Reflecting on 2021, how was the year for you? Maybe some wonderful things happened…vaccines, new births, seeing family, perhaps some travel. And for all of us, there were challenges to be faced as well, wrought by the pandemic, insurrection, illness, grief, and trying to find the elusive “new normal.” It was certainly a challenging year for our congregation with a difficult pastoral departure and the ongoing challenge of doing ministry with one another in the midst of Covid and its shifting landscape of Greek-lettered variants. And some really good, positive things happened as well: developing a solid Strategic Plan, ramping up a top-notch livestream system, welcoming fantastic new staff members who have formed the most solid team we’ve had in years, creating and filling our first Church Administrator position, which lifts an undue burden off our volunteers. I’ve also seen some of our members rise to the occasion, go the extra mile, and help ensure that our community functions smoothly. I think Plymouth operates much like a swan: most of us just see the smooth gliding on the surface, but under the water, those feet are paddling like mad! And it is for those bearers of light that I give thanks and offer these words from Jan Richardson, a wonderful artist, minister, and poet: Blessed are you who bear the light in unbearable times, who testify to its endurance amid the unendurable, who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems in shadow and grief. Blessed are you in whom the light lives, in whom brightness blazes -- your heart a chapel, an altar where in the deepest night can be seen the fire that shines forth in you in unaccountable faith, in stubborn hope, in love that illumines every broken thing it finds. © Jan Richardson May this year be filled with blessing for you and for all of us together at Plymouth! P.S. Some of you have asked about my health, and here is a short update. I’ve been doing chemo and hormone suppression to treat the recurrence of prostate cancer. The good news is that the drugs are working! It is sometimes rough sledding with fatigue and brain fog. I start eight weeks of radiation, five days a week, beginning on January 11, and hope that I tolerate treatment as well as I did during the last go around. Thanks you for your prayers and concern!
Dear Friends, This isn't the New Year's Eve greeting anyone expected, but I'm writing to give you an update on how you can help support folks who are feeling the impact of the horrendous fire in Boulder County (view images here). Here is a word from our pastoral colleague, JT Smiedendorf: PCCUCC, The fires are another rough ride for us here in Boulder County. The fires were not near us, but forced my stepson to wait to see if his Louisville house survived (it did). And we are without power (28 hours and counting) and living with neighbors. Prayers for resilience requested. Blessings, Pastor JT I know you will keep JT and his family in your prayers, and I also ask that you pray for our churches in Boulder County, who are likely to have members who have lost homes. None of the church buildings have been affected. In addition to praying, the Rocky Mountain Conference, UCC, is collecting funds to support our communities. If you would like to participate, please write a check to Plymouth with "Boulder Fire" in the memo line or choose "Boulder Fire" in the fund dropdown in online giving. I'll include a message from our Conference Minister, Rev. Sue Artt, below. Thank you for your prayerful and financial support at this time of crisis. Deep peace, Hello All, “Advent is not a time to declare, but to listen, to listen to whatever God may want to tell us through the singing of the stars, the quickening of a baby…” – Madeleine L’Engle For almost an eternity, it seems I’ve been told (and have said myself) that Advent is a time of waiting. For little kids, it’s about anticipating Christmas celebrations, opening Advent calendars one window at a time, smelling luscious aromas of baking cookies and decorating them is a manner that would make Jackson Pollock jealous. But what of us older folks? What are we waiting for? Surely not a new sled under the Christmas tree. To be sure, we anticipate gatherings and carols (which we sang wonderfully at First Name Club last Thursday!). But for those with a more mature faith, what is waiting all about? I’ve never been a particularly patient person, and we live in a culture that doesn’t value waiting. Are we waiting for the Kingdom of God to come? We pray for God’s realm to come twice each Sunday in the Lord’s Prayer, as our forebears in the faith have done for 2,000 years, but it still hasn’t come in its fullness. School shootings happen, pandemics happen, wars happen, homelessness happens, global warming happens, and the list goes on. Yet, there are significant ways that life is better now than ever…even if it doesn’t feel that way to us. Our efforts and those of our forebears are yielding fruit! In 1900, women couldn’t vote, “separate but equal” was the racial law of the land, and LGBTQ folks were deeply in the closet. In 1900, about 85% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty (today that figure in 10%). Child mortality has shrunk from 35% of kids dying before the age of five to 4% today. Educational attainment in 1900 was such that 65% of the world’s population had no formal education; today 14% of the world’s population has no education. Literacy has grown from 20% in 1900 to 85% today. (source: https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts) Life expectancy has increased dramatically. In the US in 1900, life expectancy was 49 years and today it is 79 years. (source: ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) Global peace is markedly better than it has been in the past 100 years with the fewest battlefield deaths…in the wake of the bloodiest century ever with two World Wars. (source: www.visionofhumanity.org/world-become-peaceful-since-wwi/) The Social Gospel movement in this country lasted from the end of the Civil War through the First World War, when it was judged to be overly optimistic. After all, how could God let WWI happen? Were the Social Gospelers just wearing rose-colored glasses? I don’t think so. They were working for real reform in racial justice, industrial working conditions (especially for women and children), and to promote the Kingdom of God here and now, imperfect as it is. The above data may give us reason to hope and to think that the Social Gospel movement had some impact (as it surely did on the Progressive Movement in the early 1900s and the New Deal in the 1930s). Are we waiting for the Second Coming? Some Christians do, and they pin their hopes of God cleaning up the mess that we humans have created. And perhaps that will happen, but in the meantime, I find it helpful to focus on what we can do while we wait, namely, to love kindness, do justice, and walk humbly with God. We have a long way to go, but at least while we wait for “God’s glorious reign of peace,” we can appreciate the progress we made instead of just wring our hands for the ways we fall short. And we can listen…listen for the murmurings of the Spirit, for the sounds of hope, the singing of the stars. Blessed Advent to you! P.S. If you need help finding the “On Being” poetry readings that accompany our Advent Devotional readings this week, here they are:
AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal here. I just got off the phone with one of our 94-year-old members who is an inpatient at PVH with a breakthrough case of COVID. I cannot imagine how hard it is for him to face the scourge of this virus at his age, and as we spoke, we agreed that neither of us has ever seen anything like it. How does this happen to someone who is vaccinated and has taken care to avoid the virus? At lunchtime, I went to the grocery store, and I was shocked to see other customers not wearing masks, despite a public health order more than a week ago mandating mask use. As someone whose immune system is compromised by cancer treatment, I find this personally concerning and socially irresponsible. It is okay with me if an individual wants to play Russian roulette with their own health, but please don’t assume that it is alright to do so with mine or with anyone else’s. If we can cooperate by not smoking in the presence of others because of the danger of secondhand smoke (also a government mandate), why can’t some folks agree to slip on a simple mask without getting belligerent? It isn’t easy living through these days of the pandemic. I’m sure that we all feel like a good rant every now and again. I think of Albert Finney in the 1976 film, Network, encouraging people to stick their heads out the window and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” And there are moments when perhaps you feel as if you’ve come to the end of your rope and want to shout at someone…or at least holler out the window. (Theological note: It’s probably a lot safer to yell at God than someone whose feelings are apt to be hurt. God can take it!) Lighting a tiki torch and becoming a white supremacist is not a faithful response to pandemic. Yelling at public health officials or school board members is not a faithful response. Why must humans find a scapegoat and play the blame game? Most of us are frustrated, exhausted, and feeling traumatized to some degree. Instead of blaming and ranting excessively or becoming passive aggressive, we need to talk to people who understand us, even if they are amid the same crisis. We can explore with a friend, a spouse, or a trusted companion such questions as: What is lifegiving for me right now? What is depleting or deadening? What have I done to live into the idea that there is no us and them…there is only us? What help do I need from my friends? (Thanks to Gareth Higgins for this model!) Social contact — even with social distance — helps diminish our isolation, our sense of being alone, and our frustration. During the Middle Ages and in Early Modern Europe, Christians dealt with the plague on numerous occasions (without the benefit of masks, vaccines, or knowledge that a virus exists). And lest we think them primitive or unenlightened, we can look to some of them for examples of faithful response. While others fled Wittenberg when the bubonic plague arrived in 1527, Martin Luther stayed behind to support the sick and dying. That is a more constructive response than scapegoating or discharging misdirected anger at someone. Who can you help? Who needs you to hold the Christlight for them? As St. Francis of Assisi wrote, “Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness joy.” What can you do to alleviate someone’s stress, suffering, or isolation today? The path to healing for ourselves lies in how we can use our lives in the service of each other. Blessings to you helpers! P.S. I listened in on the Larimer County Health Board last week, and it was terrible listening to how our public health director, his staff, and our public health board were verbally abused during the public comment. It's been a long pandemic, especially for these folks. I ask that you take two minutes to send them an email at covidconcerns@larimer.org and let them know that you support their efforts to keep us safe. Thank you! AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal here. “What are you grateful for, Daddy?” I remember my son Chris’s then-small voice coming across the dining room table as we blessed our dinner. Each of us, in turn, would give God thanks for the things we were grateful for, whether a special moment, a kind word, a dear friend…or a new Lego. I am grateful for those moments of childhood wonder in my sons, who are now young men in their 20s. Many years ago, my mom wrote a mealtime blessing that I didn’t fully appreciate until I was an adult…when I stopped taking life’s blessings for granted. “For love and friends, for home and health, we are most thankful for this wealth. Teach us, Lord, to be kind to all, and to appreciate your bountiful blessings. Amen.” My mom was no theologian, but I remain thankful for her words and for the fact that she and my dad shared the experience of a life of faith with me and my siblings. I am grateful today for the United Church of Christ and its bold, faithful witness across hundreds of years. I am thankful for Second Congregational UCC in Greenwich, Connecticut, where I was confirmed and for First Congregational UCC in Boulder, where I was ordained. I am grateful for all the people who reflected God’s love and helped me become who I am today. I am grateful today for Plymouth…for the generations of people on whose shoulders we stand today. For the Volgadeutsch immigrants who founded this church with the help of the Congregational Board for Homeland Missions, which reached out to immigrant communities. I am grateful for the ministry of my predecessor, Fred Edmonds, who served Plymouth for 23 years and helped transform it into a congregation with a heart for social justice. I am grateful for the hundreds of people who form this church today and that it is a beacon for progressive Christianity in northern Colorado. It’s important to say, “Thanks!” isn’t it? It’s important to express our gratitude, both in word and in deed. “Thanks” to all the people who nurtured us along our life’s path, to the people whose hard work built the church where we now worship, to the people with whom we are bound in covenant. A few weeks ago, I included this sentence from Desmond Tutu as our Call to Worship: “What we are, what we have, even our salvation…All is gift; all is grace, not to be achieved, but to be received as a gift freely given.” Who is the giver? Who makes the gift of life itself possible? Just as it is important to thank the folks who help us along life’s journey, it’s important to say “Thanks!” to God as well, which is why an offering is a part of our worship. In non-pandemic times, we sing our offering forward with a Doxology: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” What are the ways you say “Thanks!” to God? This Sunday is Consecration Sunday, when we ask for God’s blessing on our pledges of financial support for our congregation in 2022. It will be a celebration you won’t want to miss, either online or in person, with Beatles and Burritos! It has been an incredibly tough 20 months of pandemic for all of us, but I am grateful that God has not abandoned us, nor have we abandoned one another. We are making it…something that none of us could do on our own. We are All Together Now! Things still aren’t back to normal, but aren’t you grateful for the ways we are able to connect at Plymouth and with God, even now? I hope you’ll join me this Sunday as we celebrate, offer thanks, and consecrate our pledges for 2022. With gratitude, P.S. If you can’t be with us on Sunday, you can pledge online anytime! Just go to plymouthucc.org/pledge or take a picture of this QR code with your smartphone. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. Please welcome Plymouth's new Director of Christian Formation for Children and Youth, Brooklyn McBride! Brooklyn, a native of Fort Collins, is a graduate of CSU with a BA in Journalism and Media Communication. She is currently pursuing her Master of Divinity degree in the online program of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Brooklyn brings to Plymouth experience in youth ministry and family ministries development along with her work experience in media, communications, and drama. She also brings her guitar and experience in worship leadership. Brooklyn was outstanding among the candidates we interviewed, not only for her intellect, her great love of learning and her organization/planning gifts, but even more for her love of people, particularly those on the margins, such as LGBTQ+ youth, and her love for the gospel of Jesus Christ. As you get to know her, you will find that she is bubbly and fun as well as extremely thoughtful and an excellent listener. Brooklyn is married to Michael McBride, an apprentice electrician here in Fort Collins. They have two dogs, Diego, their big, lovable German shepherd mix and Teddy, their 8 week old, Briard-doodle puppy. Please join the Christian Formation Board and Search Team in welcoming Brooklyn to Plymouth on Sunday, Sept. 19 after services. Hal Chorpenning, Sr. Minister
Bruce Ronda, Leadership Council Moderator Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. – Psalm 90.13-14 (NRSV) Yesterday, wonderful clergy colleague Ron Patterson mentioned several times that congregations are experiencing PTSD — Post-traumatic Stress Disorder — affected by the pandemic, insurrection, systemic racism, and not knowing whether the Delta variant will knock us out of in-person worship again. (We are certainly better prepared this year!) Thomas Hübl refers to “collective trauma” as a harrowing event that a large group experiences together. Currently, he says, “there are two phenomena: a very stressful current situation, like COVID-19, or the climate crisis, which is already intensifying. But these events meet in all of our shared history, which I refer to as the unintegrated parts of our shared past” [interview with the Harvard Gazette, Dec. 2020]. I don’t know that many white Americans have fully integrated our shared history of white privilege or that many of us expected vituperative American politics to lead to the January 6 insurrection. Those unintegrated pieces of our collective experience intensify our current trauma that play out in our own lives and the life of our community and culture. He says that this collision results in a perfect storm of sorts. “When we look at a trauma there are two major sets of symptoms: One is hyperactivity, which comes with a tremendous amount of stress and reactivity, and the other one is numbness and indifference.” I don’t know about you, but I have had both reactions: stress and withdrawal into numbness. I find that my mind will perseverate if left alone without human contact: it will spin in some less-healthy ways and distort reality. I’ve asked myself what can ameliorate the situation. Even though I am an introvert, I have found that getting out our narrow family orbit helps. Being together helps. When I see you at church on a Sunday, it helps me to have hope that there is a world with great people in it and that I am not alone. How about you? Have you had an experience lately when you’ve found stress and reactivity causing you to respond in ways that are not helpful? Maybe overreacting to an annoyance? Maybe eating or drinking more than is normal? Perhaps you tend to go the other direction and withdraw from difficult situations and give up making a difference. (And sometimes a retreat from the barrage of broadcast news is a healthy shift!) One of the items in our spiritual toolkit as a way to respond to collective trauma is lament. Psalm 90 is a collective plea to God to hear our trauma and the grief that derives from it. It is okay to use the imperative voice with God and ask the Deity to turn around and listen to us! Haven’t we been through enough, God? Are you listening to our cries of loneliness, exhaustion, frustration, stress, and despair? Give us a break and have some compassion on us! Enough plague and pestilence already! Give us a break! Our tradition allows us to have a good, solid rant with God. What do you need to say right now? Are you ready to ask Yahweh to lighten the burden? This psalm doesn’t leave the lament as the final word. Being angry with God can be a helpful stop along the way of faith, but it’s a lousy and unhealthy final destination. We get to move on and into envisioning what is next for us as Beloved Community. We come together to sing, pray, praise God for her steadfast love, which always is there for us after a time of trial, or even a time of collective trauma. One of the reasons we have Jubilee Sunday every year is to come back together after the separation of summertime travels and recreation and to offer God thanks and praise as a community. Community can lift at least a bit of the fog of trauma and grief as we come together (either in person or on livestream) and be in worship together. It won’t fix everything, but it might leave you with just enough light, hope, and peace to see you through. Enough of those positive experiences snowball into new ways of thinking, believing, behaving, and being. Positive shifts in our outlook are possible, and with God all things are possible. Join us this Jubilee Sunday at 9:00 and 11:00 for your spiritual booster shot. Together, we will heal and move toward wholeness as Beloved Community. Wishing you deep peace, AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. Dear Plymouth Family,
I have LOVED seeing you in worship these past six weeks! Baptism, live singing, outdoor fellowship, reuniting with friends, worshipping God outdoors and in our sanctuary...it has been a blessing! I hope that it has given you the spiritual lift it has given me. (And the timing of our new livestream couldn't have been better!) And it is dispiriting to have the Delta variant intrude and cause some of us to feel anxious, fearful, and unsafe when we venture beyond our homes. I share your feelings..."Didn't we just come out of a pandemic nosedive?" ... "Will we ever reach a new normal?" ... "We've been vaccinated, faithful, and safe, why are we paying the price now?" Our emotions may on a bit of a rollercoaster, and there is a heightened sense of anxiety in our society and community again, even if we aren't aware of them. (Our conference staff yesterday confirmed this is popping up in churches all over the Rocky Mountain Conference.) What can we do about it? One thing is to be intentional about dealing with our emotions. If you feel upset with someone or sense despair with a situation, practice the pause: Close your eyes, take a couple of slow, deep breaths, clench and release your hands several times. Ask yourself what you are really, truly upset about; ask whether it's something you have control over, and if not, ask God to handle it. I'm finding this helpful because there is so very much that is beyond our control right now. It takes faith and courage to live positively in this moment, and Christians across the millennia have done just that during times of plague and pestilence, and we can, too. Knowing that our congregation's emotional and spiritual health is delicate right now, on Monday evening our Pandemic Team decided to stay the course in terms of worship and meetings for the time being. So, our services this Sunday will be at summer hours: 10:00 & 6:00 and then on August 29 (Jubilee Sunday), we will begin our new fall worship hours at 9:00 & 11:00. The Pandemic Team is introducing a few tweaks so that we can continue to meet with the greatest safety possible:
I am grateful to Mel Huibregtse and the members of the Pandemic Team for seeing the big picture and for keeping our safety as a congregation at the forefront. They continue to use the best information available from the CDC, Larimer County Health, and their own experience to make the tough calls to keep us as safe as possible. We all know that there are no guarantees in life and that our tradition is replete with stories of acting on faith and not relying on the illusion of security that things like wealth, health, material comfort, and even family can provide. God is with us through all of it and will continue to be. May you sense God's presence this and every day and continue to live in faith and courage. Shalom, Dear Plymouth Family,
Are you ready for another pivot? Neither am I, but it seems as though that is in the cards…though not such a hard pivot as we’ve taken in the past. Our Pandemic Team met yesterday afternoon to chart the course for our congregation as we navigate the Delta variant together. The CDC continues to provide new counsel about how we can best keep one another as safe as possible, and we are using that as guidance. First, here are some changes in Sunday worship:
More pivots:
Thank you not only for your patience and cooperation, but for your encouragement and participation as we move through this together. Working to prevent the spread of the virus is not so much about “me and mine” as it is about “us and ours.” Thanks for caring for your neighbor and for yourself! Be well, Dear Plymouth Family,
The news about the pandemic in this country continues to improve. For the first time in a very long time, new cases of COVID are in the single digits in Larimer County. It has been a very long road…unique in Plymouth’s 118-year history. It has been rough on congregants and lay leaders and rough on pastors and staff, but we have made it through! Thank you for your patience and continued participation in being the church! I am especially appreciative of the wise counsel of our Pandemic Team:Melanie Huibregtse (chair), Barry Beaty, Claudia DeMarco, Greg Ebel, Jane Anne Ferguson, Bob Jeffrey, Judy Lane, Jim Medlock, Bruce Ronda, Nancy Sturtevant, George Theodore, and Harmony Tucker. Scientists, healthcare professionals, ministers, officers of the church, deacons, and trustees have comprised this august body, which has kept us as safe as possible. The Pandemic Team met and reached some decisions about our reopening process. The team has produced detailed guidelines for building use and cleaning, but here is a top-line report of their counsel: In-Person Meetings are now available to all Plymouth groups, both fellowship groups and other meetings, so long as all members have been fully vaccinated. It is the responsibility of the group leader to ensure that all are fully vaccinated and if not, to offer alternatives. (Outdoor meeting space on the lawn is available for all persons.) You can also continue to use Zoom for any of your gatherings, which saves gas and commuting time, and it helps our air quality. You can schedule online at plymouthucc.org/cal. In-Person Worship has already resumed at 6:00 for fully vaccinated folks, and we have made masks and distancing optional, and eliminated the need for advanced sign-ups. Just come! In-person worship at 10:00 has now been approved for all persons, including kids, whether vaccinated or not. Folks who have not yet been vaccinated — including young people — are asked to wear masks and to observe social distancing. Our deacons have arranged the sanctuary with an every-other pew configuration on the west (window) side of the sanctuary. The east side of the sanctuary has no social distance requirements. We will be singing and serving communion. We ask that social time following the service be outside, either on the sanctuary lawn or the north patio outside the Fellowship Hall. Nursery care will be available. Our first 10:00 service will be Sunday, July 4! Independence Day will have a sweet, new ring for us at Plymouth! The Stewardship Board will be providing breakfast burritos…since we missed them on Consecration Sunday last year. The choir (all vaccinated) will sing, and we will celebrate communion. (Starting July 4, until new livestream equipment is installed later in July, we will post a recording of the live service on Sunday afternoon at plymouthucc.org/streaming) Precautions are still encouraged, including the use of hand gel…new dispensers are available in the Fellowship Hall, Sanctuary, North Wing, and Narthex. Please feel free to wear a mask if you wish, and for your own protection, if you have not yet been fully vaccinated, we ask that you keep a mask on at all times. Faith Family Hospitality Network guests are now with us and will be through the morning of Sunday, June 20. They are using the North and West Wings of the church and the Fellowship Hall, so those areas are off-limits unless you are volunteering with FFH through June 20. Again, thank you for your patience. I know that there has been a diversity of opinion within the congregation about how and when to open, and I appreciate that we have let the Pandemic Team do their important work to make the best possible decisions on our behalf. See you in church! Welcome, all! After a l-o-n-g pandemic, it’s time for our first all-church outdoor service in two years! I invite you to join us at our usual location under the pavilion at Rolland Moore Park, just south of the church on Shields Street. Everyone is invited, kids, those who are vaccinated, and those who are not! We ask that if you have not been vaccinated that you continue to wear a mask. (Even though outdoor transmission of the virus is very unlikely, we do have some immune-compromised members who are at higher risk even though vaccinated.) Vaccinated or not, please wear a mask if it makes you feel comfortable in the midst of others. Our outdoor service is a great, safe opportunity for you to come and worship with your Plymouth family. It is blessing for us to see our Plymouth kids and to have them worship with us! What to bring
I can’t wait to see you on Sunday! It’s been a very long time since most of us have been together, and it will be great to come back together. Many thanks to our Boards of Deacons and Congregational Life for organizing! Peace, P.S. Looking ahead, Jubilee Sunday is coming on August 29! AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. “Surely the LORD your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.” – Deuteronomy 2.7 “Early in the morning, Joshua rose and set out from Shittim with all the Israelites, and they came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing over.” – Judges 3.1 Does it feel to you as if we’ve been wandering the in the wilderness for forty years? There are days when it seems as if it’s been that long since we’ve worshiped together in person. I have missed seeing you in the pews and in the Fellowship Hall…missed deeply the hugs and smiles and words of kindness and encouragement. Even without being together physically, there is a force that has helped us maintain our bonds across these 15 months of pandemic isolation. A few weeks ago, Jane Anne preached on the text from John’s gospel in which Jesus tells us to love one another as he first loved us. My sense is that God’s love is the force that has held us together as a congregation during our pandemic pilgrimage. And as we love one another with that same love, we build community. But now, we are approaching a different stage in that journey. Like Joshua leading the Israelites out of the wilderness, we are camped along the banks of the River Jordan, and we are about to cross over into a new land. I know some of us are ready to cross the Jordan today with no waiting on the bank! Others of us are nervous about what it might look like on the other side…that things will be different…that we may not know how to relate to one another exactly as we did. Let’s wade through the water together…get our feet wet together…and make it across into the next stage of our Plymouth pilgrimage as we arrive home. Come on back! Wade in! Some of the Israelites got really tired of the taste of manna, and I know some of us are really tired of recorded services on Sunday. (Manna and broadcast services have been life-sustaining, if not fully pleasing our palates.) So, join us for our Outdoor Service at Rolland Moore Park on June 6 at 10:00. (There is only one service that day…bring a blanket or lawn chair.) Come on back! Wade in! With the new guidance from the CDC last week, our Pandemic Team (which meets again next week) will likely be able to liberalize our opening even further. Stay tuned! Our Leadership Council last week approved the installation of a new livestreaming system in our sanctuary that will enable us to stream services with worshipers in the pews! That will make Sunday morning hybrid (in-person + livestream) worship possible, once it’s installed early this summer! Come on back! Wade in! In the meantime, if you are fully vaccinated, please plan to join us this Sunday evening at 6:00 in the Plymouth sanctuary as we have our first in-person service since March 8, 2020. You do need to sign up in advance…just go to plymouthucc.org/worship. Come on back! Wade in! See you at church or in the park soon! AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. Dear Plymouth Family,
Here is a very quick update: Larimer County Health has a vaccine clinic this weekend for youth aged 12-16 using the Pfizer vaccine, which is now FDA approved for youth. Here is a link to vaccine info on their website: https://www.larimer.org/health/communicable-disease/coronavirus-covid-19/covid-19-vaccine Ready to worship in person?? Register NOW for our service on Sunday, May 23, if you are fully vaccinated: plymouthucc.org/worship And vaccinated or not, plan to join us for outdoor worship at Rolland Moore Park on June 6. Thanks and peace, Dear Plymouth Family, After more than a year of often-dismal news, I’m writing to you with a spirit of excitement…we have in-person outdoor worship and activities planned in June, and we are launching a pilot in-person service, starting Sunday, May 23 at 6:00 p.m.! It feels as though the logjam of pandemic isolation may finally be breaking up, at least a bit. Our Pandemic Team met again last evening, and I’m sharing some of what the team decided, based on the most recent recommendations from the CDC and Larimer County Health. If you haven’t yet been vaccinated and you wish to be, there are many opportunities on the Larimer County Health website. If you are 16 or over, I heartily recommend getting vaccinated. The team is acutely aware that there are different safety criteria for those who are vaccinated and those who are not (which includes anyone under 16), and we are doing our best to provide a range of opportunities for everyone at Plymouth. We appreciate your patience and cooperation, knowing that we aren’t able to do a perfect job of accommodating everyone’s desires. And as the Covid situation in Larimer County changes, we will adapt our plans accordingly. For Those Vaccinated or Not…
For Fully Vaccinated Folks… (fully vaccinated = vaccinated + full waiting period)
As conditions change (hopefully improve), the Pandemic Team will continue to work toward taking further steps in the ways we can be together. Together, we have walked a very long road through this pandemic. I have so appreciated your faithfulness in attending our broadcast services, staying as safe as possible, understanding our limitations, providing financial support, and continuing to be the church. You are a blessing! I leave you with a prayer God, help us be a part of the solution. Let us do our part for the common good. Help us to have patience, to care for one another. Guide us through moments of ennui and languishing and Lead us toward the abundance of life Jesus promised. Help us be safe, hopeful, and whole. Amen. Deep peace, Links in red below are not live. Use these links:
Larimer County Health Website, Larimer County COVID-19 Dashboard Dear Plymouth Family, The COVID landscape continues to change as we walk into spring and newness of life. Even as cases continue to increase in Larimer County, many of us are getting vaccinated. On each of three days last week, the count in our county exceeded 150 new cases. Many cases are the easily transmissible new variant strains of COVID. The Larimer County Health website puts us in the red “high risk” zone. The first priority for the Pandemic Team is keeping our people safe, while knowing that coming together in person is important! I know this has been a long haul and that many of us are feeling the weight of pandemic isolation, and I appreciate your faith and patience as we have journeyed through this together. Having weighed the data, the Pandemic Team is making some changes for Plymouth, including launching a pilot program that will include in-person worship at our 6:00, beginning Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2021. Here is what is already happening: Middle School and Sr. High Youth Groups are meeting in the Fellowship Hall or outdoors with <10 people, masks, social distancing, and hand sanitizer use. We had a two-session Easter Egg Hunt and drive-in worship on Easter Sunday. Those experiments have gone well! Starting Monday, April 19: Fellowship groups and small-group ministries like Celtic and Healing Prayer, may opt to meet either in the Fellowship Hall for fully vaccinated participants. (Fully vaccinated means both injections or one J&J injection AND two-week waiting period.) Non-fully-vaccinated participants may meet on the sanctuary lawn. You must make a reservation at plymouthucc.org/cal for either the lawn or Fellowship Hall and agree to the terms below. We encourage boards and committees to continue meeting via Zoom, knowing that there are people in our congregation who may have reasons for not getting vaccinated. If you do come to Plymouth for such a meeting, please wear your mask at all times (members of staff are still waiting for second doses of the vaccine), use hand gel, and observe social distancing. Starting Sunday, May 23, 2021 (Pentecost Sunday): We begin our pilot program of in-person worship at 6:00 p.m. (The 10:00 a.m. service is recorded on Wednesday and Thursday, and it wouldn’t be much fun to attend while we’re filming…livestreaming is still unreliable, but we’re searching for a new solution to that.) Maybe you’ve never tried our 6:00 service…this is your chance! I’ve heard over the years that some people think the 6:00 worship is “the Hippy Service,” which made me laugh out loud! Or that we have “Jesus is my boyfriend” praise-band music at 6:00…nope! You might hear a postlude by U2 or a song by John Bell, but it is a totally schmalz-free service! And we have communion every week! There are some caveats that the Pandemic Team approved:
All of our plans are contingent on no further big changes in COVID cases in Larimer County, and the Pandemic Team will make adjustments to the pilot plan as things progress. We will also continue to look for more opportunities to be together outside as the weather improves…unlike later this week! Thank you for your patience, your prayers, your abiding faith in God. Our staff is as eager as you are to have in-person services and events. I also want to thank the members of our Pandemic Team for their guidance: Barry Beaty, Paula Bernander, Claudia DeMarco, Greg Ebel, Jane Anne Ferguson, Melanie Huibregtse (chair), Judy Lane, Jim Medlock, Bruce Ronda, Nancy Sturtevant, George Theodore, and Harmony Tucker. Be well, be safe, and enjoy the spring! Deep peace, Welcome to The Fellowship Hall!
We’re glad you’re here! We care about your safety and appreciate your strict adherence to these guidelines…if they seem too restrictive to you, please opt to meet somewhere else. At this point, only Plymouth fellowship groups, small-group ministries, and staff will meet. For the health of our staff, please don’t come into the office. Only meet here if you can agree to these guidelines:
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