Dear St. Lukers,
Last week’s ALL-IN Sunday was a wonderful chance for all of us to LOVE God together in worship! Remember, every first Sunday we encourage you to make it a priority to be part of worship in person so we can gather around the Communion table together, and share in embodied community with one another.
Worship is central to who we are as followers of Jesus and as St. Lukers, and it has been wonderful to see more and more faces back in person each week. It’s led to a number of questions around the future of worship at St. Luke’s – especially worship times!
As a reminder, we currently worship IN PERSON at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays in both venues; ONLINE we have our Contemporary service available at 9:30 a.m. and our Traditional service available at 11:00 a.m. (both live on our Facebook page).
The question of when and if we will return to worshiping in person at 11:00 a.m. is one we are paying close attention to. We want to be the best stewards of our staff and volunteers’ time, and currently our in-person attendance is at a level that only warrants a single in-person service for each worship venue. In addition, we are still operating at the bare minimum (or fewer) number of volunteers each week to be able to lead in worship and fellowship each Sunday.
We are hoping in the future to be at the capacity to need and be able to facilitate an 11:00 a.m. worship service in one or both of our venues, so please know we are looking toward that possibility, but we will not make that transition until we know we have the need AND can facilitate additional services.
If you’re hoping for that 11:00 a.m. service time in the future, you can help move us toward that possibility in two ways: 1) Attend 9:30 a.m. worship! If we start to outgrow our worship venues at 9:30 a.m., we will absolutely begin to look at adding an additional service! 2) Volunteer to serve as a worship host, usher, communion server, member of the tech team, or hospitality volunteer! This will help us currently as we are in need EVERY WEEK of additional volunteers to fully staff our worship services, and help us prepare for an increased number of services in the future! (You can email worship@st.lukes.org to let us know how you might be interested in serving!)
With that being said – I hope you will join us this Sunday for worship, in person or online. We’ll be continuing our series on the Sermon on the Mount that invites us to “Zoom Out” and see the world through a Kingdom lens.
We will also be welcoming our new Senior Director of Traditional Music and Liturgy, Josh O’Dell, in Traditional worship this Sunday as he begins his ministry with us. Josh is very excited to join the St. Luke’s family and lead our Traditional worship ministries for years to come. I hope you will be there to give Josh a warm St. Luke’s welcome that shows our commitment to hospitality and community!
That also means we will be celebrating the ministry of Nate Krug and Bradley Roberts, who have been supporting John Mason and our worship team in leading our Sanctuary Choir over the last few months. Come also to offer your appreciation for their leadership in transition!
However you join us, be sure you’re LOVING God through worship this week as we continue to grow in our discipleship together. See you Sunday!
Blessings,
Pastor Melissa