closing our building this Sunday and asking you to worship online with us. Pastor Heather and I both live close to the church. Along with our husbands, we will get there and produce the livestream to send out to you. Know that it will probably look and feel a little different, but in the gathering, the Holy Spirit will show up.
Ash Wednesday is just five days away. Our worship service will be Feb. 17 at 7:00 pm. You can count on us having an online Ash Wednesday observance. We are evaluating how safe it is for us to offer an in-person option. Since the plan right now is to offer both, we need you to reserve a space if you plan to worship in person. We need to make sure we don’t exceed our limit of 100 persons in the sanctuary. As an unexpected bonus, this also gives us an accurate list for notification in case we must make a last minute decision to cancel in-person worship due to weather.
This marker for the beginning of Lent is important to Christians all around the world. At Faith, Ash Wednesday has meant picking up a wooden cross as you came to the kneeling rail to pray and receive your ashes. Our observance has always included special music, a time of silence, liturgies of confession, and a shared solemness. I’ve asked some of you to respond to the question, “Why does Ash Wednesday matter to you?” We’ll show your responses on Wednesday evening. My answer is given in the most recent episode of my podcast, “Conversation Again.”
In the fall, I started a podcast to share thoughts that need more conversation. It is my podcast and my voice, not the voice of Faith UMC. I put up new episodes each Monday at noon. The podcast is available on most podcast platforms: Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and a few others. The episodes are never longer than 5 minutes as they are intended to be conversation starters. This latest episode is timely for the week ahead.
I close with the loss I feel of being online only this Sunday. I always want to be face-to-face with you, Faith -- even if we have to wear masks. This weather situation would likely have meant canceling worship in our pre-pandemic world. Amazing that out of a pandemic, we now have the ability to keep all safe and still join together in worship. I hope to meet you there this Sunday morning.
Love always,
Pastor Charla
