Faith leaders share insights to help members
The Rev. Mike Denton
Faith leaders share insights to help members adjust to time of COVID-19
Leaders of regional denominations—the Episcopal Diocese, Catholic Diocese, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Synod, the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest, the Inland Missional United Methodist District, the Disciples of Christ Northern Lights Region and the Pacific Northwest United Church of Christ Conferencehave been sharing insights to help people through these times.
They have been using emails, social media and websites to explore how to be a community of faith in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Mostly they are sharing among their congregations. These articles offer an opportunity for ecumenical sharing.
Each offers insights as they announce that they will not meet for worship and will stay away from each other—contrary to their understanding of faith.
The Fig Tree offers information from these faith leaders, because they sent information. It could not cover what all congregations or wider church entities are doing for lack of person power and time.
The Fig Tree encourages members of each faith community to connect with their congregations and regional bodies, and to use these times as an opportunity to connect ecumenically.
St. Clare's uses technology for worship, meetings
Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the national emergency and the state "stay at home" order, St. Clare Ecumenical Catholic Communion has cancelled Sunday liturgies until further notice.
"We want to be prudent and keep our community safe," said Linda Kobe Smith on behalf of the team. "This is an unprecedented time with many in our community in the high risk population. We will maintain community through media, email and phone calls. We are sharing book groups and Sunday homilies through technology that brings us face-to-face. We are grateful for those who keep us connected.
"Our community is more than our Sunday liturgy," she said. "Eucharist is given and received in many forms."
Temple Beth Shalom finds ways to maintain community
Diane Lefcort, president of the Temple Beth Shalom Board, said that in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and based on input from the USCJ and statements released by Governor Jay Inslee, Temple Beth Shalom decided to be pro-active to reduce the spread of the virus and keep our community safe by cancelling all TBS events and classes through March. TBS plans to move to livestreaming services and are investigating offering some classes through an interactive platform such as ZOOM.
"This will be a challenging time and we will make every attempt to maintain community via multimedia, email and phone calls. We encourage you to stay in touch and let's help to take care of each other," said Diane.
For information, call 747-3304 or visit spokanetbs.org.
UCC churches connecting more online
The Rev. Mike Denton - conference minister of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ
"Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Go ahead and do it again," says Mike in many of his daily posts to the conference's email Google Group.
Early on, he suggested each congregation plan to prepare for the disruption that would be caused by COVID-19. He called for efforts to limit exposure "to ourselves, our communities and those we care for and love."
Mike suggested not having in-person worship six weeks through Holy Week and Easter, cancelling or postponing face-to-face meetings and gatherings (including funerals and weddings), suspending face-to-face pastoral visits and switching to video conferencing, phone calls, emails or letters for the foreseeable future, conversing with groups using the building, promoting online and mail-in giving and designing a recovery plan.
The PNC Board has cancelled the in-person business portion of its Annual Meeting that was scheduled April 24 in Spokane. Other ways will be found online to share workshops and worship.
He called churches to consider offering their buildings for emergency usage if needed, such as if hospitals exceed capacity or shelters need space for homeless people with social distancing.
As of March 21, conference camps were experiencing cancellations, so space was available. Pilgrim Firs at Port Orchard signed on to use its rooms to house people experiencing homelessness who need shelters with social distancing. N-Sid-Sen on Lake Coeur d'Alene has offered its facilities as an Idaho election site to give people social distancing.
"These days are challenging ones and they will not be without pain," he said. "However, I know we would all rather choose some pain now to participate in protecting others from suffering and death. Our behavior and willingness to participate in social distancing, hand washing and disinfecting could lower this number significantly.
"There will be another side of this. We will celebrate and worship together again. In the meantime, may God help us answer the call before us at this time," he said.
The conference has compiled a list posted online that indicates 24 of its 71 congregations have services online through Facebook, Youtube and Zoom.
The PNC also has scheduled gatherings online using Ring Central and Zoom meetings for "worshiping together when we can't be together, a conference-wide check-in, a staff community office hour, pastoral care during an outbreak, children and youth ministers, moderators meeting, church administration and fiduciary considerations and a clergy prayer group.
For information, call 206-838-7575 or visit centeringout.blog or pncucc.org.
Copyright@ The Fig Tree,April, 2020
