July 15, 2020: Notes from our Online Worship Survey
Many thanks to everyone who participated in our survey on worship earlier in the summer. We continue to welcome and hope for your feedback and thoughts as we navigate these strange new waters of worshipping in community during COVID, and especially as we add a new practice through sharing communion together. We’ve collected the results into a document you can find below:
Worship Survey Notes
Words of Comfort
On Sunday, during my sermon, I invited people to share the words that had comforted, lifted them up, helped them during this time; in other words, what God was saying to them and to us right now. Here’s a sampling of those words. Thank you to everyone who shared.
-Rev. Anne
How Do You Pray At Home
| Rev. Amy and family have adapted their mealtime prayer to ‘elbows’ instead of hand-holding! The prayer is: “Thank you God for hearts to love, for wind and sunny weather. Thank you God for this our food, and that we are together. Amen.” https://www.youtube.com/embed/34SbXTus_lY READ MORE |
Wednesday, April 1, 2020The Gift of Prayer By Helen Christianson
Prayer is a Gift, accessible at any moment, for any situation, in any time of need.It is a gift that unites, strengthens, comforts, heals. Prayer crosses over any barriers.
Prayer is a Gift, a gift of love from God.
Know that in these days of uncertainty and all that it brings in our country and in the world, the intercessors are in ongoing prayer for all people.
We all need each other so very much and cannot do our lives without one another: a huge blessing beyond words. That is truly a Gift from our loving God who never leaves us or forsakes us.
Saturday, March 28, 2020On Sacred SpaceThe Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga
Church, sanctuary, temple—these are our sacred spaces. We set this space apart (“set apart” is the root meaning of “sacred”) to connect with God, to re-center ourselves, and go into the rest of our lives and the world with a renewed sense of God’s presence. In the time of coronavirus when pubic worship spaces are closed, we have a unique opportunity to discover
God in our everyday lives and to create sacred space at home.
Saturday, March 21, 2020THE DAILY OFFICE: A HistoryBy Dr. Susan Calkin
I would venture a guess that most of us begin our day with a routine: wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, have a cup of coffee, and so on. This gets us ready for the day and, should something be missed, the rest of the day is not quite right. This routine keeps us on track and allows us to function in our daily tasks. There is also the habit that can keep us on track in our daily walk with God: the Daily Office. READ MORE
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Wrapping our Arms Around Each Other in PrayerThe Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga
We miss each other. It’s just a fact. We miss each other’s physical, huggin’-and-squeezin’, incarnational, got-the-body-of-Christ stuck between my teeth, gotta get my ¼ donut, get myself to Grace on Sunday to see my people presence. But wise Ruthanne Svendsen reminded me this week that we are spiritual, energetic beings as well as physical ones, and that we can unite and come together in that spiritual energy in a way that is pretty darn tangible. So let’s try this: Every day, at 7PM (set an alarm on your phone!) stop wherever you are, and wrap your spiritual arms around your whole Grace community.
READ MORE
Tuesday, March 17, 2020The Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga
Dear Ones:
By now you have most likely received the news that Grace Church, along with all other churches in our diocese and many across our state, country, and the world, has been asked to temporarily suspend in-person worship gatherings in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, we will be live-streaming worship, but there will be no one physically in attendance except the servers necessary to lead the liturgy. The congregation—YOU—will be worshipping from home!
READ MORE
Thursday, March 12, 2020The Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga
| Dear Ones, I grieve this deeply, as I know do many of you. We grieve together, and we grieve with many who face great losses in the face of this situation. But, as the prayer book reminds us, we do not grieve as those without hope. “Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Joy awaits us—the joy of having averted an even greater crisis, of saving the lives of people we love, and of returning again to our incarnational, Eucharistic worship as the physically gathered body of Christ. READ MORE |
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