Prayers of the People: Week of August 24, 2020

In worship on August 23, we joined together in holding up these prayers:

• For loved ones who are facing the challenges of illnesses. 

• For caregivers who take good care of us, and give us love and respect along with their care, and for future caregivers who will also give energy, love and help. 

• For people and families who are suffering during this pandemic.

• For students, teachers, and all the people who are returning to school in any form this year. Help us help them make the best decisions. For marginalized children, especially children detained on the border who still haven't been reunited with their families, that we can support them and be with them, and that we remember it was us that harmed them.  

• For California as fire rage in that state, and the firefighters who are fighting those fires.

• For opportunities to connect each week. 

Our prayers continue to surround:

• Families & teachers at Keystone, who are figuring fall plans to work while they support our youth scholars, our college scholars, and our children in this new year out of their cherished daycares, preschools, & elementary schools. 

Holy God ... hear our prayers!

These prayers are crafted to carry those shared in worship to our whole community, in the general spirit in which they were given (one pastor or leader makes note as one prays.)  We also especially welcome you to send Rev. Lauren your note during the week with any prayer request, we are so happy to incorporate it into our online worship (if you may not be up for voicing it). We are also always glad for you to add your prayers to the Zoom chat box during live worship, and we can fold them in to the spoken prayers. Contact Keystone's pastors for any pastoral concerns (contact info is below and at the bottom of this newsletter)

Prayers to include in the newsletter? Email them to Pastor Yuki (yuki.schwartz@keystoneseattle.org), Pastor Rich (keystone5019@gmail.com), &/or Pastor Lauren:  lauren.cannon@keystoneseattle.org, or text/ call Lauren cell:  773.501.7382

Prayers of the People

In worship last Sunday, we joined together to lift these prayers:

• That love is more powerful than ingrained ways we’ve been trained to see the world.  May love be our interpretive lens.  May love be how we come to see and engage all the world!  (via Gospel of Matthew 15)

• For John’s niece Nadine with colon cancer.  Prayers  that her 8/18 surgery was smooth and God guided her  surgeon’s hand.  God bring relief to your servant, as we pray her recovery leads to all cancer being gone.

• Our prayers have been around Pierre as he underwent 8/18 hernia surgery, with all thanks that it went well, and for his rest and recovery at home.

• Our members who have had family unable to come to offer their usual help in the yard or home.  For a spirit of creativity to be learning solo, new ways to keep up all chores.

• With Nell’s niece who has found ovarian cancer all through her body.  May chemo and surgery begin, and may she be given hope in the direction & course ahead.

We continue to lift in prayer: 

• Families & teachers at Keystone, who are figuring fall plans to work while they support our youth scholars, our college scholars, and our children in this new year out of their cherished daycares, preschools, & elementary schools. 

Holy God ... hear our prayers!

These prayers are crafted to carry those shared in worship to our whole community, in the general spirit in which they were given (a leader notes as others pray.)  Also send Rev. Lauren prayer requests, and we can add them  to our online worship.  Also add your prayers to the Zoom chat box during live worship, and we can fold them in to the spoken prayer time. 

Pastoral concerns & prayers? 

Pastor Yuki (yuki.schwartz@keystoneseattle.org), 

Pastor Rich (keystone5019@gmail.com), 

Pastor Lauren:  lauren.cannon@keystoneseattle.org, 

Also feel free to text/ call Lauren’s cell:  773.501.7382

Sustaining Our Worship During & After a Pandemic

A note from Pastor Rich:

The congregation met via Zoom on Wednesday July 22nd. Those who attended voiced some sadness for some of the things our Zoom worship cannot provide like hugs, congregational singing and cake. Overall though the feedback was that given the restrictions of Covid, things are going quite well. People are generally pleased with the Sunday service and appreciate some of the things Zoom gatherings provide, like opportunity to see everyone’s faces during worship, the ease of attending worship and discovering new music. One of the primary advantages of Zoom worship is that we have people participating from far away and our attendance is up significantly.

The reality is that we will be doing Zoom worship for many months to come and possibly we will keep Zoom worshipping at some level even after a vaccine has been distributed to everyone. Given that, we are now moving from doing Zoom worship as an emergency response, to working out how we can continue to do such worship sustainably. That means that we are going to need to have more people trained in using the technology and we will need to standardize the technology we are using so that various people can do the work.

The long and the short of it is that we are building something new and lasting and that will take some time. We ask that the congregation please be patient as we work out a system that will run as smoothly as our traditional worship did.