More Opportunities to Worship

April 7, 2021

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Our worship this Easter Sunday was so full of life and celebration. The trumpets, the sunshine, and the crowd all added to the beauty of that holy day. In fact, our worship all week lifted my spirits in a way I didn’t realize I needed. I pray the same is true for you. We are so close to the end of this pandemic! With that hope, I am excited to announce more opportunities for worship.

As you may know, our plan is to continue worshipping outside at 9:30am through the month of April. Starting in May, for the first time in over a year, we will have more than one worship service on Sunday mornings. You will recognize these services well. The morning will begin in the sanctuary with a traditional service, which will be live-streamed. A second service will meet in the parking lot and will continue to feature the same blend of traditional and contemporary music we have come to know this year.

For the time being, registration and capacity limits are still only needed when we worship inside. When inclement weather forces us to cancel an outside service, we will let you know the night before via email, the website, and our smartphone app.

If there is anything we have learned this year, it is that pandemic worship makes plenty of work for everyone. With an expanded Sunday morning, we will need many more volunteers, including more ushers, more lectors, more musicians, and more folks working the sound and video rooms. We need your help! If you have ever wanted to step into any of these roles, now is the time. Simply send an email to receptionist@stmarklc.com to get started.

Pandemic worship also takes time. When we worship outside, our band members need two extra hours just to make it all happen. Indoor worship takes extra time, too. And as we learned on Easter, we need more than 30 minutes to reset the parking lot between services. For these reasons, here is our new Sunday schedule, beginning May 2nd:

9:00am - Traditional Worship in the Sanctuary

11:00am - Blended Worship in the Parking Lot 

Our last Sunday with a single, 9:30am service will be April 25th. That is the day we will also celebrate our 60th anniversary in worship, and it’s fitting that we will all be together outside. So you know, more celebration is planned for this fall, when we hope to be able to be together without restrictions. I am so looking forward to more opportunities to worship with you, and for the post-pandemic freedom that is coming soon!

Peace,

Pastor Chad McKenna