Dear Hope Church friends,
The Hope Church consistory met this morning in a special session and has decided to suspend all physical gatherings in the Hope Church building until further notice. The consistory will review the emerging situation and determine when we can begin meeting in person again.
Many more details will be shared early next week regarding the plans we are making to provide care, communication, and support through this unprecedented time. We have added all emails addresses from our church directory into this church-wide email system given the urgency of communication in this time and ask you to check email regularly. Consistory members are contacting the several households who do not have email.
Worship: The radio broadcast of the 11am sanctuary service will continue. The church building will be closed and only critical staff will be present to provide leadership for this service. We are working on providing a video option that will begin next Sunday, March 22. You can find the liturgy in this link: Liturgy Link
We will be sending this liturgy link out each week before worship and it will also be available on the church website as usual. Please use this liturgy to continue to participate in worship as a community from a distance. Be aware that you can listen to the radio broadcast by tuning into 1450AM at 11am or by clicking the “Listen Now” icon on the WHTC website: https://whtc.com/ This icon is toward the top left corner on the black header of their home page.
This Sunday we are offering Healing Prayers as part of our liturgy. We encourage you to name those prayers in the silence that will be offered. Because in the past the pastors have taken the prayers card and continued to pray for these concerns, we encourage you to share your healing prayer request through this link so that we can continue that practice: Link to Healing Prayer Request Form
Pastoral Care: The consistory also discussed how they and the pastors and other staff can continue to provide care and connection in the weeks ahead. We will be sharing some details about this early next week. However, if there are immediate pastoral needs please call the church office and follow the instructions on the voice message for reaching the on-call pastor.
Our meeting ended with Elder Vice President, Celaine Bouma-Prediger offering a poem as our closing prayer. We share it with you as an offering of how we might each receive and inhabit this time from a spiritual perspective:
Pandemic ~ by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
In the Spirit’s peace,
Pastors Gordon, Jill, and Beth