Download the Video Classroom/Meeting advise + etiquette document here
Sunday, March 15: Online Opportunities.
We’ve cancelled all in-person events at Tabernacle through the month of March. Hope you will make plans to join us for some great online opportunities to participate in our Sabbath Day Together. Please be sure to check back later Saturday evening as more opportunities may be posted?
9:45 – 10:45 AM
11:00 AM
12:10 PM (approximate)
Talkback: A new opportunity to converse, reflect, and share (begins 10 minutes after worship)
Helpful Information about week ahead
CLICK HERE FOR Q&A RELATED TO MARCH 14-20
Our free Church App, and the website, are your best source of up-to-date information.
LOVE GOD. LOVE NEIGHBOR. A significant update on the COVID-19 Situation.
LOVE GOD. LOVE NEIGHBOR.
A significant update on the COVID-19 Situation.
We have decided to cancel all in-person church events for the remainder of March. Our concern is the wellbeing of the city and the most vulnerable among us. Our hope is that keeping a social distance for this short time will help the community by slowing the spread of the virus.
We want to use our facilities to serve our neighbors. In this instance, one of the best ways we can offer care is to sacrifice our time together in those facilities. Of course, we will also be looking for opportunities to use the facilities in unique ways, should something come to our attention. We will be using technology creatively to worship, remain connected, mobilize care, and meet together.
We encourage you to carve out 20 minutes to watch this video. The content of the recording offers information about how we came to this decision, what to expect in the next few days, and opportunities we’re praying about.
Please visit www.tbcrichmond.org for a quick Q&A about this weekend.
Our free Church App, and the website, are your best source of up-to-date information.
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"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your God in heaven."
Matthew 5:14-16
What to Expect Over the Next 7 Days
SATURDAY: Community Ministry will be open as we know that our neighbors are in the need of the food that will be distributed. Volunteers that are over the age of 60, younger than middle school, or have compromised immune systems and/or heart and lung issues are requested to stay home. We want to keep you safe! We know that we will need help tomorrow. Please click here for the specifics. If you are showing ANY sign of sickness, please stay home. Many of our neighbors that will come to receive food are over the age of 60.
SUNDAY:
Sunday school will be available via Zoom. We’ll post the link and also instructions by 5 p.m. on Saturday.
The Neighborhood Listening Project Orientation Breakfast has been postponed until early April. That said, say posted for some fun videos in the next couple of weeks.
We will worship via the Livestream. The service will be interactive, we will post song lyrics/stanzas, etc. A “talk back” will be available, after the service, for anyone that wants to hop over to Zoom.
It is important for us to continue to create space for our brothers and sisters from Burma. Thus, Lisu Grace will be invited to use the Blue Room, but under rigid boundaries contained to the blue room.
MONDAY:
- Church Staff will be present in the building, during regular business hours. That said, please don’t assume that you will be able to access the building. Please call first!
- Our Child Care Center Ministry is officially closed for the next two weeks. Full-time employees of the Center will be in the Center/Nursery area for deep cleaning of space and training.
- One of the ways we can offer care for our community is using space to support local business owners. We have 2 different music teachers that offer one-on-one classes in our building. They will offer instruction in specific classrooms on the 1st level of the main building. Signage will be posted and all other rooms will be locked for safety purposes.
TUESDAY:
- The Richmond Concert Band will be on official hiatus for the next two weeks.
- The Administrative Board will meet via Zoom (Expect instructions by 5 p.m. on Monday)
WEDNESDAY: The Pastoral Staff will create an online interactive program for children, youth, and adults alike. We will likely use both zoom and livestream. (Expect details and instructions by Tuesday at 5 pm)
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY: We will publish a schedule for the week ahead.
Click here to access a 20 minute video explaining the decision-making process, what to expect next, and opportunities we’re praying about.
The church website and our Free Church App are your best two sources for up-to-date information.
Rend Your Heart: A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so that you can see
its secret chambers,
the hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.
Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart’s walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those you have yet
to find.
It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering,
for trusting the breaking,
for tracing the rupture
that will return you
to the One who waits,
who watches,
who works within
the rending
to make your heart
whole.
—Jan Richardson
Ash Wednesday: Information for Parents
Hello Parents!
We will kick off Lent with Ash Wednesday Worship in the Sanctuary. Parents are welcome to attend with their children (children in the service must be accompanied by an adult).
This service will be quiet and dark, so if you would like to take younger children (up to 5th grade) to the nursery, you can drop them off in the following locations:
From 5:45-6:00PM, parent drop off is in the Preschool Worship Arts classroom (on the Main Level) with Jerusha, Dianna, and Kara.
If you arrive after 6PM, please drop your child off in the nursery, on the 1st Floor of the Williams Building.
From 6:00-7:00PM, there will be child-friendly worship for children in the Nursery. Through action and symbol, the children will be invited to receive the Sign of the Cross in ashes on their foreheads.
We look forward to seeing you for this meaningful service!
Building & Grounds Update: February 2020
Thank you, Jay and Team!
There’s been a lot of activity over the past couple of weeks to make physical improvements around the church. You’ve heard about the installation of LED light bulbs throughout the TBC buildings. Did you know that being the recipient of a Dominion Energy grant that paid for that work including adding the dimmers on some of those lights, started when Jay Hartman was at an electrical supplier shop? A buddy at that shop introduced him to Michael Parrish of ELS Electrical. That God-made meeting and the follow-up after led us to this gracious gift. Thanks to Jay for his efforts in seeing this project to its completion!
As the LED lights project was underway, several more changes were completed:
- The Williams Building God-Sized Vision work – new pedestal sinks, heat-controlled faucets, and new mirrors were installed in the 2nd floor bathrooms,
- Painting the interior of the Grove Avenue office entrance door,
- Replacing and repainting the keyless-entry door now used as a Grove Avenue Piano entrance,
- Replacing the awning (donated years ago by the Strongs and the Spains) that was over the office Grove Avenue entrance by adding a new awning over both Grove Avenue entrance doors, and
- Securing the kitchen stove (on tile installed last year) so that it would no longer slowly slide away from the kitchen wall.
- Painting the baptistry with an epoxy paint to hopefully eliminate some peeling paint.
- Re-securing a couple of faucets for the Williams Building 1st floor bathrooms.
The Building & Grounds Committee is grateful for Jay Hartman and Vincent Sallie’s ongoing commitment to maintaining our church facilities! Our committee members will continue to keep you aware of planned and completed activities. In March we hope to implement a new email address for you to use to contact us with your suggestions and comments. Look for new information about using that email address in the near future.
Epiphany 2020: Supplemental Article
Our Epiphany Season Theme, “Belonging to One Another” fits into a larger narrative on what it means to be “Neighbor”. Jesus calls us to love God and love neighbor as ourselves. The tone we set in our community of faith helps us to live in community with neighbor. We encourage you to take some time in the week(s) ahead to reflect upon Jeff Chu’s article, entitled “What Happens When We Share a Meal?”.
You can listen to an audible recording (thank you Tori Tyndall and Ryan Corbitt) or read the article. We will use Jeff Chu’s honest reflection as a conversation starter around tables.
DEVOTION: The Journey from Christmas
Scripture Reading: If you put an end to oppression, to every gesture of contempt, and to every evil work; if you give food to the hungry and satisfy those who are in need, then the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon. (Isaiah 58:10)
God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus He has created us for a life of good deeds, which He has already prepared for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)
Meditation: Among my fondest Christmas memories are the Christmas Eve services at Fredericksburg Baptist Church –the traditional hymns, the candles, the sense of family, big and small. It is a time of great joy when we allow ourselves to think about new beginnings and hope for a better world.
In many ways that is the essence of Christmas. It is a journey toward hope. But God’s call to each of us is to put hope into action. It would be a mistake to only see the joy and hope that the baby Jesus represents and not listen to the rest of the story, the story of God’s call to reconciliation for each of us and for those whose lives we touch every day. Our response to the journey after Christmas must be, “Here I am Lord, send me.”
Thus, as we celebrate this holy day, we must recognize that the journey to Christmas was to prepare us for the hard work of the journey from Christmas. The road is long and filled with trials but the Jesus we meet on Christmas Day travels with us, if we choose to let Him. And He transforms us on the journey.
These words from John Westerhoff, III say it well:
We have been called into a visionary community to risky, laughable lives of tomorrow’s people, to live in and for God’s dream, to witness to a world of peace and unity, freedom and equality, of justice and well being for all people. We are called to accept the cost and the joy of discipleship, to proclaim the word and deed of the good news of God’s dream come true. God promises us courage and strength in the struggle for peace and justice; God forgives us our failures and lifts us up to new possibilities; God is present in our trials and rejoicing and hopes from this day forward.
Prayer: Oh Lord, thank You for the joy of Christmas and Your gift of hope wrapped in swaddling clothes. Please travel with us on the journey ahead and continually remind us that if we are faithful to the trek, not only will we find friends along the way, not only will we find the beautiful and the true and the good and the lovely and the delicious tastes and sounds and smells and sights given to us by the Creator of the journey …but we will also catch a vision of what is at the end of the road. Amen.
(paraphrase from Ken Medema)
For additional information about our Advent devotions and their authors, click here.