Greetings! This is not the way I wanted to reach out to all of you, but I’m finding that things progressed much faster than I had anticipated! I wanted to share some thoughts about everything going on.
I will begin with the decision to not have services at church today. I believe that we should plan on not holding services in person again until April 5th at the earliest. It was not an easy decision at first. The gut reaction is to say that we will be strong and get together because we trust God! But I decided to take a look at this from another angle. If there were 4 feet of snow outside, people would be calling me to let me know that with 4 feet of snow covering a blanket of ice on the ground that we needed to cancel church. We would be too worried about people falling. About people going off the road. About people getting stuck. Because we could see the problem and identify it, we could easily see that we shouldn’t have church. My brothers and sisters, this is the blizzard of our health. We must treat this like it has covered everything in ice. I know that it is not easy, but if we do this, we can more readily understand the need to temporarily stay home. With that, I feel it would be best to hold of on all services and studies at the church until April. I will be working with the Church Council to best assess the situation and stay up to date on community needs. We are a community that holds many high-risk individuals, and I would rather not put God to the test. We will weather this storm. I have faith that we will. God will see us through. With that, I have some thoughts on ways to stay connected and to continue to worship and serve even if we are not in church.
First off, I will be putting the full transcript of my sermons online and in print. I would greatly appreciate that if you would like to receive a printed copy to let a representative of the nurturing, outreach, and witness ministries of the church know. Cyndi Blade at Greenup, Dorothy Cutright at Cottonwood, and Joyce Lock at Lerna. In coming weeks, I will be including devotional materials and other resources, as well as an update from me. If you would like it emailed to you instead of going to my website, please email me and I will see to it that you get a copy.
I will also be putting the audio of my sermons online still and possibly including video at a later time. These will be available every Sunday along with the transcript.
If you are interested in giving online, please contact me. Otherwise, you can mail any offerings to my PO Box or get it to your local treasurer.
While we are in this trying time, I want to recommend using reason as we deal with navigating this new terrain. I strongly suggest checking in on each other. There will be those in the community most at risk that will need to limit how many people are coming and going, but I do not want to neglect the needs of the community. There are going to be increased needs at the food pantry, and we will need to check in on the needs of those in the community. In our church community, I want to encourage everyone to stay in contact and if those who are lower risk can help by going out on behalf of those at higher risk, we can all get through this together. We need to share in resources and be able to help each other in this time of need. Reach out to neighbors. We are stronger together.
If anyone is interested in online groups or interested in how to form one, I am available to help.
Please see the CDC website for information on the Coronavirus. Make sure to wash your hands, as it is the best way to keep from spreading the virus. If you are not feeling well, running a temperature, or otherwise seem to be taking ill stay at home and let someone know. That way someone can check in if you get worse and you won’t risk spreading anything to others.
Please stay safe. You are all in my prayers. I will keep you updated as best I can. If you have any questions, feel free to contact your Church Council Chair or myself.
Rev. Cameron D St.Michael
(316)530-3182 (call or text)
PO Box 54, Charleston IL 61920