After careful consideration and consultation among the congregation, we have decided to begin a return to in-person worship, starting on November 1, 2020. We will still live stream worship, and in addition to that, we will hold two in-person worship gatherings per week.
Taking into account as much as we can the guidance and regulations from public health officials, the following is the plan for resuming:
- Move our online Sunday morning gathering to 9:30am, and keep alternating styles weekly.
- At 11:00am each Sunday, hold an in-person Communion service in the same style as the online service (thus also alternating in style weekly). This will be a maximum of 30 minutes and would involve limited musical participation.
- At 6:15pm each Wednesday, hold an in-person prayer service. This will also be a maximum of 30 minutes, and will be more informal, with a focus on reading the Word of God, a short meditation, and time for individual and corporate prayer. We would not plan for live music during this time, at least to start.
We will adhere to all required precautions, as well as recommend ones that may not be mandated, but we believe would be helpful, seeking to minimize risk but not hamper the worship experience so much that it becomes overwhelming. We know that people's consciences will be in different places with respect to being in-person, and so we will, to the fullest possible extent, seek to not exclude anyone from still being connected, either online or in-person, or both.
While we have some logistics to work out, we do know at this point that we will use a registration system for attending in-person Sundays and Wednesdays, and limiting each gathering (to start) to 25 worshippers, plus leaders. By limiting the numbers and time spent together, we believe we can minimize the risk while still allowing people to connect with each other in this important way, by seeing faces and hearing voices in person, which is such an encouragement.
We anticipate this new arrangement starting on Sunday, November 1, with the first Wednesday gathering on November 4. We will keep a close eye on things as they develop and will adjust as needed, but we anticipate this arrangement to last through the end of the calendar year.
Please also keep our church leadership in prayer as they wrestle with all these difficult decisions, and all those who have volunteered to help serve in resuming in-person gatherings.
To register for in-person worship, you can use the online forms or call our office. You can either:
- visit our website calendar, click on the event you'd like to attend, and fill in the form, or
- call our office at 250-492-5902 (leave a message if no answer, and we will confirm)
(Update, Oct. 27 You can now read a FAQ document and a letter from Pastor Michael that will give you more information.)