Minister’s pandemic missives published

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/05/2023 (1250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In March 2020, Michael Wilson, the minister at Charleswood United Church, decided to send his members a letter.

“We are approaching the first Sunday since the decision to suspend all gatherings was made,” he wrote, adding the only other time he could recall church being cancelled was during the April blizzard of 1997.

This, he went on to say, “was a threat of a different kind.”

At the time, Wilson — like most everyone else — thought the shutdown might last a few weeks. But that turned out to be the first of two-years worth of letters, sent each week to the 500 or so people on the church’s email list.

“I wanted to let people know they weren’t alone, even if we were isolated from each other, even though our normal lives were disrupted,” he said. “I wanted them to know God is our companion, that community wasn’t dependent on being physically together in the same place and time.”

Now Wilson has collected his two years of letters together in a book titled A Pastoral Pandemic: Remaining Connected During a Time of Disconnection.

In addition to addressing the impact of the pandemic, the letters also deal with things happening in the world such as the death of George Floyd and the discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children.

“It was a way to keep people connected, and to offer some theological reflection,” he said, noting the letters also contained community news, updates and announcements.

Early on, he realized he was having a bigger impact as members shared his letters with family and friends across the country.

“I was getting responses back from beyond the congregation,” he said, adding he also received feedback from the reflections he wrote at that time for the Free Press.

“I realized I had something to say beyond Charleswood,” Wilson said.

Looking back, Wilson said his church, like most churches, wasn’t ready for the shutdown.

“We had a website, and we had the ability to post audio files, but no video being done at that point,” he said.

Soon after the pandemic began, he worked with other church members to create video services, posting them on YouTube. Each service was about 30 minutes long, with a short sermon and some music. “Just what we thought were the essentials,” he said.

Since those services were put together near the end of each week, “Thursdays became my new Sundays,” he said, noting that for the first time in his ministry “I got weekends off.”

That experience provided lessons for when the congregation began to meet in person again.

“We jettisoned some things that weren’t working for us,” he said, noting his sermons are shorter now, between 12 and 15 minutes. A scripture reading was also dropped.

“As we come back, we discovered hospitality and connecting is most important for people now,” he said of how people want to connect with each other.

The experience also shaped the way the church does communion.

“The sacraments are really important in our tradition,” he said. But when they were doing communion online, it was impossible to have what’s called a “closed” table.

“When you are online, you can’t say only some can join in, that not all are welcome here,” he said. “When you are online it is about as open as it can get.”

Now that the congregation is meeting in person again, “everyone is welcome,” he said.

They did stop celebrating communion online, though. “There is something about doing it in person and together, celebrating our Christ in our midst,” he said.

He still does the video service each week, preaching the same sermon. “It’s a bit longer, maybe a few more anecdotes,” he said of the in-person sermon. There are still about 250-300 views a week of the video services.

Overall, Wilson thinks his church “weathered COVID well.” Only one person died of the virus. But he knows the impact of the pandemic lingers, especially for those who were unable to properly mourn the death of loved ones due to the restrictions on gathering at the height of the emergency.

For Wilson, who has been at Charleswood for 29 years, the congregation’s response during the pandemic demonstrates their “trust in each other and trust in me. I think the church has come out of it stronger.”

When Easter came this year, he felt things were finally back to normal. “The church felt reborn at Easter,” he said. “It felt like we were all the way back.”

A Pastoral Pandemic is available through Commonword, located at Canadian Mennonite University, or at CommonWord.ca. The cost is $24.95.

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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