Please take a moment to read this carefully. After the press release given by the governor about guidelines for reopening church services on May 27, the Church Council met (on Saturday, via Zoom) to consider how our church should respond. The governor’s parameters went like this:
- Churches could have parking lot services in which everyone stayed in their cars.
- Churches could hold outdoor services on their property with no more than 100 people in attendance. I met with Dr. Larson, the physician for the Kittitas County Health Department, and other pastors, on May 28 to talk about these parameters. Dr. Larson clarified that these meetings of 100 could be in a public park, as well, with the Park Department Director’s approval.
- Churches could hold indoor services in their buildings with no more than 25% of seating capacity or 50 people (whichever was smaller). Multiple services could be offered, with extensive cleaning between services, social distancing (the six foot rule), and requiring everyone to wear a mask. Dr. Larson interpreted this to mean, “meeting in one room together”—so we could actually have 50 in the worship center, and probably around 35 in the fellowship hall watching the delayed live feed on a screen.
- Churches could hold home groups with no more than five people, plus staff—while also practicing social distancing and wearing masks.
We talked for about 1.5 hours until the storm that was going on that day knocked out Internet service for more than half of us. We did manage to talk over what this meant for holding services of worship. In our pastors’ conference with Dr. Larson, we weren’t able to get a definitive answer about what “cleaning between services” meant for our fabric chairs in the worship center (and presumably also in the fellowship hall). He thought that waiting a week between uses would be fine, but wasn’t sure we could adequately clean them between services from one day to the next, or one hour to the next. That left us rather in limbo about the question at present.
After all of this, here are the conclusions we drew:
- We would shoot toward July 12 as our first day back together in our facilities. That gives us time to solve the cleaning between services question and also allows for the next phase of reopening to change the landscape (and maybe eliminate the issue by allowing more people to gather at one time and place). We all did not want to be in a position to have to turn anyone away from attending a service that we offered.
- We would survey all our folks to see who would come and at what times if we offered multiple services on that Sunday (if able with the cleaning requirement). Call or email the office to give your response.
- We will seek to link people who do not have Internet access in their homes with those who do. See the survey. We are looking for host homes to invite people without ability to live-stream our services to join with them on Sunday morning at 10:15 a.m., so that they can have some fellowship with others while at the same time receiving spiritual encouragement more fully. Each group can be up to five, plus staff (host). For example, we already have one couple who have invited three more to come over and watch the services with them on their smart-tv. We were told by the governor that careful cleaning, social distancing, and masking would be required even for these home meetings.
- We will continue to send out weekly encouragement and my message scripts to those who have no Internet access and are not ready even to join with others in a home.
It seems that a great lot has happened over the last few days since the governor’s press conference. Protests and even riots have broken out after the killing of George Floyd and others. The governor is dealing with lawsuits that challenge these rules for churches and many other regulations for the reopening of businesses. We are watching closely to see how these matters change the rules. Right now, however, we are staying the course with our present plans.
Please continue to pray for the outreach of our live-streamed services, daily devotional messages (God a Minute?), and our other services through Zoom, especially for youth and collegiate-age folks. We want Jesus to be made know and God to be glorified in all we do!
My love in Christ, Pastor Frank