Dear Friends,
Join us for online worship this Sunday, August 23rd, at 10:00 am. I’m preaching from Acts 16:11-15, 40 the story of Lydia, a business woman who helped provide hospitality to Paul and Silas.
Join us for 10:00am Sunday Worship here
Dial-in#: 1-929-436-2866
Meeting ID 150 620 342
Sunday’s worship music features…
A contemporary hymn favorite, “You are Mine,” written by David Haas in 1991, and performed in a duet by Molly Johnson with her daughter Penny. Mr. Haas is an active church musician living in Minneapolis, who is part of the “Minnesota School” of liturgical musicians, named for three outstanding composers who all graduated from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.
The piano talents of Samantha Scheff, our former organ scholar, are on display in the prelude. She is currently the associate organist at St. John’s Lafayette Square, so it’s great to welcome her back to the neighborhood after receiving her Master’s in Organ at Rutgers University!
Our new ¾ time Associate Stated Supply Pastor, Rev. Rachel Pacheco, started on Tuesday. Rachel will be focused primarily on children, youth, and family ministry as well as communications and worship leadership. She’s working remotely from her home in Alexandria on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. She can be reached at rachel.pacheco@nyapc.org or (267) 981-1373. There will be a Meet & Greet with Rachel after worship on Sunday. In order to attend, please register in advance by emailing nicole.johnson@nyapc.org no later than Saturday at noon.
Volunteers will be providing Protestor Hospitality next Friday, August 28th for the March on Washington. If you would like to contribute to this important ministry, donations of individually wrapped snacks, sports drinks, and water are needed. Volunteers will be accepting donation drop off’s next Wednesday, August 26th from 6:00-8:00pm. Please email aryn_m@yahoo.com with any questions.
Finally, we have decided to close the building again. As many of you know, we softly reopened the church building in early July to prepare to accommodate our tenants. We had front desk and custodial staff working inside the building Monday-Friday, 8am-2pm, and Sunday, 10am-2pm. For the next three weeks, we are closing the building and all staff will be working remotely. We make this decision with the following information:
- Our tenants are not yet ready to return to the building. The Downtown Day Services Center is providing limited, appointment-based services, and is self-sufficient in locking and unlocking their designated entrance.
- Two of our staff members have contracted COVID-19 since returning to work inside the building, and the remaining staff, many who are considered high risk, are scared to return to in-person work.
- Except for Radcliffe Room Ministries and Protest Hospitality (which can continue with volunteers), worship and programs remain online until at least the beginning of Lent, which begins February 17, 2021.
We will reevaluate this decision every three weeks, beginning Wednesday September 9, 2020. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them my way.
Some nourishment for your soul this week—a poem, “Wait” by Galway Kinnell:
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. The desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
Grace and Courage, Heather
NYAPC Seeking God 