My dear friends… As reported this morning, Governor Thomas Wolfe ordered the shutdown of physical operations at “all non-life-sustaining businesses” at 8 p.m. to slow the rapidly increasing spread of deadly coronavirus, and said enforcement actions for noncompliance would begin Saturday.
All currently scheduled gatherings will be canceled or handled via Zoom. I would urge our congregations to make similar decisions if you have not already done so. Depending on the continued spread of the virus we will likely need to delay worshipping together physically until at least Easter Sunday. I would encourage our congregations to make plans to hold April 5 and 12 worship services remotely.
While our congregations and the expressions of our faith are life-sustaining, I believe we can and are the church even when we are not gathered in sanctuaries or fellowship halls together. The conference will continue to provide resources to our pastors and congregations as they become available to us. Watch for additional resources and ideas to be shared on our Penn Northeast Conference Facebook page. You have all done a wonderful job of sharing resources with each other to this point and I ask you to continue.
Edwin Louis Cole has been quoted as saying, “God never ends anything on a negative; God always ends on a positive.” God is present with us. We are present with each other through prayer, hope and electronic means. Offer thanks, be generous, live in hope, my friends. We are in this together.
Blessings, Bonnie