Trinity Lutheran Church of Canton, Illinois became aware of the Rejoicing Spirits adaptive worship network through their partnership with the Mosaic disability services agency, which operates group homes in their community and others nearby. Having discerned that God may be calling them to that type of ministry, Trinity started the ministry now known as Rejoicing Spirits of Illinois in 2019 under the name Canton Rejoicing Spirits (CRS). Its first strong partners were group home residents with the Mosaic and Bridgeway agencies who were excited to travel to Trinity on the third Sunday afternoon of each month from their homes in the Central/West Central Illinois communities of Bushnell, Canton, Macomb, and Pekin. CRS offered something unique in the region and quickly created a “shush-free faith space for Rejoicers of all abilities” that helped participants feel welcomed, seen, loved, and appreciated. Some participants were part of church congregations where they felt right at home but enjoyed CRS as an extra chance to praise the Lord alongside their housemates and friends. Others found in CRS a level of welcome they had never before experienced from any part of the church, with one CRS regular commenting: “This is the first church where I feel seen as a person.”

However, within less than a year, Canton Rejoicing Spirits’ momentum was severely disrupted when the COVID-19 pandemic caused in-person services to be put on hold. CRS struggled to find ways to keep going, but the Holy Spirit transformed the ministry in what seemed at the time, to their team, a surprising way: through funerals for group home friends who died during that period. These memorial services encouraged us to try new ways of gathering their friends together, and one of these ways, Zoom meetings, forever altered the trajectory of CRS. When the pandemic subsided and in-person services resumed, CRS continued offering a Zoom option for each service. This made it possible for other Mosaic group homes in the communities of Pontiac and Dwight, Illinois (100 and 120 miles from Canton) to join the CRS crew and opened possibilities for connection with agencies in far-flung areas. It turned out that, in CRS’s efforts to creatively bring its worshiping community together in remembrance of friends who had died, the Spirit led the ministry through a death-to-new-life experience—a resurrection experience—which, in hindsight, is anything but a surprise for followers of the crucified and risen Jesus!

That high note could easily be the end of this story, with Trinity Lutheran Church working to address the church’s accessibility challenge in its own area. However, the Spirit inspired Trinity’s Pastor Micah Garnett to reflect more deeply on the potential of CRS’s “hybrid” ministry (activities intentionally designed to be engaging and meaningful for both in-person and online participants at the same time) and realize that it could offer an easily accessible welcoming and helpfully adapted church experience accessible to people in areas far beyond the communities it had reached up to that point. Pastor Garnett developed a hybrid ministry framework to share with his colleagues in the Central/Southern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. With the support of the Synod’s New and Renewing Congregations Committee and staff, as well as a grant from Grace and Peace Lutheran Church of Peoria, Canton Rejoicing Spirits was renamed in 2026 to become Rejoicing Spirits of Illinois. We are excited for our future of rejoicing with others in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit!

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