It is strange not to have the space where we worship available to us. Week after week, year after year we found our lives centered on the sacred story as spoken and enacted in the sacred liturgy. As we seek to honor God we find that we honor that sacred space within ourselves. True worship helps us to be ennobled, enlarged and strengthened by the same spirit that we worship.
As a resilient people, who has been shaped by our liturgy we have found a way to continue much of our community worship via our computers and IPads, etc. As wonderful as this has been, there is still the natural longing to share the sacred space of our church with fellow worshippers.
To that end, a small committee of us has been formed with the express purpose of trying to re-open All Saints Church in a way that is safe and conducive to worship. We have been reading all the directives from the State of New York, as well as all the guidelines from the Diocese of New York and our Bishop and other churches. As many of you know, there has been a lot of reporting about how gathering for worship and singing have all been linked to the spread of the virus. So while we have the aspiration of opening on September 20th, safety is our primary concern. We will continue to monitor the progress of the virus all the while we plan for in-church worship to resume at some point in the future.
In any case, we expect that Zoom will continue to play an active role in our church during this time of lockdown and probably beyond. In the meantime, let us all continue to find our strength and center in the worship of the God who promises to be with us always.