Where We Are At with In-person Worship

Our Congregational Council met on Tues. June 16 for its monthly meeting. Together we considered in detail the return to in-person worship. This included reviewing the guidelines for holding in-person worship during Stage 2 of the province's recovery plan, sharing insights from other congregations and our Bishop, and reflecting on health concerns of comments received.

Reflecting our mission statement, there was a strong desire of being able to continue to come share the gifts of God, and reaching out to serve the world, with the added desire of keeping people healthy.

On the basis of this, Council has decided to move toward the resumption of in-person worship in our sanctuary on Sunday, September 13: the Sunday following Labour Day.

During the summer, we will continue and expand our online ministry.

-Sunday Worship folders and sermon files will be sent out by email on Saturday; they will be posted as 'Notes' to our Facebook page, 'Our Saviour's Thunder Bay', and they will be added to our web page: www.oursaviourstbay.org.

-Other resources for devotion, prayer, and study will be posted there regularly, as well as news from the congregation and the wider church.

-We hope to make it possible for me and others to 'go live' -- posting audio/video clips of sermons, reflections, and more.

During this time we will also engage in-person ministry that we can embrace safely. This will begin the week of July 19, with private Communion and outdoor visitation. Details will be announced shortly.

As we continue and adapt our life together, we invite you to be part of it. This includes participating, taking leadership, and assisting. If you have ideas for in-person ministry, including how you can help, your input is most welcome! Please feel free to share your thoughts with any member of Counci or Pastor Matthew. You will also be able to respond to a survey to help define our needs and desires.

Some of the possibilities already being looked at:

-- continuing to make worship materials, newsletters, and devotional booklets available outside the front doors

-- continuing weekday and Sunday playing of the chimes, including informal, socially safe, outdoor fellowship on Sundays

--arranging a delivery drop-off of 'Eternity for Today' booklets, especially for our shut-ins and those without internet access

--developing a plan for several evening devotional gatherings on our church's 'backyard'

--expanding phone check-in list

--exploring holding small social circle times

--resuming our food basket appeal May the good news of Our Saviour bring peace to you and all the world.

LCCC’s Virtual Strawberry Festival

Celebrating and Thanking our Elders

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Lutheran Community Care Centre’s annual Strawberry Festival fundraiser has been cancelled for 2020. However, our goal is to continue the gathering of support and the working together of the Lutheran churches in a new way – with a virtual Strawberry Festival! Instead of joining together in the kitchen and halls of Christ Lutheran Church, we will join from our homes to enjoy a YouTube video made up of entertainment provided by some of our members. As we watch these shared gifts we will also ask for donations towards our goal of the $3,000 typically raised at the Festival and information on how to donate will be provided.

The Virtual Strawberry Festival will be posted to our YouTube channel on July 15 and we will invite you on that day to have a bowl of strawberries and watch our video!

This event has been ongoing since 1985 – for 35 years! – and is traditionally held in mid-July when strawberries are ripe for picking. At the Festival, congregation members from LCCC’s member Lutheran churches in Thunder Bay and area come together to volunteer, socialize, and enjoy strawberries with cake and ice cream. Tickets are just $5 and the funds raised go towards LCCC’s Pastoral Care program, which supports seniors living in long-term care homes in Thunder Bay.

When we can we will also share the video with the seniors in long-term care who are missing the worship services and visits provided by the Pastoral Care program.

Our Carillon

While activities are suspended at the church, we will play hymns on our outside 'bells', about 1:00 p.m., each week day and Saturday, as a source of peace and renewal. On Sunday they will be played at 10:30 a.m.

On Dec. 11, 2016 our Sunday School children unveiled the names of the 'bells', the bell-shaped external speakers for our chimes.

They are 'Glory, Joy, Love, Honour'.

Thank you to the children, the leaders, and all who offered suggestions for the names.

The bells first hung in the tower of Our Saviour's on Secord Street, donated in 1958 by Mr. Ogden. Since 1970 they have hung outside the choir loft window at our location on Farrand Street -- thanks to Gerry LaForme for installing them back then!

National Bishop Susan's Daily Hymn and Prayer

Join our National Bishop:

"Many of us are feeling isolated as we practice social distancing because of COVID-19. Join me each day in focusing our prayers around one hymn."

Each day, Bishop Susan will be suggesting a hymn from Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Join her to pray while you sing, and then in prayer through the petition. Please share these with others in your community.

http://elcic.ca/publichealth/BishopSusanHymnandPrayer.cfm

Season of the Spirit

LWF Communion Prayer for the Pentecost 2020

The liturgical season of Pentecost is called “ordinary” because the weeks are ordered, or numbered. Some churches order these weeks according to the Sundays after Pentecost, some after Trinity Sunday, and others, until the start of Advent, and a new liturgical year.

Our Lutheran World Federation is offering 'Season of the Spirit' to the global Lutheran communion, as a way to be in the solidarity of prayer during this sesason.

The daily prayer follows a simple order: psalmody and prayer. "We commend these prayers to your use, whether alone in your home, as a family, or as your community is able to gather at a distance. As you pray in solidarity with the communion across the globe, and the communion of saints in all times and places, be encouraged by the counsel that Luther offers in his letter, A Simple Way to Pray:

“Never think that you are kneeling or standing alone, rather think that the whole of the Church...are standing there beside you and you are standing among them in a common, united petition which God cannot disdain. There we find God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Holy Spirit, that is, God who daily sanctifies us.”

Throughout this green time, may the Spirit of God bring forth new growth in you."

July 12-18

https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/2020/documents/20200712_pentecost_reflections_week_7_en.pdf

July 5 - 11

https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/2020/documents/20200705_pentecost_reflections_week_6_en.pdf

June 28 - July 4:

https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/2020/documents/20200628_pentecost_reflections_week_5_en.pdf

June 21-27:

https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/20200621_pentecost_reflections_week_4_en.pdf

May 31-June 6:

www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/2020/documents/20200531_pentecost_reflections_week_1_en.pdf

Rapid aid assists local church’s immediate response

(LWI) - Two tropical storms in El Salvador last month further exacerbated food insecurities experienced by residents due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In response, the Salvadoran Lutheran Church (ILS) designated its Lutheran Center Concordia in the City of San Salvador as a collection center for food distribution and provided basic supplies to 700 more families already economically disadvantaged because of COVID-19.

Bishop Medardo E. Gómez Soto said that the church’s diaconal work is “ethically and morally responsible” when it adheres to government mandates in the fight against the spread of the virus. The bishop also noted that "the response was immediate" from agencies and churches with generous donations of food packages and financial support.

The COVID-19 food and hygiene distribution project of ILS is one of 68 church projects funded from the Lutheran World Federation’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund (RRF). The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Mission Eine Welt of the Bavarian Lutheran Church in Germany and local partners contributed to the storm emergency relief efforts.

Recent statistics show over 8,000 COVID-19 infections and 243 deaths with a daily infection rate of 100 people in El Salvador. Adding to the threat of COVID-19 infection, relief sources estimate that nearly 300,000 people will be left without a means to food and a loss of employment following the storms.

World Council of Churches Prayer Cycle:

Djibouti, Somalia

12 - 18 July 2020

Intercessions

We are thankful for:

• the beauty of Creation and resources from lands and sea
• the stable governance and economic development that Djibouti has experienced in recent years
• the many ways churches and humanitarian organizations have prayed for and responded to the needs in Somalia.

We pray for:

• protection of natural resources and coastal land
• an end to hunger, violence, crime and conflict in Somalia
• effective reconciliation and peace-building
• stable governments that further the common good for all the people
• those who have fled this area that they may be welcomed in new homelands.

Prayers

You who give sustenance to your creatures, O God,

Put water for us in the nipples of rain!

You who poured water into oceans, O God,

Make this land of ours fertile again!

Accepter of penance, who are wealthy, O God,

Gather water in rivers whose beds have run dry!

You who are glorious, truly bounteous, O God,

Our cries have undone us, grant a shower of rain!

You who are clement, truly worshipped, O God,

Milk water for beasts which are stricken with thirst!

Creator of nature who made all things, O God,

Transmute our ruin to blessing and good!

We have done much remembrance, O God who remembers,

Loosen upon us rain from the clouds!

You who are merciful and compassionate, O God,

Milk rain from the sky for those in need!

You who are truthful, Creator, O God,

We accept in submission whatever you say!

You who mete out good and evil, O God,

In this land we are broken, milk the clouds from above!

The earth and the sky you constructed, O God,

We cannot get water, bring forth drops of rain!

The darkness of night you transfigure, O God,

And make daylight follow; milk the sky lavishly!

You who open all and give sustenance, O God,

People have scattered; send forth healthy rain!

Almighty, perfector of counsels, O God,

Pour for us rain which would make the land wet!

You who are bounteous, the protector, O God,

We cannot survive drought, send us rain from your store!

You who drive the air which sways the trees, O God,

It is you whom we praised, grant us the goodness of rain!

You who are worshipped and answer prayers, O God,

Make the rain spread over the whole of the land!

Bestower of victories, benefactor, O God,

Bring us faultless rain which makes us dwell where it falls!

You who are one and are trusted, O God,

Provider of all, give water to your people!

You who spark off lightning from clouds you have loaded, O God,

It is you who have power over rain which satisfies abundantly!

You who fill water-holes dug in wadis, O God,

Milk rain on this land, cream-giving rain!

You who used to relieve the strangest plights, O God,

It is to you that I have turned for help!

(Somali, Somalia. Heart of Prayer, comp. Anthony Gittins, CSSp, Collins, 1985. Used with permission.)

Allah! (Lord)

Make me among those whom you have guided.

Make me among those whom you have pardoned,

and make me among those to whom you are a patron.

Bless that which you have bestowed on me

and shield me against the evil of what you have decreed.

Truly, you are the one who decrees and none can decree over you.

The one to whom you show allegiance can never be abased,

and the one whom you take as an enemy

is never honoured and mighty.

You are the blessed and the exalted.

(“Allah” is Arabic for “God”.)

(© Saadiya Hirse, Somali)