Dear brothers and sisters,
I apologize if I am overloading your mailboxes, but want to keep you posted on what your congregation is doing and how you can serve and be served with the Word of God and acts of kindness!
Yesterday Livestream Service
I hope some of you were able to tune into our livestream broadcast yesterday on our facebook page. You can still find the video there if you missed it yesterday. You can also check out our youtube page (search st. paul clintonville and subscribe to save the website and get an update when a video is posted) or go directly to our website, hover over the resources tab, and select sermons. You will find all past sermons as well as each new video posted there within a day. Here is the link for that page: http://www.stpaulclintonville.com/sermons
Sunday Service
This Sunday Dave and I hope to have the full service recorded for you live on both facebook and youtube so that you can worship right along with us as if you were present at our normal time of 9am! I will have the bulletin posted on the main page of the website and sent to you by email before the service so you can follow along. Once the livestream is over, those videos will still be available after the fact and you can view them at any time.
Other Opportunities
Next week Wednesday, I plan to have a few sets of "open hours" for members to come to church for spiritual encouragement, mail, offering drop off, and/or personal communion. You will be able to arrive at any time during those hours as long as we have not exceeded the limit of 10 inside at the time... if we have, Dave Schley or I will simply ask you to come back in a little bit or to wait a few minutes. The hope is this will provide a way for you to remain connected to the Lord's Supper and give you an opportunity to touch base with me if you have a concern or need guidance that I can help you with. Those hours on Wednesdays will be 10am-12pm and 5:30pm-6:30pm and 7:00pm-8:00pm.
Offerings
If you are able and would like to still give faithfully during this time, there are a couple of ways you can do that. You can mail your offering to the church's address at 31 N. Park St.. You can drop it off during those open office hours or another time if you call pastor and let him know when you can come. Or you can directly drop off a check or amount to fox communities credit union and apply it to the church's account. I will ask Dave Heup for online options that may be available as well. Again, this is not something you should feel obligated to do, but if you would like to keep supporting the ministry of your church and give to the Lord, there are opportunities for you to still do that!
Service
One of the hardest parts of the time right now is the isolation it brings especially to those who are higher risk to the virus. On top of this, we also have members who do not use or have internet access and are not receiving all the updates, devotionals, and connection through livestream, email and social media. We want them to feel connected to each other, to us, and to Jesus as well! The question is... how do we do that?
One way we think we can do that is by dropping off "mail" by their door. That mail would include printed copies of these emails, the bulletin, the sermon, and any other notes or ideas you have! Part of this effort will require some help from you! I would love to assemble a "team" of willing deliverers who can bring these materials and correspondence to those members who are disconnected from others and the internet. Do I have any volunteers? My thought is this can be done sometime between Friday afternoon and before Saturday evening. That way they can have materials after they have been printed and prepared and before our normal time of worship on Sunday. If you are willing and able to be an "angel" (messenger) then respond to this email with, "I want to be an angel!" Or you can simply say, "I would like to help!" There shouldn't be that many deliveries to make, but having a larger team makes light work. Let me know!
Also let me know if you would like to be added to the delivery list for these materials or if you would like a volunteer to pick up your offering.
One other thing I would like to ask you all is, do you need any needed supplies? Are there any of you, because of health concerns, who need help getting groceries or anything else? If so, we could also create a team to shop and deliver those supplies to you as well. Let me know if there are any other ways that we can help each other during this time!
Faith, Hope, and Love
We get to love God and neighbor as a reflection of the hope we have as Christians even in times like this. We know we have everything in Christ and nothing can take that from us. That gives us the motivation to love and serve one another no natter what. God be praised!
As I close this "novel";)... I would like to leave you with these words form Hebrews that have been on my mind as we consider how we can continue to spur one another on to love, serve and gather around the Word together, even as the Day approaches:
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:23-25
In His service,
Pastor