Good morning Church,
What a week!
With the best practices around health changing all the time, the church council has decided to cancel in-person worship for this Sunday. I know that I’ve sent you a few different notes in the past little while – it has been necessary to be flexible and adaptable. This is something that I think Grace United Church does very well.
Instead of in person worship, we will invite you to participate in online worship. More details about that in a moment…
We decided to postpone in-person worship in order to keep everyone in our community safe, and especially the most vulnerable.
Of course, we can all pray at home and at anytime. Personal worship is a wonderful thing. At the same time, Christians value public worship. There is something special when two or three gather in Jesus’ name. In the current climate, I believe that the best way of doing public worship is actually not in person, but online. This will allow more of you to participate in worship together.
Tomorrow I’ll be trying two methods of online worship.
1. At 10 am, I’ll start a recording via Facebook live. It should be possible to follow via the Grace United Church Facebook page.
2. I will be starting a Zoom meeting. Zoom is a video conferencing app. The cool thing about Zoom is that it allows participation. Facebook live is just me talking at you. In Zoom, you can talk too! To get Zoom, you may need to download an app. This is the web address to join the meeting: https://us04web.zoom.
Although worship will be starting at 10 am, I will begin the Zoom meeting at 9:30 am. If you are new to Zoom, please try connecting at 9:30 to make sure everything is working ok. If you are having any trouble, give me a call at 819-593-1112. Once you are set up, you could leave the meeting and come back at 10 am.
You are also welcome to come early and chat!
This is the plan for tomorrow morning:
9:30 Natalie is available by Zoom. Feel free to gather early to practice the technology and/or chat.
10 am Facebook live meeting starts
10 am You can follow the worship service via Facebook live or Zoom. I’ll start with a children’s story. Later, we will pray, reflect on scripture, talk and be inspired by a postlude by Petya. I’m attaching a colouring sheet to this email. If any kids want to colour it and send me a picture, I would love that!
10:30ish: You are invited to make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and remain on Zoom for « coffee hour.
I hope to see you tomorrow!
Blessings,
Natalie