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picture of Peter and Ben Hartmans worshiping at home with Bloor Street United on Palm Sunday.

Peter and Ben Hartmans worship at home with Bloor St. United congregation on Palm Sunday

Easter Greetings

As we look out our windows, we can see signs of spring coming on schedule. The robins are returning home after a long winter. The snow is gone and the grass is starting to grow.  However, this past Lenten season will be remembered for decades. For our generation and many others, we have never experienced such a socially transforming event. This Easter most of us will celebrate Easter in our home. Worship will happen in our home and through various forms of media, but we will not gather in person as a community. This will be a new experience for us, and social isolation is a struggle for many. However, regardless of how we gather this Easter, we are still the Church. Our message of the gospel is alive. We see it in our community, we see it in our hospitals, we see it in our front-line workers, we see it in the sacrificial act of our grocery clerks who go to work daily to ensure access to food. We see it in our Church leaders, reaching out to our communities of faith in new and old ways. This past week, via regional town hall meetings of Church leaders, folks described reaching out to other folks through phone, mail, video, Facebook, Twitter, and most of all prayer. We heard stories of groceries being left at doors, and food banks and outreach ministries finding new and creative ways to continue their ministry in a safe way within the context of Covid-19.

This Holy week, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, we will gather. We may gather as one, three or more in our home. We may gather online, over the phone, via video, Facebook, email and through prayer. Regardless of the fact that our buildings are closed, our communities of faith are not closed. Our communities of faith, our Church, The United Church of Canada is alive, and our church, along with many other communities of faith across Canada and the world, will celebrate resurrection this Easter Sunday morning. We share a message of hope!

As we gather as people of Faith, we celebrate resurrections.

In Christ,
David Leyton-Brown, President
Peter Hartmans, Executive Director

and Regional Council Staff:  Jody Maltby, Dale Hildebrand, Todd McDonald, Susie Henderson, Karen Hilfman Millson, Rachael Howes, Donna Rutz, Jeffrey Dale, Ren Ito, Sue Whitehead, Joan Bailey, Karen Seunarine