From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

I tend to find that there are few worse things than not knowing what's next - I find this is especially true when I travel. I tend to want to have a plan for how to get from one place to another, an idea as to what a schedule will look like when I get there, and some sense of how we will handle departure. The hard thing about this pandemic period is that all of those things are jumbled. We don't quite know how we get from place to place, our schedules are a mess, and we don't really have a departure in sight.

With that said, I do find that when I am on the ground somewhere I tend to go ahead and just start planning regardless of what I know or don't know for certain. So if I don't know what time my group is departing for a site in the morning, I will go ahead and plan an early wake up, arrange my clothes the night before, set out medications and the like for the morning. This is so no matter what is happening in the morning that I am unsure of - I can be sure that I will be prepared for it as best as I can be.

There is a lot that is uncertain right now but what we can do, as a parish, is prepare as best we can for whatever is to come. One example of this preparation is that we are reorganizing the website to make it far easier to find out what is happening now, during this strange time, quickly and easily. While it is nice to have a fairly encyclopedic online presence, it is not the most helpful when our "regular" website doesn't really reflect what is happening right now. So we are creating a streamlined and easy to navigate site so people can find out what's happening online and how to be involved right now.

There are outreach opportunities, formation classes, small group worship possibilities, and more that are being planned as we enter this fall. Our goal is the ensure that no matter how this pandemic unfolds we are prepared to be the church at prayer, work, and witness in this current time. You will notice this Sunday that the sermon makes use of video and images that we normally cannot see during a sermon. It seems good to look for things we can do differently right now even as we can't do all the things we would want to do. 

I can't say being a little more prepared makes me like not having a clear sense of where I am going when I am on a trip. I will say that I find that when I do that extra preparation I find that I enjoy the time better no matter how things unfold. It takes my mind off what I don't know and let's me focus on how I am settling into the time away. So we will find ways in the weeks and months ahead to plan and prepare so that no matter what happens with the pandemic we will be doing all we can to be ready to be open to where God leads us and ready to follow the Spirit's lead.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert