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Greetings, church family!
We know this finds some of you reading the subject and sighing, “finally!” and others saying, “I won’t be around for quite a while.” First let us say, wherever you’re at we totally understand the need for each of us to make wise decisions for our families. We love and respect you and we’re so glad to share in this church family together, even as we have been physically apart from one another in an effort to love our most vulnerable neighbors. That is, after all, at the center of the gospel’s call.
In this time apart, we have tried to learn from all the resources available so as to make the wisest choices for our community, including resources made available through the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. We were so fortunate to have direct access to learning from Dr. Frederick Southwick, former Chief of Infectious Diseases for the University of Florida and a professor of Medicine and Molecular Microbiology. As a Christian, a scientist, and a United Methodist seeking to equip local churches in this difficult time, he provided two interactive webinars to give guidance around what provisions should be prioritized as churches consider when and how to reopen. We HIGHLY suggest everyone watch this webinar. You can access it here: https://www.flumc.org/reopening-churches-webinar-video
We’re writing to notify you of the leadership team’s decisions, as well as the process and timing for the resumption of church activities. As you likely have seen, Florida has quickly seen a rise in the number of cases of Coronavirus. Because churches have unintentionally been hot spots for the spread of the virus in a number of places, we have sought to be wise and to always be guided by our three Wesleyan rules: Do no harm. Do all the good you can. Stay in love with God. With those rules, Dr. Southwick’s advice, and the guidance and requirements from our Conference in mind, the leadership team has decided:
We will begin abbreviated in-person gatherings on Sunday, July 19th.
We will continue to broadcast the live-streamed service (a full service which will include music and last approximately one hour) at 10 am since we anticipate that this will be the primary mode for most of the congregation [& just as importantly, folks who have not previously been part of the congregation] for a while. In reading the congregational survey, we learned that there are many who are not yet comfortable with attending so we want to maintain the full-service live stream for those who will worship from home.
Small groups will be able to reconvene on a case by case basis as they wish and in consultation with Leadership. All small groups, if meeting indoors, will have to comply with the mask mandate and should take all the precautions necessary including no group singing and maintaining an appropriate distance. Now is also a great time to start new digital small groups for those folks who have wanted to connect but who might have restrictions about driving at night, being available during kiddos bedtimes, or dealing with work schedules. If you’d like to start a new small group, email us!
While there may be some of us who would prefer fewer stipulations for gatherings, we must remember that there may be folks who would like to attend groups or worship but will only do so if the space is safe. Our efforts to work together, take all precautions and consider those at highest risk are both a matter of hospitality and care for our neighbors. May we, in all we do, remember these words from Philippians:
In humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of human beings.
Grace & Grits and Picnic Project will continue to collaborate on providing maximum food in the form of groceries to the community, likely for the remainder of the year. We are so grateful at how supportive all of the Sanford community has been. Folks who do not go to church, and other churches wishing to support, have reached out and provided assistance in these endeavors through PP and G&G. Folks can receive groceries on either Friday from 10a-12p or Sunday 1p-3p, every week at the alleyway entrance. We are currently seeing about 115 unduplicated families every week and because of PP’s partnership with Second Harvest, they are able to purchase 5-7 days worth of groceries for a family of 3 for less than $6. We also have had an incredible group of church folks who have stepped up to (safely) help sort groceries, glean fresh produce available from local farms, and drive all over the tri-county area to pick up available items when they are free, like milk and eggs. THANK YOU! We see about 10 new families each week, many of whom are folks who have never needed grocery assistance before. Please know to all of you who have helped, donated or just cheered on the work that this has been an incredible opportunity to share God’s love and abundance with our Sanford community. More information will be provided in a couple of weeks about a conference-wide initiative called Fill The Table to engage 100,000 Methodists and provide 3 million meals in Florida. This partnership between the UMC and the AME churches is an excellent opportunity for us Christians to live out God’s love in tangible ways together.
Friends, we know at this time that it feels like there is more uncertainty than firm ground to stand on. And yet there are a few things we can always count on: God has not abandoned us. We are wholly loved. We are called to love in all we are, say, and do, at all times and in all places. And, God will work all things for good, even when they aren’t quite good yet.
We love you and we are always grateful to be your pastors. We are also extraordinarily grateful for the work of the Leadership team in this time. If you think about it and know them, send a thank you the direction of Carole Pegram, Larry Kozak, Sue Eppard, and Dick Willink. They have worked at odd hours and on all sorts of platforms to try and find the best way forward for us as a congregation.
Here is a link to a PDF document that outlines in detail the opening plan and protocols:
Opening Plan and Protocol for Congregation
Grace and Peace,
Pastors Meghan and David
Dear Church Family,
As you likely know now, this week our country saw another killing of an unarmed black person, George Floyd. After a subsequent lack of swift institutional response, other responses came on social media and in the streets from people who are heartbroken, exhausted, and rightfully angered at these continued injustices year after year. When we look at the long history of our country, we know that the violent and unjust treatment of black folks is the norm, not the exception.
Our own Christian history is an illustration of this. When enslaved persons were brought to church in the earliest days of our country, that became the primary place for a reminder that, “slaves should obey their masters.” No talk of Exodus. No talk of Paul’s word that in Christ there is no slave or free, Jew or Greek. No mention of the Holy Spirits radical inclusiveness at Pentecost. Instead, historical records show that the church often became a place that co-signed on the evils of the day and was even the arbiter of selling enslaved people sometimes. Likewise, historical baptismal records show a different catechism for enslaved people and whites. Black folks were forced at their baptism to confess that God had preordained their enslavement and that becoming a Christian meant being a good slave.1
Our own Methodist history is an illustration of this injustice. When Richard Allen was ordained in St George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in 1786, he and other black Methodists were pulled off their knees while praying and thrown out for violating segregation in worship.2 He eventually founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church because of persistent unequal treatment. And when Methodists decided you could not be Methodist and own people, many churches in the south decided to leave and form the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Our own church was formed in those ranks, as evidenced by our own historical documents. We did not all reunite until 1939 when black Methodists were subsequently placed in their own ‘Central Conference’ to limit voting power in General Conference matters. When we finally repented as a denomination in 2000, amidst the AME, AMEZ, and CME churches, Bishop Carr of the AMEZ church shared, “We were compelled to leave not… with what you said, but what you did. Not with symbolism, but with substance. And my hope is tonight that you would move from symbolism to substance.”3
See, our problem has not only been unequal treatment under the law, but a gross portrayal of unequal treatment under God. The church is liable here too. Racial injustice is not a problem that exists ‘out there’, it is sadly in here. It is in us. And as people who believe in the power of sin and repentance, we must have courage to see the plank in our own eye (Matthew 7:3-5).
We are heartbroken for our country and our world, but mostly for our black brothers and sisters who have been trying to speak but who have often been unheard, or who have seen a lack of concrete change. We all know already that this world is not as it should be. And often, when we look around and ask God what to do, God says to his followers, “What’s in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2). In other words, God says to us, ‘Where are you right now? What do you have? Let’s use that.’
We have learned in our own community that when responses came after Trayvon Martin’s killing, people were not simply heartbroken and outraged about his death but the appearance of a system that protects unequally. People were exasperated by a long history of racial injustice that has never been fully uncovered or openly repented of. This inequality travels deeply and across time frames. Many of the families in Goldsboro had their land taken and their streets renamed when the city of Sanford revoked Goldsboro’s charter in 1911, after Goldsboro was the nation’s second black incorporated town.4 While that is simply one story, memories like that may help us better understand why some feel that our institutions have served to cause more harm than help or protect them. We know that not all police seek to do harm, in fact at some protests around the country, police have joined in. We know not all institutions are corrupt and not all stories are those of heartbreak, but when the heartbreak hasn’t been healed, wounds persist. We may not be the same people who created broken systems, but that does not negate our call in rectifying them.
What’s in our hand is the question for us today. How might we bend our ear toward God and our neighbor? How might we make an impact on this world for the sake of the gospel declared by Jesus in Luke 4, who said, “I have been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Our question is: how do we join Jesus in his work in this time and place?
Certainly, there are many folks concerned about the violence that has erupted at some protests around the country. And rightfully, there have been calls for people to organize and make long-lasting change rather than simply to be a fiery flash in the pan that leaves destruction but not much else different. At the same time, we must not forget Martin Luther King, Jr’s helpful illumination,
Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”5
In some listening we’ve done, we’ve learned that many people of color in this country feel like generations of peaceful efforts have still not fully resolved the injustices they know so intimately. Many people of color are exhausted from the decades of trauma which continue to pile up. Many marginalized people in our world are looking for a way to express their voice and to see real social change. We must ensure that such avenues fairly exist or in the words of Howard Thurman, people who “have their backs against the wall”, will continue to feel without voice or fair treatment.6
Imagine the pain of years being abused, mistreated, and fearful, and then there never being a time of public repentance for the things you’ve experienced. Readers of scripture are not unfamiliar with the need for repentance before forgiveness, with the need for the whole story to be remembered and told truthfully. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us (1 John 1:9-10).” Now certainly there is personal sin and there is corporate sin: and in our communal confession we confess both. We confess the personal and individual ways we have done harm or left undone the good which God has called us to do. That is to say that personally doing no harm against black folks does not negate our possibility of failing to do some good to work for righteousness and justice. But we also confess the corporate sin that plagues us and our world, beyond our individual consciousness and personal desires. Yes, we may not have personally used hateful terms, but have we failed to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters helping us to see injustice in our systems? Have we rolled our eyes and asked ourselves why ‘they’re still complaining about…”? Have we maintained our distance from neighbors who are racially or culturally different from us because the stories we hear are too painful?
We know that since much of this congregation has been around longer than we have, and that some of you have been working toward equality and justice for longer than we’ve been alive. This is not to say that those efforts were useless or that all of us have always been on the wrong side of history. And yet as followers of Jesus, we know that sin (like the sin of racial injustice) takes a long time, and many generations to root out. Rarely does a sinner need repenting once. Rarely does a married couple go to counseling for a single session. Sometimes when they cut out the cancer, it takes another surgery to get it all.
We are no prophets and we do not know all the good that needs doing. We are simply young preachers in our first UMC appointment, looking shockingly at the same world you are. We pray our own prayers for wisdom and discernment in these uncertain times. And yet as we celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church when God gave new eyes and new language for each to understand one another;
When God poured out the Holy Spirit on all flesh;
When God commissioned all of us to be part of God’s work in the world
…it seems appropriate that we might ask ourselves, Lord, who are we all to be in this time and place?
So how do we in Bishop Carr’s words move from symbolism to substance? We believe these may be a few things that could start or continue our journey toward justice:
As our friend and pastor at Lakeside UMC, Dan Wunderlich says, maybe we can begin by admitting, “I know there are many things I don’t know. This may be one of those things.”
We love you. We consider it a privilege, always, to be your pastors. And, we know that the Lord isn’t finished with any of us. What have you read that has changed your heart or mind? How has God shaped you, that you might share with the rest of us? Thanks be to God, the creator, sustainer, liberator and redeemer who has promised that nothing in life nor death, no angels nor demons, no powers nor principalities, nothing in this life and nothing in the life to come will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38). May God’s love propel us all forward, onward toward perfection in all we are and all we do.
Grace & Peace,
Pastors David & Meghan
For some reading that has been helpful, check out:
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Living into God’s Dream by Catherine Meeks
References:
What a whirlwind week it has been! Who knew we could cram a whole year’s worth of news, a full hurricane season’s worth of disaster prep & a whole month’s worth of TV into one week?!? We certainly didn’t until now!
We are writing to give everyone some updates about the rhythms of our life together in this new reality. As we thought about the gifts of the early church, we have continually reflected on the gift that it is to know that the Cloud of Witnesses before us have endured great hardship and that they have given us some gifts to order our life together, however we find ourselves ‘together’. As we have reviewed the CDC’s guidelines and been guided by the wisdom of our Bishop and leaders, we aren’t sure when we will be able to worship together in person again. Because those guidelines have changed swiftly, we want to quickly establish rhythms for us in this in-between time while we wait to see what is wisest for our community life.
Worship
We will continue to offer worship Live on Facebook until we are able to be together again. We will post the service to our website ASAP after it is over so those without Facebook can still watch. We encourage you to get the bulletin (will be posted and emailed) and follow along live.
For now, we will only do Sunday morning worship style but in the future, we may include some Sunday evening-style elements. Stay tuned.
Easter
We have made the decision to postpone our celebration of Easter until we can be together again. Since Lent feels exactly like the season appropriate to our lives, we’ll shift our Easter celebration to being our celebration of returning back to communal gathering as well.
Adapting Established Ministries
If you are in a small group or class, check with your leaders about whether you’ll continue to meet virtually or whether it is cancelled temporarily.
New Ministry Opportunities
We know that the Holy Spirit is unbound by time or space or even pandemic. And so, we have a couple new opportunities for ministry together:
So, here’s our community’s weekly schedule–>
We hope everyone still has their ‘water reminder’ (see the worship service from last week if this sounds nuts!) somewhere visible as we walk through these crazy times together! We love you and we consider it the greatest joy to be your pastors. Please let us know how we can help to care well for you in this difficult time.
Peace,
Pastors Meghan and David
p.s. If you know seniors who are food insecure but who may be nervous to come to food distribution for health reasons, please let us know and we can try to arrange for delivery.
Y’all already know we believe that (1) everyone has something to give, (2) everyone has something to learn, and (3) the world literally needs you to be who you are. So, maybe God is whispering JUMP IN! Check out some of these ways we need help around the church or in serving the community. Maybe one of them is just right for you:
Message us on Facebook, call the office (407.322.4371), email us at info@fumcsanford.org or send a carrier pigeon if you’re ready to jump in!
We’ve had an incredible opportunity to begin building friendships with folks from the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford and we’re so grateful! Early on in the Fall of 2017, right before Hurricane Irma, some folks from the Outreach Team at HIC met with us over a cup of coffee and dreamed about how we might work together. We learned that Minaz, their outreach director, had her own medical transport company. She not only offered to connect us to local resources if we needed them, but she also offered the assistance of her community and her own family in the event of an emergency. An offer is nice of course…
But the most powerful thing was that the first phone call I received after the storm was over was from Minaz! She wanted to make sure all of our homebound church members were alright, asked if anyone needed transportation assistance, and even sent some folks from HIC to help another Methodist church clean up after the storm.
Since then, we’ve had a chance to eat together, serve together, tour each other’s places of worship, participate in an interfaith panel hosted at the mosque and share in an Interfaith Iftar during their month of Ramadan. At our most recent visit, the topic of discussion was our world’s shared need to embrace humility, conversation and friendship across societal lines.
What Interfaith work isn’t:
What Interfaith work is:
In our world, there is much to be lamented, and much to be changed. Some days, the world looks insurmountably divided and hurtful… and then relationships like this happen, and bring hope and joy and learning.
Thanks, HIC, for being such good friends to us and for seeking to make this world a less divided place!
*Never heard about the danger of a single story? Check out this TED Talk.