Our e-news this week features notes from Sarah Robinson, our Director of Children’s Formation, about our first week of VBS and Luci Bates, our Ministry Coordinator, about new ways to participate in livestream worship. Although still unable to share space as a congregation, we can continue to share time together each week. It is our prayer that VBS and worship continue to comfort and encourage you during this season of CoronaTide. 

Hi Church of the Cross!

On Wednesday we had our first virtual VBS session, and we had 18 families join us! Although I wish we could meet in person, I am grateful that I was able to see so many of the kids! Blake, Lucy, and Casimir did a phenomenal job teaching us the parable of the prodigal son!

The goal of VBS this year is to explore what it means to cultivate the compassion of Jesus for others, ourselves, and the world. Each week, we will have a “Compassion in Action” challenge. This week’s challenge is to think of someone who might be feeling lonely during this season and give them a call, send them a video message, or write them a letter. I am challenging myself and everyone in the COTC family to join in, show compassion, and extend the love of Christ to others.

If you weren’t able to join us for the first VBS session, no worries! We will be having virtual VBS each Wednesday in July at 10 am and you can find past resources on our webpage. I think this next week, I will be bringing back the flannel board to teach our Bible story for the week so you won’t want to miss that! I hope to “see” all the kiddos Wednesday at 10 am!

Blessings,
Sarah Robinson 

________________

Happy Friday, friends!
 
We have been working hard to figure out the best ways of providing reliable, engaging worship and community online, and thanks to the tireless efforts of Andrew and Will, our livestream experience will be back up and running this Sunday! Huzzah!! Over the past several weeks we have had great success with our volunteer livestream audience after moving our service from Vimeo to YouTube and will be making this platform switch on Sunday. 

What does this mean for you? You will be able to find the liturgy and link to join on our Livestream tab as before, but rather than an embedded video, look for the “Watch Live Service” button. This will take you directly to our YouTube channel, where you will have the opportunity to watch the service and participate in a sidebar chat alongside other viewers during worship. In order to participate in the chat, you will be prompted to log in to YouTube. This feature is best experienced on your computer, but if you plan on watching on your cellphone, I suggest downloading the YouTube app. To easily access archived videos and stay informed of any future postings, I encourage you to also “Subscribe” to our YouTube channel. Additionally, moving forward, the liturgy will be available online on Saturdays, so, if you do not want to have to toggle between two windows or devices during worship, you can print it in advance.

We anticipate a seamless livestream experience (fingers crossed and prayers up!), as we have had with our test audience these past few weeks, but if you encounter any issues with the stream, we will have a prerecorded service available under the livestream tab for you to access. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or encounter any problems over the weekend.
 

See you Sunday!
Luci