Dear Church Family,
I used the phrase “difficult times” a few too many times in 2020, and one of the teenagers called me on it. I love the question she asked: “Why do people always say these difficult times? These unprecedented times? Whether it’s precedented or not, you should call it like it is. These times are awful. Terrible.” I agree; not just the months of pandemic (with so much death, tragedy, and mismanagement) but also the steady deterioration of politics, to the point where weapons were drawn in the Capitol itself, all conspire together to make it true: these are truly awful times. My heart especially goes out right now to those who came to America from other countries, fleeing political chaos, just to be re-traumatized when they find it happening again here. A friend of mine teaches a class with many such students, and they dropped all their curriculum last week to focus on just coping through the fear.
Through it all I invite you to meditate with me on Psalm 46:
“1God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth
give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters
roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” It reminds me that
we have been through truly terrible times in the past, and that we can have
hope, without glossing over how hard things are.
I also invite you to read the powerful statement released by the leaders of our San Francisco Presbytery. https://www.presbyteryofsf.org/anti-racism-and-justice/
On a completely different note, but an important one for us, turning to the nuts and bolts of life in the MPC church community, I am excited to tell you about a new online tool we will be using. It’s called Realm and you are invited to start using it tomorrow! It will be a much more effective way for us to keep in touch, organize our committees and groups, and look up people in the directory. Eventually, it will also be used for event registrations and payments.
We need your participation to make this a success.
Tomorrow, everyone who has an email on file with the church will receive an invitation. Look for it by the subject “Montclair Presbyterian Church: Join our online community!”
When you receive that email, please:
- Accept the invite by following instructions in that email
- Set up a password
- Confirm that your personal information is correct
- Choose your privacy settings for whether you want it shared with staff only or with everyone
- Optional: take a few minutes to upload a new profile picture, or learn how to use the directory function to look people up… poke around and see what else you can do! We promise you can’t ruin anything.
Does that sound intimidating? NEVER FEAR! Our patient, creative, knowledgeable tech wizard Deborah Brooks has a training for you. Just zoom in to the MPC Sky Room on Friday, 1/15 at 11 AM, or on Monday, 1/18 at 5 PM, and she will walk you through those initial steps. You’ll get best results if you try to log in first, and save/write down your password to bring to the training.
Thank you all for your time and energy in keeping the life of the church strong, even through these truly awful times… and through many new technologies.
Every Blessing,
Talitha