With the recent announcement about “houses of worship” being reopened, many of you have been asking, when will we open for worship again? While the green light has been given to resume gathering, it is important that we plan carefully. That is exactly what our leadership is doing. First and foremost, in our planning, is your health and safety. So we are making plans to ease into our return to worship services gradually. Our first steps will be to worship in smaller groups. At the present time, churches are limited to 25% of original seating capacity or 100, whichever is the smallest. In our case that is 100. We are capable of hosting a worship service in our patio for about 85 people. The net awning is already up and we are experimenting with seating that allows for six-foot social distancing. It is our plan to offer two Sunday service times. One will take place in the patio at 8:30 AM. This is in response to some of our congregation telling us that they would be more comfortable outside in a less restricted space. Our second service time will continue to be at 10:00 AM. Because we are limited to 100 people in each gathering, we are needful of some way of finding out who will come to each service. We have not yet determined how to do that. But we also anticipate that some of you will probably not be comfortable with attending yet and we want you to know that we fully understand. There are a great number of details to be handled prior to opening our services. All of these details, such as how to take an offering without passing plates and seating that allows six-foot distancing between worshippers have to be worked out. But as of now our plans for starting up again will be for the end of June. A return to full services as before might be possible in September. I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your faithfulness and encouragement to me and all of our church staff. Serving you during this “once-in-a-hundred-year’s-crisis” has been a privilege and an inspiration.
God bless you all. Stay safe. Continue walking with God.
Pastor Mike
