Ralph Connor Memorial
United Church
Weekly
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Friday, March 27, 2020
COVID-19 MESSAGE
from Ralph Connor Memorial United Church
Ralph Connor Memorial United Church has discontinued all public worship gatherings until further notice
. This affects both our Sunday Morning Worship and Wednesday Night Evensong. All Church-organized in-person gatherings and meetings have also been discontinued, though committees are encouraged to continue meeting by electronic means.
STAYING INFORMED
In this rapidly changing landscape, we will be guided by the decisions of Public Health Officials, and best practices as circulated by The United Church of Canada. If there are substantial changes to local practice, these will be published on ralphconnor.ca and circulated electronically (or by alternate means for those without email).
Here are some regularly updated links:
United Church of Canada, Chinook Winds Region: go to
https://chinookwindsregion.ca/
and scroll down to "sign up for Newsletter". The Region is sending out frequent updates.
CARE CONNECTIONS
Thank you to our "Care Contact" phoners and "Care Courier" errand/delivery team. Note: W
e have 143 households being contacted, including the 18 Care Contacts, and 8 folks have volunteered as Care Couriers.It is so important for us to stay connected to one another in these days, while doing everything we can to stay safe. If you are showing any cold/flu symptoms at all and need something from the store, please do not “pop out” to get it. Let us know what you need (via Greg or the Office or your Care Contact) and we will arrange a Care Courier to bring it to you.
If you are not on one of our contact lists and would like to be added, just send a note to Barb Profitt at
bprofit@shaw.ca and she will add you to a list.
BROADER CIRCLES OF CARE
We also encourage
everyone
to stay in contact with your friends and neighbours and others in your personal "circles of care". - and if you become aware of needs beyond our congregation that we could assist with, please make those known to your "Care Contact" person or to the Church Office, 403-678-5354.
There is also in the community, "Stone Soup Canmore" - a Facebook group with over 1,900 members recently created "so that anyone in Canmore who is desperate for certain things or can't leave their house can place a request here and our community can come together to help! Let's build a support network during the COVID-19 breakout. " That group is willing to receive new members, or requests for assistance, and every day new information is shared from individuals and vendors willing to lend a hand. This is part of a wonderful Canadian trend known as "care mongering."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/556533621645187/
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RCMUC SUNDAY WORSHIP - ONLINE
Thank you to everyone who led our first “virtual worship service” on March 22
nd
and to the over 200 people who have logged in to watch it online. At present, our plan is to continue to worship in this manner – a worship service will be posted no later than 10 AM Sunday on YouTube on the “Ralph Connor Canmore” channel,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi8loA1BP8lNAppSRR9_aQQ
We’ve got our team lined up for the March 29
th
service – with this week’s gospel lesson, John 11: 1-45 - but will need many different participants as time goes on. If you’d like to be part of a leadership team – and have the ability to record at home – please let Greg know at
minister@ralphconnor.ca
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NEXT BIG STEPS for RCMUC Communication
ZOOM for VIDEO GROUPS
We are so appreciative of the work being done by our Care Contacts and Care Couriers, and that will continue for the foreseeable future. Those calls have done so much to lessen the sense of isolation from one another.
The next step, is to actually "see" other people while maintaining social distance. A computer/tablet/smartphone app that many United Churches are using is called Zoom. It allows "conference call" groupings to get together and see one another and talk/meet/discuss together. Depending on how the meeting is set up, telephone participants may also be able to join.
If you would be interested in being part of this kind of face-to-face-without-leaving-your-home interaction, downloading the free version of Zoom can get you started. Laptops download the app from
https://zoom.us/download while tablet and smartphone users download the app from their usual vendor (Google Play or Apple Store). The free version of Zoom works very well, and the Church has a paid version that can be shared with Church-based groups wishing to host meetings longer than 40 minutes. (Participants with the free version can stay on the line for longer than 40 minutes, but the event itself will be limited to 40 minutes if the HOST is using the free version).
IDEAS WANTED
Now... if you have an idea for a Zoom group you might want to start (Bible study, book study, coffee klatsch, committee-based group, etc) please get in touch with Greg
minister@ralphconnor.ca and we can figure out the details, whether it would need the Church's account to host it, etc.
If you are famliar with other technology that works in a similar way (GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, Skype) and can support multiple users at the same time, that's OK too. Zoom is recommended, but if you're experienced with something else that can do the job, go for it!
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1 EVENSONG by Zoom. (
no foolin!)
The next Evensong service is going to happen on Zoom! Folks can gather virtually (without leaving their homes) at 7:15 PM on Wednesday night,
using the login link that will be sent in the weekly Evensong email. (If you're not on the Evensong mailing list, please contact
jan.tissandier@gmail.com
). As noted above, you will find it easier to log in on Wednesday night if you
download the Zoom app ahead of time... and if you log on a few minutes prior to 7:15 PM on Wednesday, just in case there are any technical bugs in this first-time connection. Thanks to Judy Archer for this!
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FUNDING OUR MISSION
The RCMUC Benevolent Fund helps us to respond to emergency needs, year-round, and will be particularly important now as we respond to emergency needs in the Bow Valley (Canmore, Morley, and neighbouring communities).
- To donate to this fund, please go to ralphconnor.ca and use the DONATE NOW button, located about half-way down the front page. This is connected directly to Canada Helps. For Benevolent donations, pick "2-other" and then note "Benevolent" in the message box.
In addition, we need to continue paying the regular expenses of the congregation:
salaries, utility bills and the like.
Thank you to everyone who has signed up for PAR (Pre-Authorized Remittance) - this is a great help in providing predictable income each month for RCMUC. We will need additional financial resources, however, via any of the following methods:
- An eTransfer is the easiest and quickest of all and without fees or nominal fees, sent to office@ralphconnor.ca
- the DONATE NOW button is an easy way to help our cashflow stay healthy.
- A cheque in the mail will also be warmly received.
- Donations will be assumed to be a donation to "general funds" unless otherwise indicated.
Thank you, all, for your continued support of the ministry of Ralph Connor Memorial United Church.
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As mentioned earlier, all Church-organized gatherings are cancelled.
All other user/renter groups have been making their own decisions about their programming, based on Public Health guidelines.
Evensong will continue to send out a weekly email of worshipful encouragement on Monday/Tuesday, and this week, an invitation to join the April 1 Evensong via Zoom (see above).
Healing Pathway will not be gathering in person, but requests for distance healing/prayer may be emailed to
healing@ralphconnor.ca
Lessons are cancelled until further notice
. Join your family and friends on video Ukulele jam sing-a-longs, via FaceTime or other free electronic forums. Contact Donna or Marsh Kennedy for more information at
dmkennedy11@gmail.com
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Many thanks to Robin Slater for offering "Robin's Web" as a feature in our Newsletter, as part of our efforts to be a more broadly inclusive Community of Faith.
ROBIN'S WEB
CONNECTING DIVERSITY
I have a bone to pick with the powers that be. OK, funny words from a confirmed vegetarian but in unusual times, we can’t be too picky. Who decided on “social isolating” as the words to describe our current safety practices?? You all know I have a huge personal space bubble, which is finally the preferred way we need to maintain physical boundaries, but I am happy to share and maintain the network of spiritual threads that encourage and create community. We still connect, and nurture our connections, we just HAVE to do it differently. The words have created barriers of their own:
To that end check-out how orchestras are coming together, virtually, to offer us some stress-relief:
Copeland's Appalachian Spring - Musicians of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and CPO, ESO isolation
(please excuse the first ad).
Now might be the time to reach out thru journaling, or gasp! snail-mail letters. An oxymoron of simultaneously looking inwards and reaching out, described beautifully by Anaïs Nin: “We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely...When I don’t write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.” In my world, I substitute read with write…….
We can ponder philosophical issues and debate them from a distance, a Mennonite position: This pandemic calls all of society to work together. It requires people to take personal responsibilities. But it should not cause us to abandon our commitment to the common good.
A Jewish comparison: The situation in which the world finds itself is recalls another catastrophe. Noah’s Ark was rocked by the flood for forty days before it anchored. It is a story of a crisis and how to deal with it. When Noah and his family were closed in the ark with the animals, on a constant daily basis he had to make sure that all who were there – human beings and all creatures were able to live together, share space, food and other needs. Moreover, they all had to find the ways to support each other. Noah faced a different world after the Great Flood. When he looked around, on the ground he saw the disaster, he saw what was lost, but when he looked above to heaven, he saw the colors of the rainbow in the blue sky. There he saw the hope for the future, as soon we will have to decide how to renew our life’s work, businesses and personal connections.
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BILL MILLAR
CONNECTING INTERCULTURISM
A message from our Winnipeg friend Bill Millar (who made a lasting impact on all of us when he covered for Greg in the winter
Greetings Bill from RCMUC friends who are grateful for the opportunity to have helped you shape this podcast series. Stay safe socially distancing.
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CYAN
(Canmore Young Adult Network)
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CYAN
has discontinued all in-person events for the month of March, but Tara is continuing to do Wednesday Yoga from her home! Please join her, all ages welcome!
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as well as the new
Canmore Stone Soup Facebook page,
for a new initiative. A limited number of meals will be prepared, using the facilities of a local restaurant, and delivered Monday, March 30th and every Monday thereafter until Food and Friends is back to normal or decide to stop.
Note: The next RCMUC turn is tentatively scheduled for
Monday, April 6, 2020
- stay tuned for details from our Coordinator, Judy Vincent.
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OFFICE CONTACTS
The Church Offices are closed, but emails and phone messages will be retrieved Tuesday-Friday.
Administration: Trish Campney
Minister: Rev. Greg Wooley
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Ralph Connor Memorial United Church
617 Main Street, Canmore, Alberta, T1W 2B1
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