By Dawn Taloyo, Associate Superintendent, PacNWC
Enjoy this video interview with Co-Pastors Rachel Gough and Michelle Huskamp. They share how they are rebuilding community after meeting through Zoom for over a year through coming together for Summer Camp Sundays, connecting with neighborhood business, and collaborating with other community ministries.
Additional Information by Michelle Huskamp:
As we reopen, we are gathering together for our Sunday services on the lawn outside our church building and doing everything outdoors. We are calling it ‘Summer Camp Sundays’. We set up a fire pit in the middle (though we haven’t actually lit the fire yet – it has been too hot), pop-up tents on the grass, and camp chairs under the shade. We have a camera set up so that our few people still not ready to meet in person can join us on zoom and participate in the service. The kids run around with squirt bottles filled with water during the singing and then go to the basketball court for their own lesson time during the sermon. And we get to take communion together again!
Places I see community in this:
the process of setting up and tearing down each week – people come early to set up the sound and camera, the pop-up tents, bring out the bins of kid’s supplies (bubbles, chalk, squirt bottles, etc) and get to connect relationally while working together to get everything ready. Then after the service, most people stay to help clean everything up (and stand around drinking coffee and chatting in the ever shrinking shady areas as the tents get taken down).
- Our physical presence in the neighborhood again – our church has a bell in a bell tower that we ring at the beginning of the service each week – this didn’t happen for over a year, and we are so excited to have this loud, physical reminder for us (and our neighbors) that church is starting and we are here. And we our outside, very public and visible, for our services each Sunday, so our neighbors out for walks see us and hear us and we get to chat with anyone who might walk by. Also, a number of our people live in this very neighborhood, so already know a lot of the people who are walking by, which just creates even more connections.
- Our practice of communion – this is small, but we think meaningful – we have chosen, now that we are taking communion together again, to just use one loaf of gluten free bread each week so that everyone can take the same communion – the symbolism of one loaf and one body is something that we intentionally highlight as we serve communion each week.
- Our relationships with local businesses (and the people who run them!) – our building is right next door to a local coffeeshop/bookstore called the Christian Armory. They have truly amazing coffee (roasted daily on the premises) and when we prepared to start gathering again Rachel and I threw out the year + old Folgers in the kitchen and decided that we will drink good coffee at church from here on out. So now we buy our coffee for the coffee hour from Heather (the owner). Rachel and I are known by Heather and the other employees as are many of the people from our church. We also are in the process of getting our communion bread from a local bakery (Darrin, the owner, has never made gluten-free bread before, so he is practicing for a few weeks before he will be ready to make it for public consumption).
So as we work to rebuild our community as a church in new ways after such a long time apart, we are also being intentional in how we are members of the community of Monroe. We have an opportunity to help facilitate regular opportunities for the Latinx population to meet with the mayor in a safe space (our church building is already a safe space for many of them because of so many of the programs run by Take the Next Step) that we are exploring right now. We are intentional about connecting with our local businesses and buying from them for anything that the church might need whenever we can. And we are lucky in many ways, because the actual community within our church body seemed to stay connected pretty well over the last year and a half because the relational roots were so deep to begin with (40+ years of going to church together and living life together in a small community can do that, and that is our core group of just retired folks). So the rebuilding of community within our congregation had a bit of a jumpstart.
Well, now that I practically wrote a whole article anyway… if there is something here that you would like to talk with us about for the interview, let us know and we can figure out a time. I know we will both be at the clergy women’s retreat in a week and a half, so that might work (though that also might not be an appropriate time and we can just do it via zoom).
Visit the Monroe Covenant Web Page to learn more about their ministries