Merging Is A New Journey - Pentecost! New Life!

Last week was the first in-person, in the sanctuary worship service since the start of Advent.  It was a very different sense though.  In mid-July when in-person worship started, it was an 8:30am service that was not very heavily attended.  Maybe because of the heat.  Maybe because people still didn't like to go out much.  Maybe because it was too early.  For me, it was just back into old habits because at Wappingers, I would leave home at 8am to get the sanctuary ready for a 9am service.  Now I was just leaving at 8am to get to Poughkeepsie in time.

A decision was made to combine the in-person service (at 8:30am) with the live-streamed service (10am) at a 9:30am start time.  Then we were asked to stop in-person services due to an uptick in COVID-19 numbers...and so it remained until the end of April when we had three outdoor services before moving to indoor worship last week.

So why am I writing about being in-person this week and not so much last week?

Last week I was running tech and we were at the front of the church, so it was really hard to gauge what was going on behind me.  Plus, we couldn't sing, with masks on, yet.

Yesterday was the first Sunday we could SING AGAIN, TOGETHER, with masks on.  And tech had moved to the back of the church.  So I had a great view of EVERYTHING.  And it was amazing.

The pew unto myself for running Zoom

Also because I could really get up and move around during the music, which I honestly really enjoyed.  Something has woken up inside me.  It happens every once and awhile.  Like after a day away doing something church-related, like the Laity Convocation.  Or a few days away like Annual Conference, when it was in person.  But in the past I would come back from those things really excited and then have to tone myself down.  Because there just did not seem to be a time or a place for that.

Until now.

Because I seem to be among others who feel the same as me with worship music.  In discovering myself so many months ago in a new place that is now like home, I have found how I am most comfortable and I am not embarrassed about it.  I don't feel silly.  Or ashamed.  Or even awkward.  I feel that I am able to praise God more fully.  Which is a great thing.

Don't get me wrong, with all sorts of people coming back to church, I still have a lot of faces (or half faces) to get to know.  Because many of them I never saw before because I was so busy keeping to myself.  But I am looking forward to it.  I am looking forward to bonding with others who are like me, who can't keep still when praising God.  Who can't keep quiet.  Who get excited.  Who cry when the music or the words or the instruments get to them.  

There have been many different moments over the past 10 months where I have felt renewed.  And this was just another one of them where I truly felt new life.  And I am so excited of what is coming next!