WORSHIPING TOGETHER FROM HOME

It is so tempting to get out of the habit of worship attendance. Right now we have the pandemic as a ready-made and understandable excuse for not worshiping on a regular basis with our faith community. Maybe you don’t like “watching” worship on the screen, or the technology is a lot, or it’s not the same when we can’t be in the same space. In a season when we are asking when the pandemic will ease so we can get back to some “normal,” it is tempting to ignore 10 a.m. on Sunday morning and opt for practicing our faith alone.

I wonder if that is how the people of God felt during the time of the Babylonian exile. Taken as captives into a foreign country, the Israelites left behind the location of their communal worship – the temple. It had been the center of their religious life and the house they had created, by the power of God, as a home for God. But here they were in an unfamiliar land far away from God’s home and they assumed, far away from God. They were scattered from one another, some taken into exile, some left in Jerusalem still able to worship at the temple. But as those taken into captivity lived into their new situation, they developed a system of worship in synagogues, local places of worship and faith instruction, that helped them stay connected to one another and worshiping a God who was not confined to that temple home in Jerusalem.

Friends, we can worship from home together! I really want to encourage you to join the livestream of worship on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. (the link is found on our website www.prairiechurch.org). Gathering with the community of faith, even from our separate places, connects us as community in a common experience.

Livestream worship is our current “synagogue,” our place of worship and instruction, that helps us stay connected to one another and to God. If you have a little more time on Sundays for more than worship, join one another for Zoom Fellowship at 10:45 a.m. (http://bit.ly/BeckyJomtg).  Grab a cup of coffee and a treat from home and enjoy conversations with one another, much like you would in the fellowship hall before the pandemic. 

These are the ways we have right now to be church on Sunday morning, and I hope you will lean into them. There is something powerful when we are all worshiping from our “home churches” at the same time hearing the same good news, and then gathering to see one another’s faces, even from our distance, that continues to bind our faith community together.

But if you were not able to join us at 10 a.m. on Sunday, did you know there is still an opportunity for you to worship? Perhaps the easiest (and most consistent) way to access our worship after Sunday morning is on our YouTube channel.  You can find the most recent worship services here, as well as all our recorded worship services during the pandemic.

Like the exile did for the Israelites, this pandemic has challenged the comfortable and familiar ways we have been able to stay connected to God and to one another. For nearly two years we have had to find new ways to worship and connect to one another in our faith community. While I hope this season of predominately livestream worship is short (I’m such an optimist!), let’s not lean into that as an excuse to sacrifice worshiping together. The community of faith instructs, sustains and blesses us.

I hope you will stay connected with one another through livestream worship and Zoom fellowship in this season ahead.

Blessings,
Pastor Becky Jo