I wrote earlier this week to let you know that based on the current CDC guidelines around COVID-19, our life together as a church family is temporarily adjusting. We will be gathering online for Sunday worship and throughout the week for online groups.
During this season, we need each other more than ever, so we’ve doubled the number of groups and added groups for our children and student so that every household at City of Light can stay connected. We can’t gather in person, but we can’t go it alone. Let's gather to support one another as we love our neighbors. Check out the details for the next 8 weeks below.
Please take a few minutes to watch this video update from Bishop Stewart. As Stewart mentions, our diocese and every diocese in the Anglican Church in North America will be refraining from meeting all together in person on Sundays to love our serve our neighbors.
10am Worship Service Live Stream
We will live stream a Sunday service from the Parish House so that we can pray, sing, and hear the Word of God together. We will take a break from our Una Familia service to read from the Sunday lectionary. Find the stream on our website homepage and Facebook.
9:30am Zoom Video Call
Join us before the livestream by clicking on this link so we can all say ‘hi’ by video and share prayer requests and stay connected after for a virtual coffer hour after the service. Here’s a quick how-to video for logging onto Zoom for the first time.
Communion
Along with churches in our diocese, we will refrain from communion in solidarity with so many in our community and world who cannot receive, as a message of love to our neighbors, and to be clear to all of our churches that we all need to take social distancing and other precautions seriously to care for the vulnerable in our communities. I encourage you to take these precautions seriously as well, following the CDC’s guidelines for the sake of the vulnerable in our community.
We will celebrate Communion on the live stream so that we can all see and receive the prayers, even though we cannot all receive the elements.
In the meantime, our Cathedral has prepared a beautiful liturgy for use in your home titled Prayers When Unable to Receive Holy Communion. You can find it here.
Not sharing in Communion is a loss for me and for all of us. I hope that we will be able to periodically practice it over the next 8 weeks for those able to receive. Please let me know if you have any questions.
As Andy Crouch said, I never intended to give up so much for Lent.
But brothers and sisters in our global Anglican Church face challenges like this and so much more every day. I was grateful for the global Anglican call to prayer and fasting this Sunday, March 22, interceding against the spread of COVID-19 across the globe, swarming locusts in East Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and famine and hunger in regions of Africa. Read their letter here.
We are prioritizing gathering virtually in groups across our entire parish. We are committed to seeing every household in our church connected to a group where for prayer and support.
In addition to our 5 previous groups, we’ve launched 6 new video groups for adults, students, and kids with options on every day of the week. These include a student group, a City Kids group for our 3rd - 5th graders, and a daily City Kids livestream, Mon - Fri, at 11:30am.
We want every household to be able to support one another and their neighbors in prayer and care.
My prayer is that when we gather all together again for the first time— whenever that might be—our relationships with one another will be stronger, and there will be people there whom many of us have never met in person but whom the Lord brought into his family while we were quarantined through our love and care for our neighbors!
Please check out the schedule and register today.
ONLINE GROUP SCHEDULE
CITY KIDS DAILY DEVOTIONS
11:30am, Monday - Friday on Facebook live with City of Light Pastors and City Kids Shepherds.
OTHER EVENTS
Under the current CDC guidelines, all other in-person events for the next 8 weeks are postponed.
GIVING & FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
I was so encouraged by your generous giving last week.
2020 Giving: $54,564 2020 Goal: $57,115 Difference: -$2,550
If you give by check or cash, you can mail your gifts to City of Light Church, P.O. Box 4096, Aurora, IL 60507. You can also give online at cityoflightanglican.org/connect/give or by texting "COLANGLICAN" to 77977.
We also have financial assistance available for any in our church and community who are economically vulnerable during this time. If you or someone you know have any needs, please contact Deacon Eduardo at eduardo@cityoflightanglican.org.
We'll have more ideas and ways to care for others in the next days as needs arise.
A list of things to do when you find yourself unexpectedly at home with your kids for the foreseeable future.