Happy Friday St. Peter's!
We may be socially distanced but we are united in the Spirit! As you will quickly see there is a whole lot of stuff going on at St. Peter’s so let’s just get right to it…
1. Online Worship: Yes, it is weird. Yes, we would all like to be gathered together at St. Peter’s on Sunday morning to celebrate the Risen Christ. No, we will not be gathering in person. We will be streaming our worship online once again on Facebook Live at 10am this Sunday and then placing a link to the service recording on the church website later in the day – we hope that you’ll join us for this new way to worship! The best way that we can love and serve our neighbors as Christ calls us to do is by maintaining social distancing and being safe, even if it means doing things in a new and different way this year – so join our livestream or watch the recording when we post it to the church website and join us – we may be separated by distance but we are gathered together by the Holy Spirit no matter where we are! The worship bulletin for Sunday can also be viewed by clicking RIGHT HERE and is also attached to the end of this email. We will be using a new camera again tomorrow which we have tested but please hang in there with us if we have any minor technical difficulties. Finally, if you have friends who are not “online” much please reach out to them and offer help so that they can join our worship services and don’t forget to invite all your friends!
2. SHARE! Don’t forget to share our worship services and upcoming events (and past events) with your friends! One of the most amazing things that has happened over the last few weeks is how we have reached people near and far – we have had local members unable to attend worship joining us for worship in this new way and we have had friends and family and people we don’t even know joining us for worship and other events from places like Connecticut, Missouri, Georgia, Oregon, California, and Indiana. This is the easiest Evangelism you will ever do – share the life, love, and joy of Jesus Christ – and what we are doing at St. Peter’s – with everyone you know! Can we get to 1,000 views of our services? Share with your friends, invite your friends, and let’s find out!!
3. Need help viewing our live events? Are you having trouble viewing our worship services in real time on FaceBook Live or having trouble joining our Facebook Live chats? Never fear, thanks to Chrissy Waldron we have a handy tutorial here to help you easily access both our live events and, if you need, get on Facebook. Thanks Chrissy! You can find the tutorial RIGHT HERE.
4. Celebrating Communion: We will be celebrating Communion during all of our worship services moving forward. All you will need is some bread, crackers, chips, anything of the like and a glass of wine, juice, water, or anything of the like. I spoke about celebrating Communion during the Maundy Thursday worship service (a recording is available in the STP News section of the website) and if you have any questions about celebrating Communion remotely please do not hesitate to contact me directly at revsuloff@gmail.com.
5. Bell Ringing for Thanks! One of our members shared THIS ARTICLE with us which is about giving a sign of thanks to those who are on the front lines of the current Covid-19 crisis. “Residents are encouraged to set their alarms for 7 p.m. and to go outside ring any kind of bell, bang pots and pans, sing, or use any kind of noisemaker they have.” We will join this effort to say a heartfelt word of thanks to all those who are working so hard to keep our community, nation, and world safe by ringing the St. Peter’s church bell at 7pm on Sunday.
6. Something New! What happens when the Pastor gets bored during this time of social distancing? He talks to people and records the conversations! Join us as we take some time to learn about, and hear the stories of, the people of St. Peter’s and our friends beyond. In our first installment we hear from St. Peter’s Church Council President, Matt Clark. You can view the video RIGHT HERE! We hope to share our next conversation this coming week!
7. St. Peter’s Music! While we may be separated by distance our wonderful Music Director, Sam Tarasenko, and our Audio Wizard, Bob Dungay have found a way to bring together the voices of our wonderful choir members! We have uploaded the first two pieces that the choir sang, and will continue to upload future hymns and anthems, to the Music Ministry page of the church website. A huge work of thanks to Sam, Bob, our fantastic choir members, and to Andrew Kammerle for accompanying!
8. Prayer Shawl Ministry: The Prayer Shawl Ministry is participating in COVID-19 efforts by making facemasks. They are also knitting or crocheting palm-sized hearts for Lankenau Medical Center. The hearts are used for dying patients and their families. A heart is placed in the hand of the dying patient, and a matching heart is given to the family. They will use these hearts at Lankenau and the other hospitals in the Main Line Health system. They are also talking about making a memorial with these hearts at some point in the future. Anyone who can knit, crochet or sew is invited to join in these projects. We do have fabric, elastic, and yarn available, but we could also use donations of any of these supplies. If you are interested in helping make these items or in donating supplies, contact Celeste Chamberlain at celcham@comcast.net.
9. Zoom Meetings: If you would like to participate in any of our Zoom meetings the meeting information is on the church website in the “Member Access” section. If you are not a member of St. Peter’s but would like to participate in one of our Zoom Meetings please contact Pastor Suloff.
10. Children’s Zoom Chats! SPY has been gathering on Zoom weekly to check in, talk, laugh, and mainly act goofy with one another and we would like to provide a time for our younger children to do this as well. We would like to schedule a time for Zoom chats for our 3rd through 6th graders and for 2nd grade and younger. With various school schedules, family schedules, work schedules, and the busy St. Peter’s online schedule we are trying to determine what times would work best for our families – if your child is interested in participating please email Pastor Suloff with your thoughts. We will host our first Zoom Children’s Chats this Sunday, April 19th with 3rd through 6th graders at 1pm and 2nd grade and younger at 2pm and then we will adjust times and dates accordingly based on family feedback. The meeting ID is posted on the church website in the Member Access section.
11. Women's Bible Study: Last week we had a wonderful WBS meeting discussing Chapter 1 of the book "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life" by Joanna Weaver. We will be discussing Chapter 2 at our next meeting, Monday, May 4th at 8:00pm. If you can't get the book in time or just don't get a chance to read it by Monday, please still feel free to join us for a great time of fellowship and faith formation with some lovely ladies! Quirk for the week - Wear a necklace. If you have any questions about the WBS please contact Stephanie Freidly (stephanie.freidly@gmail.com) or Chrissy Waldron (christin.waldron@gmail.com). The Zoom meeting numbers are in the Members Access section of the website.
12. Tuesday Bible Study and Discussion: We will be starting a Bible Study this week on Zoom at 12:30pm and 7:30pm. This week we will spend a little time discussing the Old Testament! Join us during this time to ask questions, share ideas, and explore your faith! If you have any questions about the Bible Study please contact Pastor Suloff. The meeting ID is posted on the church website in the Member Access section.
13. Facebook Live Chat – Ask The Pastor Anything!: On Thursday I will once again be hosting a live chat on Facebook Live to “Ask the Pastor Anything!” at 7:30pm. During this time I will field as many questions as I can and if I don’t have the answer to your question I’ll work on finding it and sharing it the following week. I look forward to seeing you all again during this fun and weird way to have a chat!
14. Confirmation Class! Due to the Coronavirus pandemic we obviously have not held our Confirmation Classes in quite some time but that is about to change! Confirmation classes continue next Sunday, May 10th at 12:00pm on Zoom. The meeting ID will is posted on the church website in the Member Access section. If you have any questions about Confirmation please contact Pastor Suloff.
15. Show Us How You Worship! We’ve been watching our St. Peter’s Services live on Facebook for six weeks already and we want to see how you are worshiping! Are you cuddled up on the couch with your laptop on the ottoman? Are you seated at your kitchen table with breakfast? Are you on your deck with coffee watching on your phone? We want to see! Snap a picture and send it to stplafayettehillimages@gmail.com to be added to our password protected Member Access area of our website. Or you can share it right to the St. Peter’s Facebook page! However you get it to us, we want you to Show Us How You Worship!
16. Help Us Help You! Relying on technology to connect and worship certainly has had it’s hardships. St. Peter’s wants to help you get the most out of this distancing experience by providing some instruction on a few of the more common ways we can connect and support our church. We will be creating “how to” guides for online activities like, How to Share the Facebook Live, Ordering SCRIP Online, How to Join a Zoom Meeting, Making an Online Donation, Adding St. Peter’s as your SmileAmazon recipient. Here’s where we need your help: What would you like to learn? Reply to this email with your topic suggestions and what you want to learn. If you’re tech-savvy and can help make a guide, please reach out to christin.waldron@gmail.com.
17. The St. Peter’s Nursery School Art Show! Each year, we raise money for families who are meeting the challenges that come with raising a child with autism. Yes, it’s true, every one of our children need support, guidance, instruction, and love. Children with autism need the same; and so much more. Yes, there are resources and help available BUT it costs money! Our Art for Autism show helps raise the money, every year, needed to pay for those services & resources! The pandemic has kept us from being in school! It has kept us from decorating the Gym! BUT we have decided to raise money anyway!!! We can still raise the money needed to help St. Peter’s families!! We have decided to go ahead with our Art for Autism show! We WILL raise money for autism!! We will also have an ART SHOW! Yes, it will be different. It will be smaller but filled with creativity. May 5th will be our Art Show date and our children will decorate but it will be OUTSIDE!!
FLAGS FOR AUTISM AWARENESS!!
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church will be decorated with FLAGS! We are going to decorate flags to post in front of the church to have an outdoor Art Show!! Drive by on May 5th and see the flags decorating the front of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church!! Go to our GoFundMe page and help us raise money for our families!!! 100% of all money raised will go directly to families from St. Peter’s!! Please consider making a donation!
18. Online Giving and Offering: During this time we know that many are struggling and we certainly understand that but if you are able to continue with your offering please either mail your offering envelopes to the church or consider using our ONLINE GIVING option on the website – it is a quick and easy way to share your gifts with the congregation.
19. SCRIP and Caring for the Community: As said, we know that many are struggling or will be struggling. SCRIP is a great way to support the church and help your neighbors at the same time – one of the best ways that we can help our community right now is by donating gift cards from Weis or Giant to the church so that we can distribute them to folks in needs either within our community or through the Colonial Neighborhood Council and other Social Ministry organizations. SCRIP is easy! You can increase what you give to the church by buying these cards for your daily expenses and help out your neighbors by donating cards. Groceries, gas, Home Depot, Target, Ace Hardware Stores, Amazon purchases, etc. To place orders for Scrip online go to www.ShopWithScrip.com and click “Join A Program.” Our Enrollment Code is: DDA6EF5815851. Our Organization is: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. Our Coordinator is: Jane Stettler, (610) 316-3350, jstettler@krautharris.com. If you order cards for either personal use or donate we will be in touch with you to coordinate a safe way for you to pick up your cards.
20. Finance Update from our Church Treasurer: Hope you are all well and safely socially distanced. We look forward to a time when we can congregate together again. While the church office has been working on a limited schedule, the Church Council and the Executive Council have been busy.
Congregational Giving: We were doing ok until the government shutdown but March was a tough month, for obvious reasons. We usually see a nice increase in giving during our Easter month, but given the current situation, our giving in March was off $14k, or a 40% drop from our budgeted amount. We did receive envelopes, which were mailed. And we saw a nice increase in our Vanco online giving. Thank you to all who took the extra steps to give as we continue to worship remotely. A nice surprise, we received $517 in visitor offering. Perhaps the Facebook Live services are expanding our Evangelism. Nice!
Weekday Nursery School 1: We have some challenges with the WNS. Soon after shutting down the school, Debbie Graham requested that we continue to pay our teachers through the end of the year, despite the school being shut. The Church Council voted and we agreed to continue paying them. We all believe it is the right thing to do.
Weekday Nursery School 2: Our WNS families are required to pay the first month and the last month tuition at the beginning of the school year. As a result, we will have to refund tuition for May, which will further strain the WNS bank accounts. Despite that, their accounts are healthy and we will be fine.
CARES Act: Two weeks ago, Congress passed the CARES Act to provide relief to small businesses. Charities and churches were included in the legislation. One piece of the CARES Act is the Payroll Protection Plan, a loan that can be used to cover payroll costs. St. Peters has applied for and should be granted this loan. The loan amount, if used to pay employees, is forgiven by the government. Executive Council believes this opportunity was too good to pass up. We are very happy we have been approved and are awaiting final documents to close on the loan.
Mortgage Loan: With interest rates plummeting, we investigated whether to refinance our mortgage to obtain a lower rate. To date, our rate is lower than the current lending rate so refinancing is not warranted.
Long-term Investments: Our investments took a substantial hit when the markets reacted to the government shutdown. Thankfully, we had taken some steps a month ago to move more money into cash and cash equivalents to give us quicker access to funds. We hope we can continue to pay all our bills without having to touch our long-term investments and, in time, they will rebound to pre-virus levels. We continue to monitor and will take steps as needed to protect our positions.
21. Elastic Needed: There are volunteers throughout the community who are working to make masks during this time for various places that need them but elastic is in short supply – if you have new elastic in your sewing box that you can donate to help this cause please contact Pastor Suloff directly at revsuloff@gmail.com.
22. Church Office: Our church office will continue to function but it will obviously look very different for the time being as we are all going to be working remotely whenever it is possible. We will be going to the church periodically to check the mail, take care of administrative tasks that must be handled in the building, and update records. If you have a need during this time please do not hesitate to contact me directly on my cell phone or by email.
23. Check-ins: We ask all the people of St. Peter’s to check in with one another during this time – if you have time please call or email your friends and neighbors, the person who always sits in front on you at church, or someone whose name just pops into your head. If you are aware of any needs within our community please let me know directly. During this difficult time it is of the utmost importance that we communicate with one another and take care of one another as best we can.
24. Ideas: This is a new and different time for all of us – our church, community, nation, and world all must learn to do things differently – if you have any ideas for how we might better share the life, love, and joy of Jesus Christ please let me know!
25. Prayer: Look, we all feel kind of helpless right now and it is difficult – we can, and should, be socially distant during this difficult time. We can also pray because, quite frankly, that is what we do. Our prayer list is attached to the end of this email and I would encourage you all to find a bit of time each day to pray – for our families, our communities, our doctors, our nurses, all those who serve the world during this time, and for our world. We may be separated by distance but we can be united in prayer.
While our physical gathering spaces may be closed we are still brought together in new ways of worship and ministry! We hope that you will join us for online worship this Sunday, for one of our many Zoom meetings, and for our “Ask the Pastor Anything” session. Spend a little time on the church website exploring everything that is going on, check in with your neighbors, support our ministries if you are able, share your knitting and sewing skills with those in need, pray without ceasing, and as always, keep sharing the life, love, and joy of Jesus Christ with all!
