As with many congregations, in-person worship has returned at “Church of St Mark & St Peter, St. Laurent”. Given the 2-metre distancing regulation (with singing), to increase Sunday capacity CMP is using its hall for overflow seating, streaming the main service via Zoom both to homes and into the hall for those in the overflow space. With distancing, this overflow space provides for another ten households/bubbles to join in-person worship, in addition to the 22 households/bubbles that can be accommodated with distancing in the church itself.
This Fall CMP has six mid-week groups meeting by Zoom:
• a book group, lead by Selene Lau, reading and discussing James Bryan Smith’s The Good and Beautiful Community;
• another book group, led by the Rev Chris Barrigar, reading Peter Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Spirituality;
• a home bible study group (some meet in person while others participate in the same meeting by Zoom);
• a French conversation group, for anglophone and allophone parishioners to improve their conversational French;
• a GriefShare support group, led by Christine Creighton, and
• a DivorceCare support group, co-led by the Rev Neil Mancor and CMP member Heather Purdie.
The two support groups were advertised by social media to postal codes in Ville St-Laurent, and so serve as a form of local outreach, though participants come from across the Montreal area.
Although at one level people are quite tired of Zoom meetings, yet at another level people realize it is here to stay, and so continue to find ways to connect and minister through the convenience it offers.
