Hi Church! 

Yesterday was the Feast of the Ascension, a celebration of how Jesus ascended to the highest places! We'll be celebrating this reality in our worship on Sunday (including a special children's homily by Sarah!), but I hope today you experience Jesus as ascendent above all in your life and circumstances. 

I wanted to invite you to sign up here for one of our church meetings next week, on Tuesday and Thursday. Why are we holding these meetings? I’m so glad you asked. Here are a couple of reasons:

1. We want to update you on the life of COTC in this extraordinary time. God has been really good to us in the midst of trying circumstance and we want to communicate and celebrate this with you. 

2. We want to talk a bit about what the future weeks and months of our life might look like. 

3. We want to hear from you on how you’re doing and how you are experiencing our community. These are a series of Zoom calls to allow for deeper engagement and conversation.

4. This is another opportunity for us to see one another and connect in this remarkable season.

The second of those reasons is perhaps one that is foremost on all of our minds. In conversation with many of you the question of what the future holds is often paramount. What we’ll be presenting in the meeting is a series of phases that we anticipate following as the situation develops.

There are a number of factors that have informed our plan and will continue to inform our discernment moving forward. Alongside considerations of legality and safety are the witness we bear to our neighbors, our calling to proclaim the Gospel in word and sacrament, and our capacity to live out our vision and values in this season.

Whether you are newer to the COTC community (perhaps even joining in the past two months!), or a longtime member, we would love to have your presence and participation. Our hope is to have as many people from our community as possible, so please sign up. We’d love to hear from you. 

As well, if you haven’t yet had the chance to take a minute to fill out the survey regarding our online worship please do so here. If you are having specifically technical issues with the stream and would like help you can complete this survey as well.

Finally, thank you for your continued support of our mission partnerships with Communities in Schools and Impact Indonesia. Just yesterday we were able to help with the financial needs related to rent and utilities for one Harris ES single-parent family that had to move because of the pandemic. Please pray with me for our gift to be a blessing to this family and consider making a contribution here. 

Grace and peace, 

Peter+

Ps. Sunday, May 31st is Pentecost. Alongside our regular worship we are planning another curbside communion pickup for that Sunday evening, with the plan to take communion at the same time in our vehicles. Similar procedures to what we previously followed will be in place. We’ll be communicating more details this week, but please plan to join us for a half hour, 7:00 to 7:30 on the evening of the 31st. 

PPs. Join us again before worship, from 9:30 to 9:50am for a Zoom coffee and connection. It would be great to see your face and catch up!