Pineridge Blog

Christ is Risen!

Easter was amazing!  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

I have to admit that when I woke up Easter morning to get ready to come to church I had to remind myself that it was Easter.  It seems like one day runs into another these days. I put on a tie just to keep reminding myself that it was a special day.

Until this year I assumed that a lot of the energy of Easter comes from the crowded worship services and the extra music.  But even with just a handful of us in the room, it really seemed like Easter.  The music Dale, Lori and Ben provided was outstanding.  The beautiful garden that Buzzy and Ing created in just a couple of days with pictures sent in by members at the center of sunflower blossoms was wonderful, poignant and inspiring.  The memory I shared of my grandfather’s survival of the 1918 Great Flu pandemic with the help of one of my ancestral colleagues, a Presbyterian minister in Ames, IA, really touched me as I was telling it.  Not only are we the descendants of survivors, we are recipients of God’s kindness in ways beyond our control and understanding.

And I can’t say enough about the tech team who have worked hard to make worship a truly great experience through Zoom.  Thanks to Tom, Brad, Dale and Joe.   Joe has even figured out how to print out a report of who logged on with the email of their device.  Looking over the lists the last few weeks we have gone from 129 logins on March 22, our first total livestream worship, to 240 this past Sunday.  It is impossible to know for sure but many login as families or couples, so we figure a conservative estimate is about double the number of viewers per login.  Not only that but I recognize names of family members and even people who moved away several years ago who live in Arizona, Texas, California, Florida, North Carolina and even Australia!

I have been encouraged by the emails providing good feedback, offering support or just letting us know that you are out there.  It is hard that we all are not being able to be here, but it really feels like this is something that we are doing separately together.  We are the body of Christ in new and different ways.  Physical distancing but spiritually “closening.” Thank you for truly making this a Happy Easter!

I do have some questions though,

What did you use for communion?

What pets have been watching with you?

You can either email me at jgordon@pineridge.org or comment on FaceBook.