Welcome September! Whatever that means this year?!
It is a new world we are living in. A new world of living put upon us. Facemasks, something I used to see only on pedestrians and bicyclists in China, are now mostly the norm in the city in which I live – at least in stores and schools and churches – if they are open at all. And when I happen to recognize someone behind their mask, while shopping at Target or Menard’s, there is usually a question as to what is next at home, for school, at church – and so often over these weeks my answer has been, “I don’t know.”
Of course, I know what I hope will happen. I know what I am planning, dreaming, scheming, designing, detailing, and discerning. Yet, I do not know what is actually in store for the days ahead. I believe we will keep worshiping outside until it is too cold to do so. I know that we will continue to offer recorded worship every Sunday until the pandemic is over…meaning a widely available vaccine has been provided to the world. I know that school, in Waukesha, will begin face to face for many families though I am hesitant to believe it will last very long. I also know there is plenty of pastoral care being done by myself and now Pastor Tony and Edwin, Vicki, Amy, Brenda and Tamie. Members of our community are struggling with anxiety, fear, isolation, anger, despair. Pastoral care in a pandemic looks like phone calls, text messages, video calls on laptops, hand-written letters, emails, and dropped-off notes in mailboxes. Individual prayers are being tended on Thursday afternoons and by phone appointments in the evening or on the spur of the moment when someone reaches out.
Yes, September will look different this year.
We are walking the road of the pandemic knowing there are hidden turns and roundabouts we have yet to experience. The community of Ascension Lutheran Church also walks this pandemic road. What that means to me is that we are preparing and planning and wondering and waiting and honestly, a fair amount of wandering. The ministries and moments we have taken for granted year after year in the life of Ascension are reshaped, re-imagined, and redirected. One of the questions the staff keeps asking is this: “If we plan it, will they come?”
Since we cannot know the answer to that question, we plan and we pray and hold on to the promise that God is at work especially in these difficult days we walk together. BLAST will happen in homes – Stepping Stones will happen as best as they can in September and early October and if families are not ready to enter into public gatherings, Pastor Tony and I will come to front porches to honor first communion celebrations and bible presentations. We are hopeful to celebrate confirmation in early October outside. We will see what happens. JOLT will happen on two nights with smaller gatherings every other week and CRASH will find new ways to walk together. Adult Education will be offered in some new formats – a zoom video option early in the week and an in-person option later in the week. “Finding Purpose in the Pandemic” will be a new offering this fall inviting members to come together around a one week or two-week topic discussion relating to life, faith, and the journey of the pandemic. Worship will continue to be recorded each week to be presented on Sunday and we will continue to offer outside worship until it is too cold to do so. We are also offering an in-person Wednesday night worship on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of September to highlight the instrumentation in the sanctuary. The one caveat for Wednesday night will be a 50-person cap to maintain a significant physical distance. If people come – great. If not, we will not continue with Wednesday night worship after September. Everything is experimental this fall.
What is not experimental is our continued focus on the good news of Jesus Christ. We will keep preaching hope, love, forgiveness, eternal life – these are the promises our God lifts up for each of us and for all the world. We are tending members and friends of Ascension through all the tech possibilities and sometimes in the old-fashioned ways of pen and paper and stamp. I am grateful for the commitment of the Ascension staff to dream and design their days in order to reach out and engage our community and especially those who are struggling greatly through this pandemic.
We celebrated an amazing ordination for our new Associate Pastor Tony Acompanado. It was an incredible day for our faith community centered on worship and praise to our God. So much excitement for the days ahead. Thank you for joining us and for joining us in our prayer if you could not be there in person. A new parking lot is now a reality and one more piece of our deferred maintenance campus puzzle is completed. I am grateful to the church council for their work, for Daren Maas, our facilities leg leader, and to Mark Pichler, member of Ascension and liaison with the company doing the work in the parking lot. The work on our campus continues. So, too, does the work of ministry. Funerals, premarital counseling, baptisms, counseling, prayer all continue. And our mission to reach out into our community and into our world continues. The Blessing Box continues to see heavy use among our neighbors – a beautiful example of tending the needs of those who literally live across the street from the church campus. Tanzania, el Salvador, and Cross in Milwaukee have all seen the needs of their members, and the needs of the communities in which they serve, rise with the continued days of the pandemic. Your generosity has offered assistance more than once for each community of faith. You also gave enough money to feed 900 students lunch each day for an entire school year in Tanzania – IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC. Thanks be to God for your faithfulness and your generosity.
And, because some of you are wondering, the budget! We continue to see a solid foundation of giving to support our ministries based at Ascension and ministries beyond our walls. Of course, if you are able to give an additional gift in these days – please consider such a gift – a tremendous treasure received by Ascension. I am humbled by your generosity to praise God by sharing of the gifts you have been given. There is so much for which I give thanks to God as we move into a new season of ministry without knowing exactly what the new days of fall will bring. What I do know is what I shared during my sermon at Pastor Tony’s ordination. The words have continued to guide my prayer life and my response to the needs that present themselves as invitations each day.
“Being loved without request and promised eternal life without restraint. This, for me, is grace.”
And this is what Ascension Lutheran Church continues preaching, teaching, and reaching those outside our faith community to the great glory of God. Dear friends – be at peace – even as the world changes and adjusts to these new days – our God is present in every breath, every step, every new day – sharing with all of us the reminder that we are not alone just as Jesus promised us at the end of the book of Matthew: “I am with you always to the end of the age.” Thanks be to God!
Until I see you in church.
Pastor Chris
It just does not seem right to put those two topics in the same sentence.
