Month: June 2021

Here’s video from our worship service today. Here’s video of our worship service this morning! Thank you to our guest musician Laura R.!

Dear friends in Christ,
I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the return to warmer weather after such a chilly weekend. There are a few things going on in our church I’d like to highlight:

Indoor Worship is Back: Every Sunday @10am

As of May 30th, we are back to having worship indoors! It was wonderful to see many of you in person on Sunday. I attached a picture of a couple things from Sunday. Thank you to our ushers, deacons, and volunteers for making things look good and run smoothly!

For now, we’re retaining social distancing, masks, and sign ups ahead of time or at the door. We’ll review our COVID precautions on a monthly basis. This Sunday we’ll have communion using the prepackaged elements we’ve been using outdoors, and there will be outdoor Sunday school and nursery care.

Sign up for this Sunday 6/6 can be found here or you can contact the church office.

Celebration Sunday Picnic 6/6

This Sunday 6/6 after worship we will be having a picnic on the green! Grinders and chips will be provided. Bring your own beverages, chair, and ,if you’d like, a dessert to share.

Strawberry Shortcake to Go! 6/13

On Sunday 6/13 from 5-7:30 we’ll have strawberry shortcake! You’re welcome to take it home, or you can bring a chair and enjoy it on the green. Shortcake is $7. I’ve attached the flyer.

Here’s a link to the Facebook page for the event.

General Comments

Though we had a rainy weekend, it worked out that the town Memorial Day parade was moved to Monday. I’ve attached some pictures from the parade. It was lovely to see many of you either marching or watching the parade! 

In my prayers for worship this past Sunday and during the invocation for the town Memorial Day ceremony, I used part of a poem called “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon. The part I used was this:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

The full poem can be read here.

Some of the services for Remembrance Day in the Church of England use the poem in the liturgy, which is how I first encountered it. One of the things that struck me when I studied abroad in the UK during college was the profound sense of loss and national grief, still present today, when remembering the First World War. The British suffered over 700,000 deaths in that war, and the United States has only experienced that sort of wartime loss during the Civil War.

It makes sense that our U.S. day to remember our war dead grew up out of the Civil War. On Memorial Day in the town I grew up in, they would read the names of the war dead starting from the Revolutionary War. The longest stretch of names by far is the Civil War, the men lost from the Grand Army of the Republic.

As years have gone on and the ways we conduct war have changed, fewer Americans are dying in war. But, this means the losses and burdens of war are borne more unevenly by a smaller population across our nation. It makes it easy for many to ignore the cost, but the cost is still there. Men and women still will not grow old. Until the day when all wars shall cease, we can remember those lives lost. And, we can be ever mindful of the costs of war, including the health and well-being of veterans who survive. And we can always pray for that day when all nations will be gathered in safety and harmony under the banner of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

Peace,
Katrina