This quarantine has certainly been inconvenient for our church, as I know it has been inconvenient for everyone in our community. We have had to change the way that we do so many things that we usually take for granted. More than that, we are getting a pretty strong indication that though humanity may use technology a lot, and though we may lean too heavily on digital relationships and digital socialization at times, it would seem that virtual society is not the way of the future. It would seem that the general lack of satisfaction many people are expressing over being cut off from human interaction and analogue socialization, is a pretty good indication that we are still a long way off from becoming a fully alienated culture, only interacting from a distance and through a screen. I personally find this encouraging. If this were a test, I would say that humanity is passing the test, as people reveal that they still rely on physical interactions, and face to face relationships.

Our church has had to rely on digital spaces to worship for the last month and a half, and we will unfortunately continue to rely on those digital spaces through at least the middle of May. But our church has been blessed with opportunities to serve in tangible ways. We have continued and even increased our monthly food distribution through Feed My Sheep, which happens the 3rd Tuesday each month between 2-4pm. We have had to change the manner of distribution, as we are currently doing a drive thru rather than a walk thru, to minimize exposure to volunteers as well as those receiving food, but we are able to serve. We have also begun extending distribution a couple times a month to help our school lunch program while students are not in class. We have also had a couple instances where a local business in town (First Cast Lodge owned by Jerry Pizzitola) made BBQ chicken plates and asked us to help distribute meal plates to families with kids in town, and another instance of a local family (Russel and Charyn Guess) that asked us for help delivering BBQ plates to home bound families.

Things have been different for sure, but God is good, all the time! And it has been our pleasure to be a small part of the grace that God is extending into our community in the name of Jesus. The biggest bummer of this whole thing for me personally, is the delay of the BYOBible to the Bayfront service that the local Seadrift churches have been preparing. We were supposed to have our first service March 28th at 5pm at the Seadrift Bayfront.

The service will have music from different church traditions, a short presentation of the gospel by one of the local pastors and a great meal prepared by the different churches each month, so that our town can fellowship and feast in the name of Jesus. We look forward to getting out of our churches, into the community, and taking time as the full body of Christ to celebrate and worship, and our hope is that this can be a blessing to folks outside our churches that are maybe looking for a more neutral atmosphere to give praise to God.
Our next scheduled time to host this service was supposed to be May 23rd, but we are thinking about moving it back to June 6th at 5pm on the Bayfront. As with all things impacted by COVID-19, official decisions on any plans are in flux.

So please be aware that the Seadrift First United Methodist Church website (fumcseadrift.com) and Facebook are places that you can get information on this service as we continue to get closer to the end of May.

Pastor Cody Logan
Seadrift First United
Methodist Church