July Covid 19 Update

News from the Kirk Session

Good morning St. Andreans! As summer begins we pray you are well. We are reaching out this morning with several items that have arisen in the past month including the question of reopening of the church sanctuary for worship.

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With the improving pandemic situation in Ottawa, the Power to Issue Committee (PTI) met on June 29th and began discussion on the re-opening of the sanctuary for worship. We are now at the point where we have met the criteria for reopening approved by the Kirk Session in June, which means that in three weeks, consideration can begin on re-opening.

PTI will meet on July 21st to plan for the tentative resumption of worship services in the sanctuary commencing Sunday, August 8th, on the understanding that the community situation remains stable. Should numbers begin to rise again, we will have to re-consider the opening, but in the meantime we will hope and pray.

More information about re-opening and what that will look like will be communicated as we get nearer to the date.

Covid 19 Update - March 2021

It was agreed by Kirk Session (based on recommendations by PTI) that the following criteria must be in place before we consider opening:  “that Ottawa must spend 3 consecutive weeks in the yellow zone before PTI and Kirk Session consider re-opening the sanctuary for worship.”​  This is based on the provincial system which says that in the yellow zone:   

Weekly incidence rate is 10 to 24.9 per 100,000

Percent positivity is 0.5 to 1.2%

Rt is approximately 1

Repeated outbreaks in multiple sectors and settings or increasing number of large outbreaks

Level of community transmission and non-epi linked cases stable or increasing

As always, we will be abiding by OPH guidelines as well. 

COVID-19 Protocol & Registering to Attend

Dear St. Andreans,

Since the closing of the church in March, the Kirk Session has been working hard supporting our ministry team and making people feel as connected as possible. Now that we have moved into Phase 3 in Ottawa, our thinking has turned to how and when we can open our doors to resuming worship in the sanctuary, as safely and as carefully as possible. This will involve changes to the way we worship together.

We are following the guidelines laid out by Ottawa Public Health, and providing the situation remains stable in Ottawa, we will be opening the doors for people who wish to come into the sanctuary for private meditation each Wednesday, from 11:30 – 1:30, beginning August 19th. Worshipping together again in the sanctuary will begin again on Sunday, September 13th. We understand that people may feel reluctant – or are unable - to return right away and I want to assure you that the online service will be remaining.

Information about service time and how the pre-registration system is going to work will be provided in a later email and posted to the website. Protocols and regulations that people will need to follow will be sent out in the next while and will also be posted to the website. There will be a limited number of people allowed in the sanctuary, and the wearing of masks, hand sanitizing, physical distancing and other necessary measures will be followed. Information will be collected to allow for contact tracing, but it will be safeguarded and will not be used for any other purpose.

The sanctuary will only be open for the worship service and meditation on Wednesdays and will remain closed at all other times.

Karen will be returning August 19th, but if you have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

No matter where we are, or how we are worshipping, we remain a strong and resilient congregation, and I give thanks for all of you, every day.

Yours in Christ,

Heather

Good morning from the Kirk Session

I am very glad that we are able to continue to reach out to everyone, even if it doesn't look quite the same right now.

It's hard to believe it was only three weeks ago we were able to worship in the sanctuary. The speed at which life has changed has been almost unbelievable, but I remain so grateful to all those who continue to reach out through email and phone to check-in with each other.

For the present, Sunday worship services can only be accessed online and Wednesday Communion will not be offered until further notice. We understand how difficult it is not to be physically present at church, but the health and safety of the congregation, our church staff and the public must be our top priority. This decision will be reviewed by Kirk Session as the situation dictates.

On Monday, the government of Ontario ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses. That means that Vivian will be doing most of her work from home, however the office phone is being monitored and messages which are left will be picked up. Arrangements have been made to keep processing mail received at the church, including any donations that are mailed in, as well as ensuring that bills are being paid in a timely manner and we would like to thank all of the people involved in making this happen. Our custodians, Sean and James, will be coming in and making sure everything in the building is functioning as usual. Karen will be recording prayers and meditations and posting them to the website on Sundays. Sydney will be keeping connected with the church school families through email and postings on the website. We are very grateful to all our church staff who are keeping things running, even through this challenging time.

We will provide updates as we receive them, but in the meantime, stay well.

Heather Pilkey,

Administrative Clerk

The shrewd manager

It’s been said that Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I’ve heard speakers decry this statement, arguing that it is too negative and too confrontational to be helpful to us in our faith, but that is why I like it. Everything about Jesus should make the world uncomfortable—nothing he was or did was expected or commonplace. He calls everything into question.

As Karen noted today, Jesus turns things upside-down. His words and deeds force us to look at things in new ways, to re-examine, re-evaluate, and then relearn everything we have previously known or thought we knew. Considering our faith and our discipleship as enrollment in the School of Jesus is a very compelling image, and one I enjoyed Rev. Dimock mentioning today. In our discipleship, we are called to be open to learning, always. But to see things in new ways requires a willingness to re-educate ourselves—Jesus delivers the lesson, but it is up to us to be open to receive it.

In the Parable of the Shrewd Manager, we find a lesson both confounding and disturbing. We are disrupted in the comfort of our surety of our own righteousness when Jesus equates us, the faithful, with a swindler. We don’t want to see ourselves this way; surely we are flawed, but we can’t be that bad. Jesus convicts us, while in His abounding love assuring us that it is never too late to make amends. We can always try to do better.

This past week, there has been a lot of focus in the news on misdeeds by politicians. Much of the conversation has centered on whether such deeds, and their privileged doers, can ever be redeemable. Too often, discussion has been waylaid by debate over whether past deeds can be examined through today’s lens, suggesting that the offensive, racist and homophobic actions of the past were, somehow, not offensive when they were committed. When the conversation takes such a turn, the voices of the privileged and comfortable ring loudly and defensively, rather than being silent in such moments and listening to those who are affected.

When the afflicted say, “This harms me,” it falls to the comfortable to listen. It falls to the comfortable to be disrupted. And it falls to the comfortable to be afflicted, and as God’s peacemakers to set aside our comfort for the benefit of the afflicted, to “bring release of the captive”.

As Karen said today, we are being “called to account for how wealth is used”. Our wealth is our money, yes, but it is also so much more. It is our voice, our hands and feet, our privilege, our power. We who have much, we have the most to lose, are called to account for our wealth, to justify how we are employing it. Are we comforting ourselves, or the afflicted? Are we willing to re-educate ourselves, examining our own thoughts and deeds, and to convict and afflict ourselves? School is, indeed, in session: what lesson are we willing to receive?

Darlene M.