Dear Members and Friends of Holy Trinity,

On this eve of a New Year, I pass along a few things of interest to you:

1. The new Christ in Our Home devotionals, for January, February, and March, are ready to be picked up in the Narthex.  Please remember to limit yourself to one copy per family.

2. The 2021 offering envelopes are ready to be picked up as well, in the room off the Narthex.  You can help us out a lot by stopping by the church and picking up yours, and by delivering them to those who live nearby.

3. The Messenger went out this afternoon, so hopefully, your copy will arrive in the mail soon.

4. Sunday, I will be preaching on the Second Lesson, Ephesians 1:3-14, and focusing on the theme of being chosen by God.

5. As we begin the New Year, it is a perfect time to ask ourselves are we being faithful as followers of the Lord? 

 

Stay safe and may the Lord bless you in this coming year!

Pastor Fischer

Dear Members and Friends of Holy Trinity,

 

With the Christmas Eve worship services fast approaching, I thought I would give you an update on several related items to those services.  First of all, thank you for your input with the Church Council in recent phone calls.  After tallying all the projected attendance numbers, here are the results of those who have indicated they are planning to attend our Christmas Eve services:

 

11:00 a.m.  “The ABC’s of Christmas” Service – Expected attendance is 28

3:00 p.m.  “The ABC’s of Christmas” Service – Expected attendance is 26

8:00 p.m.  The Liturgical Christmas Service – Expected attendance is 43

11:00 p.m. The Liturgical Christmas Service – Expected attendance is 44

 

I thought I needed to share how this will work.  Even though you have given us your projected worship attendance, we will not be monitoring the front door with a clip board to see who is and who is not on the list.  We will be using the Honor Policy and leaving that up to folks to abide by their preferences. In case you are wondering, our last two worship services are right at our maximum capacity which we have determined to be around 42-45 (depending on the size of each family).  This is based on using every other pew and sitting at the ends of each pew.  If you are uncomfortable with that many being in worship, I suggest you either switch over to one of the first two worship services (if you would like to do that, please let me know) or stay home.  The 11:00 a.m. and the 8:00 p.m. worship services will be recorded and placed on the church website soon after they are completed. 

 

We are doing everything we can to help ensure that each worship service will be a safe place to worship, even in this time of COVID-19, including the following:

 

 

• Offering plates will not be passed during the worship service but instead, be placed at the entrances.
• To help facilitate social distancing, we will be using every other pew in worship, and using the ends of each pew.  Each seat will be marked with a bulletin.
• The Sanctuary will be fogged after each service.
• To minimize possible exposure to the virus, worship services will be shorter than what we are accustomed to.
• All hymnals have been removed from the pew.  We will continue to use a bulletin containing the worship service. 
• Several recent studies have found that forceful, sustained breathing, such as during singing, appears to pose a greater danger of spreading the coronavirus.  To minimize these dangers, the singing of hymns, the Kyrie, and the Psalms, will be omitted.  We will be using a soloist and the remaining parts of the liturgy will be spoken.  
• The Sharing of the Peace has been omitted.
• We will be refraining from handshaking and hugging.
• No nursery will be offered at this time.
• The distribution of Holy Communion will be modified to minimize touch.
• We will be using wafers instead of bread at this time.
• Cups of wine and grape juice will be pre-filled, and cups will be spaced out on the serving tray to eliminate accidental touching of nearby cups.
• For the protection of others, the wearing of masks is strongly encouraged during worship.  You are encouraged to bring your own mask, however, masks will also be available at the door.

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

We are living in strange times indeed because of the coronavirus, but we can endure these modifications to worship knowing that these changes are not permanent.  God will help us through.

 

In Christ,

Pastor Fischer

 

Dear Members and Friends of Holy Trinity,

 

Here are a few weekly updates to pass along to you:

 

1. 2021 Offering Envelopes are ready to be picked up in the room off the narthex.  You can help us reduce our mailing costs by stopping by the church during the week and picking up your box (or getting it on Sunday), or by picking up your family member’s envelope boxes or nearby neighbors, and delivering them.

2. If you have not already done so, you should be receiving a phone call soon from your Church Council caller, concerning whether you will be attending a Christmas Eve Service and if so, which one.

3. As you can imagine, with four Christmas Eve worship services, we will be using many volunteers, such as:  Lectors, Communion Assistants, Ushers, Soloists, Video Recorders, those to set up Communion and those to clean up afterwards.  We have every spot filled except that we are needing two ushers for the following Christmas Eve worship services:  11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.  (We already have two commitments to serve at the 11:00 p.m. service.)  If you would be willing to assist, please send me a REPLY.

4. I wanted to keep you informed that Pat Ross’ son, David, tested positive for COVID earlier this week.  So far, Pat has not shown any symptoms.  Until we are sure that Pat is in the clear, she will be working from home.  We are grateful to Diane Richardson, who has been filling in some this week in the office.

5. The Sunday bulletin will be sent out later this week.

6. I will be preaching on the gospel reading this Sunday, Luke 1:26-38 and exploring how God often calls the least equipped, but have hearts that are willing.

 

In Christ,

Pastor Fischer

CHRISTMAS EVE
WORSHIP SERVICES – DECEMBER 24TH
In order to spread out our attendance numbers and to help keep everyone safe, we are offering four
Christmas Eve worship services this year! Worship space for three of those services should not be an
issue, but we are asking those who normally attend the 11:00 p.m. service to consider attending the
8:00 p.m. service, as these two services will be identical. Then, two weeks before Christmas, the
church council will be using the Congregational Call List to contact each family to tally worship
preferences. The social distancing practices we use for each Sunday morning will also be followed for
our Christmas Eve services. As an option, several type of the worship services will be recorded and
placed on the church website. Below is the information you will need to help you and your family
make your worship decisions.

Family Oriented Worship Services 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM
     We will be using the ABC’s of Christmas service as we used last year.
     Families/individuals “participate” in the message.
     Holy Communion will be offered.
     There will be no nursery provided.
     One of these two worship services will be recorded and placed on the church website.

Traditional Liturgical Worship Services 8:00 PM and 11:00 PM
     We will be using the liturgy similar to what we use on Sunday mornings.
     Holy Communion will be offered.
     Candle lighting participation will be offered.
     There will be no nursery provided.
     One of these two worship services will be recorded and placed on the church website.