Laidlaw Memorial United Church...Laidlaw, both in person and online, and we openly assist our...

The Beacon, Volume XVIII, Number 1, March 2021, page 1

Inside this Issue:

Open for Easter Worship…

...page 2

Worship by All Means…

...page 3

A Bump in the Road…

Page 4

Restoration and

Resurrection...Page 5

Easter Finance notes...

Page 6

Accessible Entry

Shovel Ready...

Page 7

COVID Stuff...Page 8

Music and Drama at

Laidlaw...Page 9

Rev. Doug—Easter: Resurrection

and New Life!...0

The Newsletter Vol. XVIII, No. 1, March 2021 of

Laidlaw Memorial United Church

www.laidlawchurch.ca Email: [email protected]

The United Church of Canada www.united-church.ca

155 Ottawa Street North at Cannon Street, Hamilton, Ontario L8H 3Z2

Phone: 905 544 6536

Rev. Douglas C. Moore, B.Th., B.A. (Phil), M.Div., Pastor

Phone: 905 547 2021 E-mail: [email protected]

Celebrating 109 Years—1912-2021: Our Mission:

With respect, cooperation and joy,

through acts of love that build each other up,

we seek to share the light of Christ

as a Beacon from our corner in East Hamilton

EASTER CELEBRATIONS 2021 Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter

in person and on YouTube at “Laidlaw Live” Palm Sunday, March 28, 2021 at 11 a.m.

Musical Guest: Alfie Smith

Good Friday, April 2, 2021 at 11 a.m. Musical Guest: Nicole Christian

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021 at 11 a.m. Musical Guests: “Smooth Blend” with David Crown

In person and by livestream Rev. Doug will preach,

Steve McRae on the keyboards,

Musical Guests Every Week

Laidlaw is Open for Worship Every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. In Person and Live Stream with Chat

Laidlaw Church is open at 10:00 a.m. Sunday for Worship

Livestream will start at 10:45 a.m.

See the COVID-19 measures on page 3! For Sunday Service livestream

Go to YouTube URL in the service order, or search ‘Laidlaw Live’

or, press the ‘Livestream and Video’ button at

www.laidlawchurch.ca The Bulletin is Available on our Website!

Click on ‘This Week’s Bulletin’

The Beacon, Volume XVIII, Number 1, March 2021 page 2

Easter Worship at Laidlaw—Red Zone Ready! After moving to Livestream Only for Worship for Christmas Eve, we were

happy to move back into the Red Zone and resume In Person and

Livestream Worship on February 21, 2021. Since that time, we have seen

somewhere between twenty and thirty people attending worship in person,

and around thirty households joining us concurrently by livestream.

There are usually seventy or more views of the Worship Service on

YouTube during the week.

We are hopeful, after being locked down and unable to

hold in person worship last Easter or on Christmas

Eve this year, that the current Red Zone will remain

and allow us to enjoy Easter both in person and by

livestream. We are hopeful that vaccinations are

helping people feel more comfortable about coming

out to church, but we remain vigilant with the Red

Zone protocols. With talk of a ‘Third Wave’, we can,

at least, hope for Easter together if there is to be

another lockdown later this Spring. We have managed to conduct our Annual Meeting on February 21, 2021 at the

conclusion of Worship, with a combination of in person and livestream, with communication by chat and text. We continue to Celebrate Communion (with COVID safe, commercially prepared Communion Cups with bread and wine included and sealed. We have welcomed requests for Funerals and Weddings, as well as Baptisms.

We have some experience now with following the protocols successfully, with no transmission of the virus at Laidlaw Events. We thank Carol Courtney for her diligent work taking temperatures, and keeping the Contact Tracing Log, at Worship and other events, as well as Ben Moore, who deftly handles both camera and sound, along with chat, for the Livestream, and of course, James Hawkes, who sees the candles and offering cared for, and Keith and Wendy Greeniaus, who see the offerings counted and prepared for deposit.

Laidlaw is not open because of some misguided notion of ‘constitutional rights and freedoms’. We are open, safely, for in person worship, and we are livestreaming because we want to provide the opportunity to Worship safely for everyone during a difficult time.


Our protocols are clear—we don’t want anyone to come to in person worship if they have any symptoms of COVID, or are waiting for test results. We want those who are especially vulnerable to stay home and safe, and still be able to participate in Worship at Laidlaw. We want those who either don’t have the technology, or simply need to see another face, without any hugging or kissing, that is, to be able to come safely to Worship at Laidlaw. We are thrilled to welcome people new to Laidlaw, both in person and online, and we openly assist our community by welcoming weddings and funerals at Laidlaw, with Livestream, and we are finding this is a great help to families who cannot meet because of border closures..

The protocols we put in place are ‘Red Zone’ quality; masks are mandatory; we are completely in compliance with the Health Department Guidelines for Hamilton, and we will continue to comply with all Health Department Rules, even, and especially, if there is an order to lockdown. Even then, livestream will always continue.

With restrictions on Easter family gatherings this year, Easter Worship at Laidlaw is a safe way to be in the same room with extended family and friends this Easter. Laidlaw has a safe capacity of 84 people with social distancing, and we have scheduled Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday Services for 11 a.m., in person and by livestream. We are prepared with COVID safe communion.

We are working diligently to make Worship possible for everyone. We have opened, safely, and we continue with livestream and chat. We are seeing both options appreciated and embraced. We are grateful that everyone is following the guidelines, protecting each other, and ourselves. We look forward to the day when restrictions are lifted, and we see that Worship is forever changed. We welcome the extended reach of being able to worship together in person and online.

Easter at Laidlaw in 2021 Easter at Laidlaw will be different this year—but Easter is coming to Laidlaw!

Sunday, March 28, 2021—Palm Sunday Parade at 11 a.m.—in person and livestream There will be Palms, and a Socially Distanced Parade!

Guest Musician will be Alfie Smith

Friday, April 2, 2021—Good Friday Communion at 11 a.m.—in person and livestream. Covid Safe Communion at Laidlaw, if you are joining us by Livestream, gather bread and wine!

Guest Musician will be Nicole Christian

Sunday, April 4, 2021—Easter Sunday Communion at 11 a.m.—in person and livestream Covid Safe Communion at Laidlaw, if you are joining us by Livestream, gather bread and wine!

Guest Musician will be “Smooth Blend” with David Crown and Friends There is space for 84 people with Red Zone protocols in place.

All COVID protocols are in place, when the capacity is reached, we must close the doors. This may be the safest way to see extended family at Easter this year.

If we share in the sufferings of Christ, we will also share in the resurrection of Christ!

There is enough suffering—let’s celebrate together!


We are grateful to all the volunteers who have made ‘down time’ ‘upgrade time’ during the COVID restrictions. More progress is being made every week… and then there was that Friday in December…

While progress continues on painting and upgrades to our House of Worship during this time when other gatherings and events other than worship remain suspended, we must also report an unfortunate occurrence just before Christmas.

The Church cameras recorded an image of a young person stumbling over the south lawn, and then out of sight, over the parking lot fence. He left behind the car he was racing down Ottawa Street, on the church steps. The new railing was destroyed, the south wing wall of the front stairs was smashed, and the parging applied to the front staircase was significantly damaged. Some folks heard the noise, and went back to bed. Others attended, but police tell us the accident was reported to them only after more than an hour had passed, and the young person was long gone. One report was that the young person took the bus home before police arrived. Police did not call Rev. Doug or anyone else at Laidlaw. Rev. Doug found out about the damage by way of a phone call from Kathy Rodrigue on her way to the Saturday Farmer’s Market.

Rev. Doug called police to attend, but a call back said the police would not attend, because they already had attended early Saturday morning. The car had been towed off the stairs, with further damage. The police investigated, found the person

registered to the car, who had a suspended licence had, ‘sold the car on Kijiji, for cash, and didn’t get the name of the buyer.’ The officer reported that this absolved the owner of responsibility for the crash. The car was given to the towing company, with no obligation on their part to inform police if someone came looking for it. The officer who gave the report said further investigation was unnecessary, as there would be no one with insurance to sue over the damage. We were told the police would not pursue the matter further.

After a certain amount of wrangling with the insurance adjuster’s recommended contractors, and some dispute about the cost of repairs, we have agreed to have DR


Masonry, a local company recommended by Frank Mastroianni (who did the restoration on the stairs a bit more than a year ago) to complete the restoration and repair work at a cost of $19,000.00 plus HST. That work has begin with cleanup, and the wing wall will be rebuilt by Easter, using the existing historic stones, with railing and stairs repaired when warmer weather arrives.

Getting all this in order has been a distraction, and an investment of precious time and energy, but we were determined that the amazing restoration work done last year would not be lost to this unfortunate incident. We hope the young man responsible for this damage will, in good conscience come forward, and find forgiveness in consequence of his honesty. We are also expressing our concern to the City of Hamilton to make the corner at Ottawa and Cannon Streets safer, in light of this incident, and the early incident where the Cannon Coffee Shop was damaged.

In other areas, progress continues. The narthex has been painted, and work continues on restoration and improvement of the memorials in the narthex. The floor tiles continue to be cleaned, and the north stairway from the narthex is being restored and painted, with new lighting, the closet painted (for the first time since Laidlaw was built in 1912) as well as the staircase paint removed, the staircase sanded and soon to be stained and restored.

The new sound panels have been installed, to marvelous effect in controlling the reverb with the carpets gone, as well as making it easier to hear the service in the gallery. This project also improved the sound quality of the livestream recordings.

There has also been a major upgrade to the electrical system in the gallery, where all the livestream equipment is located. This has allowed us to drive out the demon buzz in the sound system related to poor grounding of the old wiring in that area.

A very generous long term loan of a drum kit for Laidlaw will allow us to facilitate more music at Laidlaw with better ease and safety, by having a drum kit in house and available for worship or other events without having to bring all that equipment in and out. Myke Hutchings, with the blessing of his brother, has arranged this kindness, and we are thankful for it.

We include some pictures, of damage and progress. Easter is a time of resurrection and new life. Working together six feet apart is good for our souls…


With a ‘Third Wave’ of COVID ‘on the way’ Laidlaw Church continues to adapt and serve. We have been able to Worship every Sunday, Always by Livestream, often also in Person as well, as regulations allowed. We have quickly responded to requests for weddings, so that plans could be accomplished before regulations changed. We have adapted to conducting many funerals outdoors, and continue to find ways to make

livestreaming a two way communication, rather than a broadcast only. We have been

able to welcome a movie crew on a snowy day, with hospitality and social distancing. While concerts have been suspended for now, we are getting ready for the time when we can resume concerts by livestream and in person.

As we begin a new year, glad news that Wayne McNally, with help from David Mason, has

been able to apply for CEWS and CEBA. We ran an operating deficit of around $14,000.00 in 2020, but with the CEWS, CEBA, and the generosity of our congregation and community, we hope to balance the operating budget in 2021. We

were also able to take care of the expenses of being shovel ready with the Accessible Entrance Project. We are hopeful that, with vaccines rolled out, we might be able to

resume some fundraising events again by September or October. We are cautiously hopeful.

We continue to be of service in our community. In 2020, we served 63 grieving families, and continue in 2021, serving twelve families so far, during restrictions and lockdown, We have conducted weddings and are often planning weddings with a lot less notice, in order to reduce the possibility of changes to restrictions. Our willingness to risk

being of help to families in need at a dangerous time has been deeply appreciated, as well as our increasing expertise in communicating by Livestream, in both directions. This is a great benefit to people who are not allowed to

travel. We hope vaccines will allow more people to gather to celebrate important events and celebrations.

Easter Offerings are extremely important, with restrictions and cancelled gatherings. Funds from CEWS and CEBA are helpful, but with no fundraising in the first part of the year in 2021, fundraising losses will be greater in 2021 than in 2020, when we were able to hold events until March.

Let’s gather as we can, for worship, in person or by livestream, and let there be no doubt, there is no restriction on generosity, not from what I am seeing from the people of Laidlaw Church, and our community. We have included a

‘Third Wave’ COVID offering envelope, realizing that fundraising will be unlikely to resume before fall at the earliest. We are not, yet, out of the woods, but better times are certainly ahead. We are beginning to realize that these dark

days are leading to a time of resurrection and new life for us as we continue the journey of faith with respect, cooperation, and joy… Let us give thanks for all the amazing ways that generosity prevails, and love wins, even as we experience a second Easter in the shadow of COVID. God will give us life! There are things we can do to help!

1. We can increase or begin Pre-Authorized Remittance (PAR) This is a way for our offerings and gifts to be automatically withdrawn from our bank account. Call Keith Greeniaus at 905-312-4945 and he can help with this.

2. Please return to Worship! If you cannot, continue to mail in your offerings and gifts! Or drop them in the church Mail Slot, at the corner of Cannon and Ottawa Streets. Mailing in offering envelopes is a great help—mail offerings to Laidlaw Memorial United Church 155 Ottawa St. N. Hamilton, Ontario L8H 3Z2.

3. You can Donate online! At the Church website, www.laidlawchurch.ca you can click the ‘Online Donation’ button, and donate through ‘Canada Helps’. You can also make an online donation with Interac E-Transfer, send the donation to [email protected]—no need to send a password, it will automatically be deposited!

4. Please use the envelopes provided to make an Easter Offering, and a Third Wave COVID Offering. These offerings are important in our effort to balance 2021 operating budget, and be ready to move forward with the Accessible Entrance Project!

5. Thank You! For being so intentional and faithful in sending in your offerings!


We are happy to announce that the Accessible Entrance Project is Shovel Ready! By Annual Meeting on February 21, 2021, All permits, Easements, and Tenders were in place.

We are, now, ‘Shovel Ready’ Our thanks for the diligence and patience of Greg Sather and

his team at McCallum-Sather. With the inclusion of painting the exterior of the church to the Accessible Entrance Project, the cost of the project stands at $607,092.50

Our task now is to find sufficient funding. We had hoped to apply to the Trillium Fund for assistance, but applications are suspended due to COVID. We will make application to the Hamilton Presbytery Mission Council. We hope that the record of Laidlaw as a growing congregation, as noted in the June 2020 Broadview article, as well as the positive article in the Hamilton Spectator celebrating our collaboration with Musicians during COVID, along with sustained financial stability, even during COVID, not to mention the innovation and adaptation to sustained ministry, will help the Mission Council see the wisdom of investing in Laidlaw.

Laidlaw, from it’s beginning, has been a ’Mission Congregation’. Laidlaw is now, in Hamilton the only originally Presbyterian Church Building that remains a United Church. We believe the investment in Laidlaw is justified. This will also make us compliant as an accessible public space before 2025, the year Accessibility Ontario calls for all public buildings to be accessible.

We cannot imagine the additional service we can be to our community with Accessibility in place. With God, all things are possible! Below are some of the drawings and plans. If you can help with this project, call Rev. Doug and let’s work together to roll into our future together!


Weekday Gatherings are still Suspended But Laidlaw is not ‘Closed’

Weekday gatherings at Laidlaw are limited to 10 people for now, until the Health Officer's order is lifted, but Laidlaw Church is carrying on in all the ways we are able.

Rev. Doug is in the church office, Office hours are Tuesday to Thursday, 9:00 a.m. till noon. Other times by appointment or chance. It is appreciated if you call ahead if you need to come to the church, so that we can monitor how many people are at Laidlaw. Office Hours will be Wednesday only on the April ‘March Break’, after Easter!

Rev. Doug can make requested hospital or nursing home calls, and porch visits when requested and possible, please call! You are always welcome to call or text Rev Doug at 905 547 2021. Gatherings for funerals and weddings are allowed in the church on the same terms as Sunday Services, but not (yet) music concerts. Luncheons and receptions are not allowed. Rev. Doug continues to receive and will attend in person to calls to conduct baptism, wedding or funeral services. Don’t hesitate to call!

Laidlaw Church Sanctuary is Open Every Sunday Rules Related to Covid-19

As we face the Third Wave of Covid-19 in the “Red Zone” we continue to respond in ways that allow us to be together and move forward toward the new normal, while giving everyone the safety they need to feel comfortable returning to social gather-ings. Please understand, things are not yet normal, but vaccines are a beginning to toward the end!. The following rules ensure our being safe and social…

➔ Only the Sanctuary is open, and the upstairs washroom, to be disinfected weekly. Please do not go into other parts of the building on Sundays.

No food of drink should be brought to the church. We have provided water and COVID safe snacks.

➔ Enter the Church only by the front doors, or by the ramp if necessary.

➔ When you enter the church, there will be a temperature check. Please don’t come if you are not feeling well, or waiting for COVID test results under quarantine .

➔ We must record the name and phone number of all worshippers for contact tracing.

➔ There will be hand sanitizer available, please use it!

➔ Masks are mandatory, if you are not exempt.

➔ Physical Distance must be maintained. More open space has been created for this.

➔ Singing will be allowed, on the main floor of the church only. There will be no singing in the gallery, for those who don’t want be with singers.

➔ Paper bulletins, with hymns, touched only by the copy machine, will be available. Hymn Books and Bibles have been stored away, they cannot be disinfected weekly.

Bulletins are like facial tissues—we don’t want them back, please dispose of them at home.

We have COVID safe Communion. Pick it up on the way in, please!

Offering plates and Communion trays are not passed.

Please leave your offering in the offering plate at the back Sundays.

Please pick up Communion on your way into church.


Laidlaw is blessed by our friendship with the Music and Drama people in our community.

Every Sunday we welcome a Musical Guest, supported by the amazing capacity for collaboration that our own Steve McRae brings to worship. There is now, an in house drum kit, and the capacity to microphone the drums for livestreaming.

In 2020, before the latest lockdowns, we found wonderful partners in pioneering music during the week by livestream at a time when gathering for concerts is prohibited. Helen Graham was faithful and consistent in organizing Tuesday Concerts at Laidlaw by Livestream. We hope these concerts can resume in late April, and, perhaps by fall, we can, as a small venue, welcome live music concerts attended in person again.

We had a very successful Livestream Concert remembering Devan with Big Johnny Blue, with over 300 views on YouTube, and a wonderful chat session during the concert.

Our YouTube channel, ‘Laidlaw Live’ now has 220 subscribers and there are Concerts and Drama events online there for viewing, as well as Worship Services. We hope to soon be adding regularly to that collection of talent.

If regulations allow, Hamilton Fringe will come to Laidlaw this summer! Great news! Laidlaw will be a venue in the 2021 Fringe Festival! From July 14th to the 25, we will host two awesome independent theatre pieces, " Toilet Wars" and "Songs That Made Me Gay." The Fringe Festival is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. We are pleased and proud to continue to minister to our local arts community by welcoming these Fringe productions to Laidlaw and to our community!

On REPLAY at Laidlaw Live!

Second Annual Concert or DEVAN I Stand against Bullying!

With Big Johnny Blue Recorded at Laidlaw Saturday, February 13, 2021

https://youtu.be/yfn7eGvdSbs

Christmas Concert on the Keys Recorded Sunday, December 20, 2020 at 2 p.m. at Laidlaw

with Steve McRae at Laidlaw URL: https://youtu.be/xBlextyasJU

Hamilton Public Library, Central Branch—Noon Hour Concerts Online

Peter Banting Swingtet: Brass, Saxophone, Guitar, Drums URL: https://youtu.be/hDo9w_mcapM?list=PLfei4Y5bR1nvm4AFA2OVeHRt7pl5wZd-1

(This is an edit of the Recording made at Laidlaw Last Year!)

NOW ON YOUTUBE at LAIDLAW LIVE A Sondra Learn play, recorded at Laidlaw during COVID restrictions, now edited!

Rose in a Bottle URL: https://youtu.be/W-rOHRDAUqA

TUESDAY EVENING LIVESTREAM Live MUSIC! Organized by Helen Graham Music

We’re organizing to start again at the End of April, we hope! Stay tuned!

Now on Replay at ‘Laidlaw Live’

Watch for upcoming Livestreams we’re not sure when—but soon! Join us and tell your friends!


H ere we are, It’s Easter again, and COVID is still here! It started at COVID-19, but it’s becoming COVID-19-21, and

we hope, not COVID-19-22. But we are here, and vaccines are

going into arms, soon our own arms, we hope.

We’ve missed a lot. Some of the things we’ve missed can’t be recovered. But we have also held on, and learned a lot, and we have all had a chance to find out that we are more ‘resilient’ than we thought we were.

I will cook a turkey Easter Monday. I could only find a 23 pounder this time, but Christmas worked out, the turkey was gone in less than a month, and I learned to make turkey stock. I understand that I am to become a grandfather next month, but COVID will make that occasion sadly distant and untouched. I hope by Christmas, perhaps, all the chairs in my kitchen will have a use again, but I also know a great deal of water has passed us, and there is no sticking our toe in that water again, the river has moved on.

If ever there was a time in our lives when we needed a resurrection, it is now.

There’s a funny thing about the Resurrection of Jesus. Things didn’t just go back to the way they were. Jesus was raised on the third day, and he told the women who came to his tomb not to touch him. When Jesus did eat and drink with his disciples, it was not like it was before the Crucifixion, Jesus was showing them the wounds in his hands and his feet and his side, and there were tongues, as of fire, on their heads, and they were speaking in all sorts of languages that could be understood by the people listening. And Jesus is ’with us’ but Jesus isn’t living in Bethlehem, or Capernaum, or doing a preaching and teaching circuit around Jerusalem or Nazareth or the Decapolis, and Jesus isn’t touching people, or putting mud in their eyes, and healing them in that direct way that Jesus did before Jesus’ resurrection.

In John 14, Jesus says to his disciples: Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Imagine that. Jesus says we will do greater works that Jesus did. I can’t get my mind around that. I certainly don’t think that way from day to day. But Jesus tells me there is hope for resurrection beyond all measure. Even when ‘COVID is over’ things will not ‘go back to the way they used to be’. But we are called to embrace what is coming as the resurrection and new life Jesus promises for us, each and all, when we are told, “if we share in the suffering of Christ, we will also share in the resurrection of Christ.”

I do not know what the future holds, except, by faith, I believe God is with us, we are not alone. If we follow Jesus into resurrection and new life, we will find steadfast love and grace, we will live redeemed lives and do greater acts of faith, hope, and love than we have yet managed to imagine.

What an amazing Community of Faith I find myself serving. Generous, resilient, hopeful, progressive, open, faithful, loving, able to adapt and serve. Happy Easter! Let’s do great things!

Jehovah Jireh, God will provide! Rev. Doug Moore, Lovin’ it at Laidlaw,

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