5-24-2020 ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING CHURCH RE-OPENING:

I want to give you an update on the process the church board & I have been working  through in order to come to a decision on when we will be able to re-open the church building and gather in-person for worship services.

The most important thing we did was the first thing we did.  We prayed.  We have asked God to give us wisdom.  We have sought his guidance.

We have kept up-to-date on how things are progressing in our state from the mandatory stay-at-home order to now, the beginning of the re-opening of the state.  We will continue to monitor that process closely.

The most important factor that is driving the decision on when to re-open is your health and safety.  This is our primary concern. 

We have been and continue to work through a planning process that takes into consideration the following things:

• A process for cleaning and sanitizing the building for re-opening and sanitizing the building after each service.  We also have to ensure that we have ample cleaning and sanitizing products on hand before we re-open.  Those have been ordered.
• Having plenty of masks and hand sanitizer available.  Those items have also been ordered.
• How to maintain proper social distancing while we are in the church building
• Ensuring a safe experience that eliminates people touching the same objects.  For example, you will be able to receive communion and give your offering without the passing of communion trays and offering plates
• What services we will offer once we re-open.  I can tell you that when we do re-gather that the only service that will be offered initially is the worship service.  Also, there will be no nursery, pre-school classes or Jr. Church when we first come back.  Worship will be family-style where children worship with their parents.

Another very important part of the decision-making process was to talk to you and get your input.  We want to know how comfortable you are in returning to the building for public worship, how soon you would feel comfortable in coming back and what we could do to increase your comfort level.  An attempt was made to call and talk to everyone.  We are sorry if we were not able to get ahold of you.  Your input is important to us.  Please feel free to call myself or any one of our board members to share your thoughts with us.  At this point, I can share with you that most of you whom we talked to favor a later re-opening date.

We realize that we all miss coming together and worshiping in person with each other.  That is important.  God created the church to function as a community.  And we want to get back to that as soon as it is safe for us to re-open the building in a responsible way.

So, though it is not ideal, we will continue with online worship services for a little while longer. Although products have been ordered, we do not as yet have the cleaning and disinfecting products, masks & hand sanitizer we need.  As I am sure you have experienced, finding, ordering and receiving such products is taking longer than normal.

  In 3 weeks, June 14^th, I will announce when we will re-open the church building for worship services.  So there is no confusion, please let me state that June 14^th is NOT the re-opening date.  June 14^th is when I will announce our re-opening date.

We realize that this announcement may come as a disappointment.  But, out of concern for everyone’s health, we feel that it is prudent to proceed with caution and not rush the decision to return.  We believe that, by June 14^th, ample time will have been given to see how safe the re-opening of our state and community goes. 

By June 14^th we believe we will be able to make a responsible decision on when to safely re-open the church building for public worship services.  Until then, we ask for your continued patience and your prayers.

Grace & Peace,

Dennis

Phone #s- day-757-887-5536 evening-757-847-4506

e-mail- dennisworsham@hotmail.com