By Rev. Dr. Libby Grammer
For 2.5 years, our lives have shifted. We’ve been separated and online-only. We’ve had hybrid worship and study. And now, as the world fully reopens, we are gathered in-person once again together.
On Sunday Morning, I come into the church before the Sunday School hour with my family every Sunday morning now. It’s different. I now have two small children to tote in. I have a new small group of young adults to learn alongside. I have a children’s Sunday School class with a group of regularly-attending children from among our membership and regular attenders.
The joy of a bright, sunny Sunday morning as the bells chime the Sunday School hour and I walk into our church building brings back fond memories of my childhood, where my own parents toted my sister and me into our First Baptist Church in rural North Georgia. There, Sunday School time with my preschool and elementary school Sunday School teachers was some of my favorite time of the week. Miss Ace and Miss Kimsey were two of my absolute favorites. They taught the preschool and kindergarten class where we were first introduced to Bible stories and did crafts and sang songs together. There were always “church cookies” (those round ones with the holes we always stuck onto our fingers).
As I grew, going to church became even more of a learning experience. I learned about what it means to follow Jesus. I chose to become a follower myself and be baptized. I sang hymns and praise songs of the faith in worship. I took the Lord’s Supper. I joined Bible Drill (or Sword Drill, for those who came before me) and got to know my scriptures well. I studied in Middle and High School how to talk to God, how to share my faith with others, and how to love and live like Jesus. It wasn’t ever perfect, for sure, but those days of gathering ever Sunday Morning molded me into the person and the disciple of Jesus I am today.
As an adult, when I could choose my own church, I committed to what I could – sometimes in busier parts of my life, it was perhaps just choir, or just Sunday School. When I had more time, I did more. But the beauty of a Sunday Morning at church never wavered. I need that time of worship in a space designed for it, alongside other people, lifting our voices together to God. I need that time of faith-deepening study. I need my church family.
I think we all do. We all remember those bright Sunday mornings (from childhood or adulthood), and though it’s perhaps easier to simply log on and watch a service online out of pandemic habit, it isn’t the same experience as entering a space for worship together with your church family, living life together as those bells ring. The hugs and handshakes can’t be replaced by zoom calls, though we had to protect each other for a season. We need each other; we need to be together.
And while we aren’t fully out of the spread of COVID-19, we are moving into a season of the virus becoming endemic, and as you are able to go places, I hope you’ll come for a worship experience among your family. I hope you’ll get out of your car on a bright Sunday morning, listen to the bells, walk into the church building, and find family once again. I hope you sit in a pew and drink in the sounds you just can’t replicate on a computer screen. I hope you hug those who are hurting, something a phone call can’t quite replicate. I hope you sing in chorus with those around you, something you just can’t hear at home.
Each day is a gift, but Sunday Mornings are some of the best gifts of all.
See you at church,
Libby