Join us each week on Wednesdays at 11am Central for live prayers with our General Minister and President, the head pastor of our denomination, Rev. Teresa Hord Owens.
To donate to the Coronavirus Fund, please visit our online giving page, and designate your gift for the "OPCC Coronavirus Fund"
To request an application, please call the church office, or email the church office, and you will receive a call back from one of the Coronavirus Fund committee members. Dearest OPCC Friends and Family:
To you who are dearly loved by God and called to be God’s people, grace and peace to you from God the creator and our Lord Jesus Christ! I thank God in Christ for all of you, because the news of your faithfulness is being shared and uplifting me. We serve God in spirit by proclaiming the good news of Jesus wherever we are! I am always praying for you and the days that we will be again together in person, soon! No matter when we will be together again, physically, I trust that we can mutually encourage one another, heartened by the faithfulness we see in one another. All of our faithfulness together keeps us connected as the Body of Christ, even when we are physically apart! (paraphrase of Romans 1:7-12) I keep hearing words like unprecedented, exceptional, and unmatched to describe this time in our national and global history. While I know that this is unprecedented, exceptional, and unmatched in our lifetimes, and in the world as we know it, in the life of the church we are in good company. For a variety of reasons throughout the 2000+ year history of the church, the people of God have been separated from one another because of physical distance, yet, have remained connected and “with” one another in Spirit and in truth. The people of God have had to worship God outside of the physical space where they most feel God’s presence, creating their own sacred spaces and altars when they could not physically be near the Temple. Have you found some sacred space at home? Whether the people of God were merely separated from the Temple by distance, or because it had been destroyed, the people of God remained committed to worshiping God from wherever they were. I trust we can continue to do this, as well. I know that we can remain committed to one another, connected to one another, and connected to God through the Body of Christ, no matter what the circumstance. We are presently living in a historic moment as our county, state, nation, and world respond to this pandemic, and God is with us through it all. I assure you that God is with you in your homes, and God is with us as a community, because nothing, not even the coronavirus, “can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 8:38) On March 12, 2020 the OPCC Board of Directors elected to follow the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control by suspending all OPCC in-person gatherings for 8-weeks. Along with many other counties, Johnson County has also issued a Stay-At-Home order, extending through April 24th. The OPCC Board of Directors will continue to follow the guidance of the CDC, Johnson County leadership, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in-regards to when we can gather in-person again. Should you have any questions about local or state response to COVID-19 we encourage you to utilize the resources made available by Johnson County, KS leadership, https://www.jocogov.org/coronavirus-covid-19-update or the JoCo Call Center (913) 715-5000. In the meantime, we will continue to offer you options for worship and meditation, especially during Holy Week. Please to continue to check our website, and our Facebook page, for ways to interact. Additionally, we continue to provide resources in printed form for those who do not utilize email, or the internet, regularly. We have delivered Holy Week packets to each of our families where you will find faithful conversations you can have each day of Holy Week, as we together worship through this holiest week of our Christian year. If you live alone, we encourage you to call a friend and work through these faithful activities together. Please also check our website and our Facebook page for daily interactions for Holy Week. Additionally, we will continue to offer you some spiritual disciplines to attend to as we continue in this season of home-worship, together. I hope they are beneficial to your spiritual lives whenever you employ them. Whether you are utilizing the Pandemic Hope packet along with the Faith5 model for faithful conversations, or if you are utilizing the materials specific to Holy week, we pray that you find them fruitful and supportive until we meet in-person again, soon. Thank you for continuing to regularly send in your offering either by mail, or by online giving. The ministries of OPCC (like our Food Pantry!) are more important than ever right now and YOU are making that happen with your continued support. If you have any questions about how to give during this time, please contact our Bookkeeper, Michelle Reiter by email or by phone, extension 223. Above all, remember that we are in this together. Just as the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years not knowing when it would end, we too are wandering in the wilderness, but we know that God is with us and will lead us forward. The church building might be empty, but look what life came from an empty tomb! The church has left the building, and we are out in our world! God’s blessings and God’s peace until we meet in-person again. Rev. Laura Ann Phillips, and The Leadership of Overland Park Christian Church Remaining faithful with OPCC in this COVID-19 season
Dear OPCC Friends and Family:
Most of us have been paying attention to the news as information about COVID-19 changes hour-to hour. This virus is aggressive. Our government leaders’ strong encouragement to social distancing/isolation feels extreme. As people of faith… those words also describe our hope. Our aggressive hope is that this virus will be halted. We hold onto the strong hope that our sense of community with one another will be maintained, and restored. We trust in the extreme hope that God has not left us to fend off this virus alone. Much of humanity has become focused inward: stockpiling supplies, making lists of all of the tv-shows we want to watch and books we want to read, making schedules for our kids so they don’t fall behind in their schoolwork, and focusing on how this virus is affecting us, as individuals. There is no shame in demonstrating concern for yourself and your family. But this virus is affecting us as a global community. In the waters of baptism, we are claimed as children of God, as part of God’s whole family, which means we don’t live in this world separate from one another. As we adjust our schedules in our ways, let’s also adjust our new schedules and join together in some time of deepening our faith and listening to how God is calling us to love and serve our neighbor. For the foreseeable future our OPCC Board and Leadership has agreed to suspend our in-person communal gatherings, following the Executive Order of the KS Governor, and recommendation of the CDC. But we shall not despair, because for these coming weeks we will remain in contact, we will connect, and we will pause in the peace of God’s presence. In the packet at the bottom of this blog you will find several things to guide you through these coming weeks:
Above all, let us remember that we are not a people of fear, rather a people of hope! We find hope in connecting with one another no matter how we do it. Leaders from OPCC will soon be in touch about Covenant Groups, the church office phone will still be answered during regular business hours, you can still email your staff and always touch base on our website. Click Here to Access the Pandemic Hope Devotional If you would like a physical copy of this devotional mailed to you, please email Michelle. God’s blessings and God’s peace until we meet in-person again. Sincerely, Rev. Laura Ann Phillips, and The Leadership of Overland Park Christian Church OPCC Friends and Family:
Out of an abundance of caution regarding the rapid spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus), and the awareness of the average age and risk of our particular community, the OPCC Board and leadership has made the decision in a meeting last night, to suspend in-person church activities, including worship, for this week. Beginning Sunday, March 15, 2020, we will not host any in-person gatherings at church this week. The worship schedule will be decided week by week by our board and leadership. Regardless, we do hope to see you online!
We cannot reiterate this clearly enough, there is NO reason to panic. This temporary change in how we worship God is no reason to panic, because it’s one of the most Christian things we can do as an act of social solidarity for all of God’s children. We will sacrifice a bit of “normalcy” in our lives so that we can protect the most vulnerable among us and give our medical community the opportunity to care for those who need it. Every year we experience a brief time in which we suspend our visitation to, and leadership of, Garden Terrace worship for similar reasons. A couple times a year, Garden Terrace will ask us to suspend that worship experience because of illness, and this is no different. In each situation, worship and church returns to normal shortly thereafter. Hearing the advice of the CDC, and our local health department, the leadership of our denomination, and some of the health professionals in our own church, we are adjusting so that we can maintain safe boundaries for our own members. We are also concerned about how we continue as church for the community at large. To these ends, please read about each of these updates! WORSHIP & IN-PERSON GATHERINGS
Our identity as OPCC is rooted in our “serving with heart” our community, those on the margins, and the vulnerable.
GIVING TO THE CHURCH
It is actually quite Biblical to take a break: sabbath, sabbatical, year of jubilee, on the seventh day God rested. It is Biblical to cease travel, cease buying and selling, and to stay at home singing and praying. When our bodies become still, we are more able to reach out with our hearts. When we take time to pause and consider God’s world, we can see just how much we are connected in terrifying and beautiful ways. “Being church” continues because we take time to pause and listen to the Spirit of God. This is such an opportunity, and we give thanks for God’s presence as we reach out with our hearts, our words, and all the tendrils of compassion in our world. Sincerely, Rev. Laura Ann Phillips, and The Leadership of Overland Park Christian Church |
Worship This Week
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