A Word from the Pastors | 1-28-21

A Word from the Pastors

St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, in its 91st year, is one of those congregations with an older, more traditional building (completed in 1940) that includes a bell tower and one single bell. For many years that bell has been used to announce worship or to mark other occasions, both joyous and sad. For example, when Senator Barack Obama was announced to be the projected elected 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, Pastors Neil and Gwen vigorously rang that bell with grateful hearts and tear-streamed faces. That’s just one of many times that the bell has been used.

The tower bell hasn’t been used that much since March, 2020 when in-person worship in our sanctuary was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the Pastors have used a little set of four bells on a red cord, rung at their kitchen table most Sundays to begin Zoom worship. (Some have told us that they don’t hear these bells on their computer or phone, but we do it anyway.)

The tower bell was recently used again.

On Tuesday, January 19 at 5:30PM we joined churches across the nation in ringing the church bell 400 times to remember the 400,000 Americans who have died of COVID. With Pastor Gwen keeping the tally on a dry erase board, and Pastor Neil pulling the rope that was attached to the moving clapper that hits the stationary bell to produce a dull thud of a ring – “gong… gong… gong”. It took us about 20 minutes to remember and to commemorate all those lost loved ones. Fearing that we couldn’t even fit 400 strike marks on the tally board, with each mark representing 1,000 deaths of that 400,000 total, we recalculated; each strike mark Gwen made actually represented 5,000 deaths. It was very humbling to participate in this memorial remembrance. Our tally board displayed 80 strike marks, and that was also humbling. As of 12:45AM on Thursday, January 28, the US total number of deaths that I saw listed was 440,282 and continuing to add up.

On Wednesday, January 20 around noon, we rang the church bell as the administrative leadership officially shifted from Trump to Biden. The “very stable genius” had already left the White House and planed off to Florida with the song “I Did It My Way” blasting at Andrews Air Force Base.   This time Pastor Neil pulled the rope that swung the tower bell itself back and forth to strike against a stationary clapper to create a more vibrate sound – “ding-dong!… ding-dong!… ding-dong!”. While millions of Americans are disappointed that Trump did not win re-election – and some were willing to resort to a violent insurrection – over 7 million more citizens who voted are looking forward to a change in leadership character, more stability and reality, and a focused effort to combat the pandemics of COVID-19 and of systemic racism. We ought not continue to divide our country into “red and blue”, “left and right”, “black and white”, “masked and unmasked”, etc. Let’s try to really listen to each other with humility, work at peace and justice for all, and heal what has been broken or ignored or denied.

Sunday School

On most Sundays, immediately following Zoom worship and beginning a bit after 11:00AM, there will be Zoom Sunday School for children and teens. Tune in. Invite. Pastor Gwen was talking this very day of January 28 to a St. Peter’s senior, living down south, who just received her Christmas gift packet from the Sunday School. So many of our seniors, near and far, have expressed gratitude for these expressions of love that were disguised as hand sanitizer, adult coloring books or puzzle books, candy, homemade cookies, etc. No guarantees that those cookies will not break a tooth!

KenCrest

This is one of three local social ministry organizations that we continue to support through four LUTHERAN CHARITY APPEAL envelopes placed in our offering envelope boxes in the months of January, April, July, and October. KenCrest provides educational services to children and their families in Philadelphia. It also provides community-based support services community support services to people with developmental or intellectual disabilities in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Over 12,500 individuals are helped to live their best lives.

We recently received a thank-letter from KenCrest for our congregation’s 2020 support in the amount of $478.76. Two sentences: “We firmly believe 2021 will be a year full of tremendous possibilities. Your gift ensures that we can fulfill that promise and continue to explore possibilities, mobilize resources, and empower dreams.”

The other two local social ministry organizations that we support with those LUTHERAN CHARITIES APPEAL envelopes are Lutheran Settlement House; and Gemma Services (which includes Silver Springs/Martin Luther School).

We are grateful that, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to worship shared from our homes and to some economic challenges for some families, persons still remembered and were able to offer financial support to a compassionate ministry of 115 years.

Youth

Please keep our children and youth in prayer as they too deal with the challenges and changes, the dangers and depression that COVID-19 has brought to daily living. Beyond the pandemic, they are also aware of and affected by the political unrest in our nation, the cry once more for racial justice in the United States after all these years, and our tested and troubled environment.

About a dozen St. Peter’s adults will participate in the ELCA Youth Extravaganza beginning February 4 and occurring online this year. It will be a time to be inspired, to learn, to link with others.

The ELCA National Youth Gathering, which was postponed from 2021, has been scheduled for 2022 in Minneapolis. Get lost, COVID! There are 25,000 screaming, serving, saintly kids who are looking forward with faith, hope, and love!

Hmm…

Vaccines are being distributed here and there… people are continuing to pray and to practice safety measures… and our confident hope is that there will be a time when COVID-19 has lost its teeth and is no longer a great threat to our collective lives. Will we have to wait until sometime in the summer? And, when that blessing breaks out upon us and we feel free, what will worship be like?

Church consultants believe that we’re not just going back to “normal”, that we will need to adapt. Many people do not want to give up physical, in-person gathering, and they long to gather together once more with others in the sanctuary. But many others have found connection and blessing through

digital, online worship. Church consultants encourage congregations to think about “hybrid” worship  

that can address both directions.

Pastors Gwen and Neil, Pastor Clesha Staten, and Veronica Britto have met once with a media consultant (he helped us previously with our sound system and our more recent cordless microphones)

to discuss possibilities.

What might your preferences or ideas be? It looks like we have some more time to think…

 Pastor Neil & Pastor Gwen