Welcome home!  After 15 long months we are finally meeting and worshipping in person again.  No one could have predicted that life would take a turn to the way it was.  It is like for a moment God pushed the pause button and everything stopped.  But thankfully today God pushed the play button, and once again the music plays.

God’s willing, we will also commence our Wednesday’s Bible Study and Prayer Fellowship.  It will be sadly different; some familiar faces will be missing.  Our Heavenly Father has taken some home, but some will not be present because physically they just cannot.  I have already imagined empty chairs that silently bear witness to the fact of life that we will not be here forever.  The music can stop anytime. 

These past 15 months reminds us, not only that life is precious, but families and friends are also precious.  Without them life is empty.  But more importantly these past 15 months also teaches us that a church is meant to be a real place with real people, not a virtual place with virtual people.  Before He left the world, Jesus Our Lord told the disciples (John 13:34), “A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love another.”  We know that we cannot love one another by looking at a screen.

Now that we meet and worship in person, we have the opportunity to love in person as well.  And one of ways we love is by accepting and respecting one another.  There are those who feel safe with face coverings and maintaining distance, but there are those who feel safe without.  There are those who believe in the efficacy of vaccine but there are those who believe in the efficacy of a healthy lifestyle.  Whatever it is, what is one and the same is we all wish to be healthy; none wants to get sick or make others sick.  Amen!

Pastor Paul