Timothy Seery

Congregational Church of La Jolla

• Contact: 1216 Cave St., La Jolla 858-459-5045 www.lajollaucc.org
• Membership: 125
• Pastor: Timothy Seery
• Age: 27
• Born: Great Falls, MT
• Formation: Harvard University; Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA
• Years Ordained: 2.5

San Diego Reader: What’s your main concern as a member of the clergy?

Pastor Timothy Seery: Just two months ago, I would never have imagined we would be where we are now regarding the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced us to think outside the box – since my congregation skews toward the elderly, a group not necessarily well versed with technology and virtual meetings. We thought about doing a ZOOM service, but it didn’t feel like something that would work. So we had to figure out how do we get the church to the people usually in the pews on Sunday. The staff and I put together an at-home worship packet for each person through email every Saturday night—email was the lowest common denominator technologically speaking. All our members have an email. In each weekly packet, I focus on a different famous person who had to be quarantined or stay at home for one reason or another, and what they were able to do with that time. The packet includes scripture readings, music recorded in audio files, and my sermon. We’ve been sending these packets for four weeks now. Our first week, for instance, we focused on the French artist Henri Matisse, who was confined to his house for the last ten or so years of his life. We focused on Sir Isaac Newton in the second week—Newton was quarantined because of the plague, and it was during that time that he made some of his most important discoveries…. Through these packets, I try to inspire my congregation about the possibilities that can come with staying at home. I’m also asking them to send me pictures of what they’re doing at home. People have sent pictures of themselves making masks, learning to cook pasta from scratch, all sorts of things – good books they’re reading – and I share this in the worship packet which I title “Virtue Fellowship Hour” – you just have to bring your own cookies. This is a format where we can keep up with each other’s lives, and stay connected even though we’re not visiting face to face.

SDR: What is the mission of your church?

PS: To spread the good news of Jesus in our community, work for justice and inclusion, care for all people, gather together for worship and celebrating the sacraments, and be an outpost of inclusive religion in the La Jolla community.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

PS: I don’t know. I’m on this journey just like everyone else is and don’t profess to know the heart of God. But from what I believe, feel and see in the world, when we pass on, we enter the arms of love in a way that we never could imagine in our earthly life. We feel that sense of completeness, acceptance and love. That really is the final culmination of it all and what we’ve been looking for and crave so much as humans. That’s our fullest completion – this feeling that we’ve arrived home. The people I’ve been with when they’ve died have all in their last day or hours mentioned something about home. So there must be something to that – home is a place of love and safety. I don’t believe in hell. The God and the Jesus I know have such love, forgiveness and compassion that exceed anything that we could do.