Dear FWC Family and Friends:
The song keeps ringing in my head, “I am Ready for The Storm,” by Rich Mullins. I believe this to be true. You and I are prepared and ready for whatever lies before us. God is always ahead of the curve. He knows our needs before we do and makes a way, giving us strength and courage as needed. I love the passage in John 16.33, “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
As the people of God, we get to stand in the peace and confidence that our God is active and our lives are in His hands. We get to shine as lights in all times, especially during times when others are struggling. Small things, such as going to the store, or maintaining our Lenten fasts, deepen our awareness that we know who to turn to in crisis. Worship and Prayer is our retreat and our refuge. In His presence we find rest and hope.
As of right now we look forward to worshiping together at Balearic Center at 10am. If you can come early and pray with us, we get there at 8:30am to setup the sanctuary and pray. We will keep you posted if there is any change that might impact us gathering.
Here are the bullet points:
– We ARE gathering to worship at 10am tomorrow.
– We ARE arriving at 8:30am for setup and prayer.
– If you (or your children!) are not feeling well, please, please stay home, rest, and recover.
– Please reach out if you have specific needs. We want to be in community as much as possible.
– If you have some disinfectant, please bring it early and help wipe down the chairs and common areas. We understand that hand sanitizers are in short supply, and we would like to position a few extra dispensers in key locations—especially at the entrance. If you have, or come across, hand sanitizers, will you bring some with you to church?—thank you.
– As we worship through giving, let’s suspend the of passing the bag; rather, let’s use the prayer request alter and set it up at the back center aisle; further as a reminder, you may give online www.fwcommunity.org/give
– We are a family, while continuing to greet each other with joy, grace, and expectancy—let’s do so without handshakes or hugs for the time being.
Please know that church leadership has been preparing for the possibility of canceled public worship services—either at the direction of appropriate national, state or health authorities, or because church leadership deems it prudent—and we are considering options to worship together. Should that occur, we will communicate with you both via email and by telephone to provide you with further information and instructions.
This may come across as unnecessary to some, however with all the different items passed down from the State and the media, along with other churches canceling services or moving to online options, we want to make sure to be in community together. Let’s also remind each other to follow Paul’s charge to the Philippians when he says;
“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:5-7).
I deeply appreciate walking with you and riding out the storms of life together.
Peace,
Brad
C. S. Lewis’s words—written 72 years ago—ring with some relevance for us. Just replace “atomic bomb” with “coronavirus.”
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays