What Matters Most

by Crawford UMC | Mar 13, 2020 | Conversations

We live in an interesting time.

This week alone, I have been juggling local, regional and conference wide preparation of the ever expanding anxiety that COVID-19 is causing all of us.  The questions sound like this:  Do we meet?  Do we postpone?  Do we continue as plan and live-stream the events?  Do we cancel all together and video the presentation to be shown at a variety of gatherings?  How do we engage and connect with people, hold their hands, give them a hug, grieve with them if we are to maintain appropriate social distancing?  

Normally as a people of faith, we would care for each other by drawing close together. In times of loss or threat, we respond by coming together to pray and to sing, to hug and hold each other tight.

Pandemics are different. During an outbreak such as the one we are facing now, we are called to care for each other by moving further apart, creating what is being called social distance. We do this not only for our own safety and the safety of the people around us, but as a way of truly loving our neighbor as ourselves.

At a time of heightened fear and concern, wanting to compassionately respond in such a way that keeps us all healthy and whole, the co-chairs of Staff-Parish Relations Committee, Sue Powers and Carl Mittnight, the chairperson of Church Council, Pam Reeve, and Crawford’s Lay Leader, Laura Myers and I share these decisions:

We Will Not Meet for In Person forTwo Weeks But Have An Alternative Opportunity to Worship!!

We will not gather for worship or programming for the next two weeks.  This includes Adult Study, Christian Education, Bell Choir, Chancel Choir, Afternoon Tea, Sunday Worship and Fellowship.

Instead we will have several opportunities for weekly worship and conversation.  I will offer a Facebook Live family devotion service on Sunday, March 15 and March 22 at 10am on the Crawford Memorial United Methodist Church Facebook page.  Gary Richards (Belmont-Watertown UMC), Bill Hoch (Woburn UMC) and I will offer a Lenten on-line worship experience too.  More on that later.

For now, we encourage you to stay in your pajamas and gather as a family, sharing coffee, tea, hot chocolate on Sunday mornings and join together in this new way at 10am to worship God together.

Please know that we are not cancelling church, we are canceling our worship service. The church is the people and there are many ways to gather and stay connected as church even if the precautions we must take in this time of pandemic keep us at a social distance.

If you are concerned about someone who isn’t connected by technology, please let me know so that we can reach out and connect with them.  I am also available by phone/text (617-584-5713) or by e-mail at hope@crawfordumc.org.

Friends, these are interesting times.  We never know what tomorrow will bring.  For me, I am trusting that God is with us now, that God will be with us tomorrow, and that God will be with us forevermore.

“See” you,
Hope

Psalm 121

by Crawford UMC | Mar 6, 2020 | Conversations

My family is filled with ministers.  One of my uncles served the majority of his career as an Army Chaplain.  Before one of his many deployments our tradition was to stuff ourselves full on my grandmother’s delicious Sunday dinner and sing hymns reserved for family gatherings. Also part of this custom was giving thanks…he asked if we could circle around for prayer and he began by reading Psalm 121: 

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

Thinking about my uncle and all who serve in our military, all who face the horrors of war, hearing their cries in the voice of the psalmist left an indelible impression on me.  Not only in battle or conflict, there are many times in my life in which I have lifted my eyes to God, seeking help, pleading for assurance, longing to know I am not alone. 

Perhaps you have felt this way too.  In the stress of work, the struggle of family, the longing for connection, in the breaking of a heart, knowing that we are kept in grace and love day in and day out is a comfort.  If you know this cry, this longing, this prayer, then you won’t be surprised that it is the one that I turn to and share with those who need to remember that in life, in death, and in life beyond death, we are not alone. 

Holding on to this, as a community we gather this Lenten season to sing, to pray, and yes, even to eat, we are assured that God is with us holding us, healing us, keeping us from this time on and forevermore.

See you in church,
Hope

Ashes

by Crawford UMC | Feb 27, 2020 | Conversations

Left over ashes from Ash Wednesday for your reflection:

Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday
By Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge we bear.

See you in church,
Hope

Transfiguration

by Crawford UMC | Feb 21, 2020 | Conversations

This Sunday, February 23, is Transfiguration Sunday, which is always the Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  It is the Sunday we remember Jesus, taking Peter, James and John up a mountain and Jesus being transfigured before them.  It is a Sunday that marks a kind of transfiguration for us too. It is the time we set our the intention of our faith in front of us — to make it to that glorious Easter morn after forty days of self-reflection, study and prayer that the season of Lent offers us.

As we move toward Lent, I wonder what you will set aside and what you will take up?  What will you look toward to keep you on this journey of faith? Will you look for the evidence of kindness each day or will you commit yourself to at least one kind act, one act of love each day?  Will you let go of judging yourself or others and take on letting things be as they are and trusting that God is in it?  Will you pause each day and take a moment for gratitude?  Will you take a deep breath and know that you are loved?

This is a sacred time in our lives; it is a sacred season in our lives of faith.  It is also a transfiguring time in our denomination.  I hope that you will take time to join us this Sunday to listen to the letter from the Open Spirit Task Force and to stay for the beginning of another kind of journey — one that, I pray, will lead us all to resurrection.

See you in church,
Hope