One of our church members, Sarah Henthorn, posed a question in a video on Facebook today, “What do we love about our congregation?” Though I know that anything can become an idol, even Christian community, I want to share that after talking with our executive committee members on Friday, working together with four other individuals Sunday morning to stream our first worship on Facebook Live, and then meeting with our entire council for about an our Sunday morning, I am so thankful for the deep roots that ground Trinity Lutheran Church. These roots consist of our faith in a loving and faithful God, our relationships with one another, and an ethos that consistently has us looking beyond our walls and ourselves.

I have loved seeing the many photos people are posting on Facebook of spring flowers coming up and today I enjoyed some of them in person on a walk around my neighborhood. But what I am most thankful for is my budding tree.

The arborists who treated it last year were not sure it would make it through the winter. If we had experienced Snowmaggeden again, the tree might not have made it. I trust that part of the reason it survived is because we tended its roots and the roots go deep. All of this is to say that our congregation will weather this time of uncertainty brought on by the Coronavirus because we are like that tree with its deep healthy roots.

Prayer for time of conflict, crisis, disaster from ELW: O God, where hearts are fearful and constricted, grant courage and hope. Where anxiety is infectious and widening, grant peace and reassurance. Where impossibilities close every door and windows, grant imagination and resistance. Where distrust twists our thinking, grant healing and illumination. Where spirits are daunted and weakened, grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams. All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.