Dear St. Stephen’s,
I hope you have had a chance to read Bishop Reddall’s message to all of us in the Diocese of Arizona from yesterday. Per her instructions, we are temporarily halting our worship services and other in-person gatherings until at least April 20th. We will see where things stand with respect to the virus COVID-19 at that time.
To allow us to still have some time of worship and prayer, Mark and I are looking into the best way to stream live video or record our Sunday morning worship. This Sunday will be our first attempt to do this sort of virtual worship. We ask your patience as we do our best to share with you the prayers, hymns, Scripture, sermon, and communion of our worship via our computers.
Also, you will be contacted soon by one of our vestry members to set up something of a phone tree to keep us in contact during the next few weeks. The church will continue to maintain office hours on Tues, Wed, Thurs – 10am to 2pm. Either Mark or I will be available to speak with you on the phone or in person. If you have a need on other days or at other times, you can call your vestry point of contact or leave a message on the church phone. Those messages are forwarded to me and Mark automatically.
Although we won’t see you in person for a bit, we ask that you please keep your pledges current. We still have our bills to pay and facilities to keep operational. Send it in the mail, use our online donate button on the website, or drop it by the office during business hours. You may wish to consider consolidating your weekly offering into a multi-week or monthly offering.
And, by the way, we are keeping our facilities open for the NA, Domestic Abuse Survivors, and 12-step groups since times of heightened stress may make those meetings all the more necessary for the health of our community. Also, our kitchen remod continues for now, as long as workers are healthy.
This time of limited church will also displace or cancel our Holy Week and Easter services this year. I am planning to have those services streamed or recorded and I know it won’t be the same as our usual celebrations… we are truly wandering in the wilderness this Lent… However, we know how the story ends – with the resurrection and therefore we remain grateful and hopeful and joyful despite the concerns around us.
Please contact me or other church members if you have a need that we can help you with. You all remain in my prayers for health, safety, and fellowship (at a distance).
Peace,
Allison+
Follow-up to Bishop Reddall’s message on the Covad-19 Virus by Rev. Cornell