Finding Faith ... in returning to in-person service

By Intern Pastor Devlyn Brooks

Faith Family … I am thrilled to announce that our Church Council voted on Wednesday night that we will return to in-person worship for the first time in more than a year on Good Friday, which falls on April 2.

By the time we see each other in person in about a month, it will have been about 55 weeks since the last time we gathered together to worship. … More than a year, and so much has changed.

There are cherished brothers and sisters in Christ who will not be among us when we return to in-person worship. Maybe even some of our customs and traditions will be shaped by the global pandemic in which we all lived through together this past year. And I can tell you that I certainly am a different pastor than I was on March 15, 2020, the last time we were together.

But there is also a lot that is the same. Our Sanctuary is still as beautiful as it always has been. The Holy Spirit’s presence is still vibrant and palpable every time we gather for worship in our church. Our youth programs are still energized, and our kiddos love learning about God with their friends. And we still have many active ministries, including our Faith Women, Men’s Group and our care team that dedicatedly looks after our members who are ill or in need of support. And for all of that I am grateful.

I also want to thank all of you Faith Family, for your patience, your perseverance and your understanding as we navigated this past year. I’ve said it many times, but there just is no playbook for guiding a church through a pandemic, and so there were times we often had to make it up as we went this past year. But, all in all, I think we will come out the other side a better church for it. And you are to be thanked for entrusting the leadership to our council, and to a rookie pastor, when any logic would have said otherwise.

We still have a lot of unanswered questions about our return and even our near future. We are still in the process of what worshipping in person will look like on Good Friday and Easter, and we will need your feedback to help us figure all of that out. Elsewhere in the newsletter, Lisa will be describing more about that.

But even after the Holy Week, the council, the Music & Worship Committee and I still have a lot of work to do to determine what regular in-person worship will look like. This will not be like just flipping a switch and everything will be back to normal. This will be more like a gradual process to figure out logistics, worship details and so many more things. And so I will again ask for your patience as we work all of this out. Based on our past year together, I am confident that we will make the right decisions to keep our Faith Family safe and healthy, but also on the path to regular in-person worship.

Faith Family, I cannot express in words how thrilled I am at the thought of seeing you in our pews in just about a month. While it has been an honor to serve Faith Lutheran this past year as we made our way through the pandemic, I have to say the thought of preaching to people in the pews, and seeing our bouncy youngsters in the church again, gives me chills!

By the next time you read an article by me in the Faith Lutheran newsletter we will have worshipped together, and for that I am grateful to our steadfast and loving God who has walked right alongside of us through this entire journey, step for step. … God is good all the time. All the time God is good!

Until next time, blessings to you all!