In South Bay United Pentecostal Church vs. Newsom, the Supreme Court of the United States decided against the Church's request for a temporary injunction of California's safety guidelines regarding reduced gathering size due to the COVID-19 pandemic. California's guidelines limit religious worship services to 25% of a building's capacity or 100 attendees. The concurring opinion, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, upholds California's guidelines because they work to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. The dissenting opinion, written by Judge Kavanaugh, states that the order violates the First Amendment because it is discriminatory against places of worship and in favor of secular businesses.
Miscellaneous Facebook Posts from the First United Methodist Church of East Liverpool posted during the month of May. Includes inspirational messages, videos, and images
As the COVID Pandemic prevented Commencement Exercises for the class of 2020 at St. John's Prep the Headmaster and Principal delivered 280 diplomas. The delivery process took 14 days, 1,100 miles and went to 64 towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Pictures profiling each delivery can be found here: https://stjohnsprep.smugmug.com/2019-2020-School-Year/Diploma-Deliveries/
We attend a small, rural Indiana church (less than 40 members). Our 13 year old plays piano for our services, and during this time of lockdown both my parents, who live in southern Indiana, and my husband’s parents in Jacksonville, Florida have been able to join us for services via Zoom and listen to their grandson play. It has been a gift.
Women of the ELCA has two projects to share. One is our Tuesday Prayers at Noon for women across the church to pray together virtually. We offer a downloadable PDF and instructions on the site: https://www.womenoftheelca.org/blog/news/pray-with-lutheran-women-across-the-church-every-tuesday-at-noon
Another is a letter-writing campaign: Dear Friend in Christ where we are facilitating a letter exchange to sustain community. The instructions are here: https://www.womenoftheelca.org/special-initiatives/dear-friend-christ
During the first year of my retirement after 50 years of ministry in the United Methodist Church I wrote a book to help others recover and grow through disasters. I lead Growing Through Grieve Groups for over 15 years. I did this from what I experienced and learned from the grief and sudden loss of my wife. I have served in countless disaster recovery projects and I realize the importance of long-term care by the faith community.
My fiance and I have moved relatively recently (going on 2 years ago now), and, during the pandemic, we've gone back to worshiping with our previous congregation (which is actually where we met). We meet on Zoom and the clergy conducts the whole service synchronously there. It helps us still feel connected. We also like that we can have our sound off and talk to one another during the service, offering our comments or reflections. We wish this was a part of normal church; it helps us feel more actively involved. The service includes a more extended sharing of "joys and concerns" at the time of the prayers, and people take turns being the lesson readers, etc.
