Local churches rise above pandemic to worship Easter

For the second straight year La Conner churches found a way amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to celebrate the miracle of Easter.

Historic Sacred Heart Catholic Church, one of the oldest parishes in the Archdiocese of Seattle; La Conner United Methodist Church, known throughout the area as “a home for all God’s children;” and La Conner Christ the King Church, a true “meet and greet” congregation, each offered worshippers options for celebrating Holy Week here.

“We met in small home groups and as individuals on-line,” pastor Jon Skiffington of La Conner Christ the King Church told the Weekly News. “I taped the service at home during the week using a green screen and was able to share the message standing outside the empty tomb.

“It was kind of cool,” he added, “to be able to share ‘on location.’”

At the Methodist church, where members have been worshipping by email and on the church website during the pandemic, congregants and neighbors brought flowers for the Living Cross outside the front door of the church at Second and Benton streets.

“The church was open (on Easter Sunday) for a few masked individuals who arrived with flowers and were invited individually to enter the sacred space between 8 and 10 a.m.,” said Pastor Marcella Baker.

“So, whether inside or outside the church walls the joy of Easter was shared and experienced at La Conner United Methodist Church,” she added.

Sacred Heart also accommodated its parishioners, blending in-person and on-line worship opportunities, though Father Paul Magnano is looking forward to the pandemic becoming history by 2022, when he hopes to pen a traditional Easter column for the Weekly News.

“I’d sure be happy to do something next year about the Triddum – the one liturgical service beginning with Holy Thursday and concluding with the Holy Saturday Vigil of Easter,” he wrote in an email.