Where We Are At with In-person Worship

Members and friends of Our Saviour's,

Peace be with you!

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 decided, and I concurred, 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. 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 Council or me. 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

--participating in Thunder Bay's first annual Neighbour Day on June 20, by delivering 'thank you' flyers to our neighbours

--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'

--looking at possibilities for offering 'private' Communion

--expanding phone check-in list

--exploring holding small social circle times

--resuming our food basket appeal

--and the list continues to grow!

When I was confirmed, I took as my Confirmation verse, 'I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the Lord".' (Ps. 122.1) I will be very glad indeed when once more we can gather in our sanctuary for worship. Yet, during this time together we can continue to learn how God's house isn't just at 10 Farrand Street but rather wherever God's people share the gifts of God and serve the world.

May the good news of Our Saviour bring peace to you and all the world,

Pastor Matthew

Bridges Vacation Bible School

Started in 2017, Bridges VBS is a collaborative, area-wide Vacation Bible School with ELCIC Lutheran churches participating from around the Waterloo, Ont. region. This year the program will run as Bridges VBS @ Home, July 6-10.

With an online program for ages 5 through 11, kids will get to grow their faith through Bible stories, crafts, games, music, science experiments and visitors doing great work in the community of Waterloo,

Registration is free! Email bridgesvbs@gmail.com to sign up for the daily video emails during VBS or follow us at facebook.com/bridgesvbs.

The leaders will send out an email in advance with information on the basic supplies needed for crafts and other activities. Find out all the details at https://bridgesvbs.weebly.com.

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 5 - 11

tba

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

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. 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.

Although the physical event has been cancelled, 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. 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.

World Council of Churches Prayer Cycle:

Eritrea, Ethiopia

05 - 11 July 2020

Intercessions

We are thankful for:

• the long centuries of Christian history in Ethiopia and Eritrea
• the current witness and work of Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches amid difficult circumstances
• those who have provided humanitarian aid, especially during times of drought and hunger
• those who have worked for peaceful relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

We pray for:

• victims of human rights abuses
• greater understanding and respect among the many ethnic groups
• lasting peace and reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea
• the emergence of more democratic governance that respects human rights and furthers justice for all ethnic groups and minorities.

Prayers

Prayer of St Dionysius (818)

O God Eternal, good beyond all that is good, fair beyond all that is fair, in whom is calmness and peace: reconcile the differences which divide us from one another and bring us back into the unity of love which may bear some likeness to your divine nature. Grant that we may be spiritually one, both within ourselves and with one another, through the grace, mercy and tenderness of your son, Jesus Christ.

(A Chain of Prayer across the Ages, comp. Selina Fitzherbert Fox, John Murray, London, UK, 6th ed., 1941.)

Prayer from Eritrea

Thank you, dear Jesus, for being a good shepherd to all believers. When we are lost from your flock, you never sleep until you bring us back, and there is rejoicing in heaven and on earth.

Our daily shepherd, our defender, our protector, thank you for keeping us from all evil, from fearful, harmful things and for preserving us from all unbelief.

In your name we pray.

(© 2005 Ghirmaleoul Nemariam.)

Call to prayer in the morning

Priest: The grace of God be with you.

People: And with your spirit.

Priest: Let us glorify our God.

People: It is right, it is just.

Priest: Strengthen the thought of your heart.

People: We lift them unto the Lord our God,

Our Father who art in heaven,

Our Father who art in heaven,

Our Father who art in heaven,

lead us not into temptation.

Oh we thank you, Oh Lord. Amen.

(From the Holy Liturgy of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church)