The life of our parish has been thrown into turmoil as a result of our efforts to save lives in the face of a pandemic. It has already been months. Now only the strictest of the many measures put in place have been eased, even then such acts come with dire warnings and talk of “A second wave.” One of the most visible ways that this has affected St. Luke’s is in our weekly worship.

At first, Veronika pulled together tools and know-how to fill the gap and ensure that we would still be able to gather online for what we hoped would be a short time of difficult imposition. Weeks grew into months and what seemed strange and different is now routine for many of us. We worship online, praying together even as we are distant from each other.

After some modest progress in controlling the spread of this terrible virus, a few people are now allowed to leave our homes and stream services from the Nave which we all miss. The skills and tools used to bring worship to you, the parish, worked well enough in the environment of kitchen tables and home wifi. The move back into the Nave has stretched those same tools past their intended use and exposed new technical hurdles to be overcome.

Over the past two weeks the vestry, Veronika, Kate, Sue, and I have been working to fully discover and address the limitations of our infrastructure and technical resources. We are making changes every week in hopes of better gathering St. Luke’s as a community online. One success from these efforts has been the ability to have music played by Kate on our organ as a part of our worship again.

What technology we use to stay connected is only one part of the work that Veronika and I are doing related to worship at St. Luke’s during our diaspora. There are also many theological and spiritual questions to wrestle with when making decisions about worship.

One of the most pressing questions is about what it means for the clergy of our parish to be allowed back into the building by the diocese while parishioners are not. Clericalism, the elevation of clergy above the laity, has led to many abuses in the history of the church. It also does not align with the theology of Holy Orders which the Episcopal church holds as true. Clergy are to be set apart for their duties in their respective office of Bishop, Priest, or Deacon. This isn’t supposed to entitle clergy to any special treatment, any special access to the church, nor especially any special access to be in the room when worship happens.

It gets more complicated when that worship is the celebration of Holy Eucharist, which technically can’t happen without lay persons in the room participating in the prayers being led by the celebrant. More over, we want you here with us to prayer, praise, give thanks, and be the community which is the body of Christ. You are the church and we miss being with you. Our community gathering in faith and love is an important part of what makes us a church.

In light of the new technical challenges of gathering our community online from the physical space of the Nave we are changing some of the ways to connect to the service.

For the next few weeks the service will be recorded ahead of time and then offered online at our usual 9 A.M. on Sunday. You will still be able to watch the service on our Facebook page. In addition, we will be hosting our video on the St. Luke’s Youtube channel. That same youtube video will be featured at the top of our website www.SaintLukesChurch.net on Sunday morning.

Part of this change also means moving away from using Zoom as the vehicle for our worship gathering. We will still have an online coffee hour via Zoom right after church at 10:30 A.M. on Sunday. This sort of gathering is what Zoom is made for and getting to sit and talk with everyone is always a great time.

Links for online worship will still go out in a separate email each week on Saturday.

Our goal is to return to live streaming services on Sunday morning from the Nave once we have overcome our current technical limitations and have developed the skills to offer live worship with the same reverence as we do in person.

All of the work going on behind the scenes to bring worship and fellowship to you is no stand in for the closeness and joy that happens when we can gather in person. Being together again is the hope and eventual goal of every member of the Vestry and staff. Our mandate is love and to love our most vulnerable with equity means that our hope may still be far off. I hope you will join us on Sunday and I ask you to join me in prayer that St. Luke’s will continue to act with wisdom, prudence, and love.

In peace,

Rev. Deacon Chip Russell