Dear Church,

With Thanksgiving and the Advent season approaching, we enter a time of holidays like one many of us have never experienced. Our hopes fade for an end to the pandemic by year’s end, and in fact we face a coronavirus spike across the nation.

Our traditional holiday gatherings mirror the way we have experienced in-person worship and community: hours spent with close-knit communities in prayer, hugging, laughing, singing, eating, and talking. I have not seen my children or grandchildren since March. I would like to gather with family and friends during this holiday season, just as I yearn for being with congregations in-person. And yet, I will refrain for the love of family, friends, and neighbors. I will continue to adhere to best health practices. I pray you will as well.

The Grand Canyon Synod saw a spike of cases in the few weeks after Memorial Day. None of us want to see an exponentiating series of infections in the coming wave of holidays: Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and celebrating the new year.

To protect the most vulnerable of us, I encourage you to make safe plans now. I urge you to make a list of the people you love and reach out to them. Share your concerns for the holidays, listen to theirs, and find ways to celebrate that are safe, joyous, and meaningful for all.

You have discovered many creative ways to worship, pray, and gather safely, and you will also find creative ways to gather for this season. (Start baking treats and get them in the mail!)

In our synod, there are locations with the blessing of excellent autumn weather which makes small outdoor gatherings an easier option.

From the experience of these last months, we know what types of gathering are the most risky. Infection risk factors include the amount of time spent, the number of people, and the size of the space. Evidence is pointing to super-spreader events as the way coronavirus moves through society.

While we are all weary of online meetings, the gift of technology will help us greatly in gathering, and may even increase the number of people we contact this year. There are dozens of suggestions for creative ways to celebrate via Zoom, Facetime, and Skype. Cooking and eating new and traditional meals together, happy hours, coffees, prayer, and music can be combined in so many ways. We can also go back to the old days, and use a phone, or even a letter to reach out to loved ones.

As we think of worship, we ask the same question: what can we do to plan for Advent and Christmas in a time of pandemic? Worship planners and interested parties are encouraged to join the conference deans and myself on Tuesday, November 10 at 3:00 p.m. MST, where we will share ideas of what this might look like. Please register for the Zoom meeting here.

This may be an opportunity to free yourself from some of the extraneous traditions and expectations that have been a burden. I encourage you to take advantage of this year’s limited gathering ability to focus on what is most important to you and the ones you love as you enter these holidays:

• Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks to the One whose generous goodness comes to us new every day. 

• Advent invites us to focus on waiting and wondering and preparing for Emmanuel, God with us. Anticipating, preparing, creating, making—all can be a prayer that leads us through the darkness into the light of Jesus.

• Christmas is an opportunity to try something new—new ways of worship, new ways of gathering, new ways of hearing the story of Jesus with us. Remember the original Christmas? A few shepherds and a small family—safe, fed, and warm for at least one night—gathered humbly and quietly in a barn, pondering in our hearts the awe of God’s incarnation.

Grateful for how God uses you to bring light and hope,

The Rev. Deborah K. Hutterer
Bishop
Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA