What's Going On? Accommodation in Worship - June 24, 2025

Hello Church Family,

Back on Father's Day, I made an announcement about accommodation in worship, and we've had a few requests to put out a summarized version of our various options for worshipping together while meeting the needs of our bodies. This blog post is just a big FYI for all of us as we balance the need to take care of our own wellbeing with the desire to worship together as a community. If you have questions or suggestions along these lines, please feel free to reach out to me or one of our office admins. Also, if you mostly worship from home and would like to try coming in-person one Sunday to see how navigable it is for you, please let us know if you need a discrete friend to help you out. We would love to support your efforts in connecting with your church family.

Ways we can all worship together while meeting needs:

* An understanding that some folks worship online, some in person, and some via a mix of these two. This is all "church attendance," and we pray that those who often worship at home will feel welcomed, loved, and included when they make the pilgrimage to church in person when they can.

* A basket of small pillows and a stack of footstools located in the library to make pew seating more doable for those who need it.

* The fireside room for when solitude is suddenly desirable during the worship service.

* A variety of seating in the foyer near the sanctuary to accommodate for bodily needs.

* Library seating with tables for whenever it is needed (before, during, after a service), with a screen in the library and some good sightlines to the pulpit so that it feels like the extension to the sanctuary that it is.

* Two wall recliners outside the library for those who need to recline or raise feet for pain management (or for snuggling a baby when needed?). These are like the seats at the front of the city bus, we are all welcome to use them, but should give priority to those who need them.

* Hearing assistance technology with options for using with or without hearing aids, and with or without a smart phone, depending on what is needed. See the welcome desk or ask an elder for more information.

* All sanctuary doors will remain open during services so that those in foyer seating are not cut off from those in the pews.

* Note that the back pews, the foyer seating, the recliners, and the library seating are all quite close to the washrooms.

* We are exploring closed captioning as an option for livestream.

Heavenly father, we thank you for the technologies and resources that enable us to worship together as a community and church family. We pray that your Holy Spirit might work in our hearts as we strive to worship and serve together in our congregation and in our community.  In Jesus' name, Amen.

Pastor Jolene Veenstra