COVID Dispatches - Steve Elderbrock

On Saturday, March 14, 2020, with COVID-19 begin to rage in this country, the Session of First Presbyterian Church and I decided we should heed the warnings about in-person activities and cancel Sunday worship for the next day.

Little did any of us realize we would remain closed for in-person worship for next 11 months and likely for at least the next couple months ahead, even as people begin to receive the COVID vaccine. We felt we should always put people's health and safety before any other consideration.

That Saturday, I sent out an email to our church family informing them about our decision. The following day, unable to preach my prepared sermon in worship, I decided to email my notes and reflections to the church family instead.

Even though we began offering a virtual online Sunday worship service a couple weeks later, I continued to send out my daily email reflection and I have continued that practice every day since (except for vacation time) up until the present moment. That's well over 300 such daily reflections, and in that time I have ranged over topics related to the feast days of saints, historic events of that particular day in history, the writings of Thomas Merton (for many months I shared quotes from Merton on what I called "Merton Mondays"), poetry (as I ran out of quotes from Thomas Merton, Merton Mondays became "Poetry Mondays") and even some personal reflections on my life. The lectionary I use which provides the spark for these reflections is based on the Book of Common Worship and reflects the readings authorized by the Church of England for daily and weekly services.

In this book you will find thirty selected daily reflections, most of them relating to the pandemic and our response to it as followers of Christ. Although these are specific reflections for a specific time, I certainly hope they have wider application and speak to the larger picture of how we can do our best to live as followers of Christ, pandemic or no pandemic.

I also hope and pray that you, the reader, will find inspiration in these reflections, wherever you are along your journey of faith, as well.

Thank you for reading, stay well, and may peace be with you!