A Note about Joys and Concerns from Rev. Leah
It’s an understatement that a lot has changed since that “It will just be for a couple of weeks!” shut down in March. At the Fellowship, worship has been especially transformed by the necessary extension of the time we need to physically distance.
As we kick off the program year on September 27th, we will begin archiving our entire worship services indefinitely on our website. This will make them available to you and anyone else who might like to enjoy them on their own time! However, to make that work, we need to change our dearly held tradition of sharing our Joys and Concerns aloud. We will no longer announce the specific names and detailed news of our members and friends.
There are two major reasons; first, we have safety concerns, especially about news that mentions the names of children and/or other vulnerable people and their situations. Second, there are different privacy issues inherent in a video that will exist forever online. We are already hearing from members and friends that they are less interested in sharing personal news in virtual worship, and it becomes more of a factor in relation to archiving.
What has not changed and will not change is the fact that we care about one another. We will still take time during each service to acknowledge that joy and concern are present among us, and we will begin inviting people to type into the chat box any news they wish to have us know about and hold in our thoughts and prayers. People may respond to each other but these written comments will not be retained or made available following the service.
We will still send out an email containing any and all news submitted during the week by contacting me or any member of staff or filling out our form. If you would like to receive this email, please contact cyndi@fvuuf.org to subscribe.
If you have any feedback to share about this change (or anything else!), or simply want to reach out and say, “I get it but it makes me sad,” then I hope you will contact me or Rev. Christina. We join you in feeling challenged in balancing all the changes these days and welcome your feelings and perspectives.
A lot has changed, and likely will keep evolving. Let’s keep in touch with one another, and continue to share about our lives.
Love,
Leah