Advent and Christmas

This morning the Covid Response Team held an emergency meeting to consider the latest Ontario regulations and Covid numbers and trends. The team has made several difficult decisions recognizing that the Omicron variant has significantly increased risk, even for those who have had two doses. Until further notice, we will no longer have in-person worship in the church building. Our worship will continue to be available on both Zoom and YouTube.

We will have our 3pm In the Wild gathering on Sunday, December 19, but will not hold our 5pm Choirs and Carols Christmas Eve service – both because the new restriction on outdoor gatherings is 25 and because we do not believe we can safely distance everyone who might want to attend.

This is hard. I (Emily) wanted nothing more than to sing with you outside and to gather as the hybrid community we have been forming this fall. We are asked to adjust once again to this new variant and how it is upending things in another wave just when we thought we were getting things figured out. We know to keep one another safe we need to pull back once more, but it doesn’t make it easy to do so.

Once again we are in this Advent space, this space of waiting and expectation. But although it might not fit all of our longings, Christmas is still coming. And along with it is the promise of God’s presence. In the birth of Jesus, God becomes a part of our vulnerable human lives, suffers and struggles with us, and connects us with love.

Rev. Emily Gordon

If you have any questions, please contact Emily at emily@leasideuc.com or 647-303-6709, and she can pass them along to the full team.