God afternoon!
I thank God for all of you and the way that you have embraced the chaos we’ve been thrust into! What I see is a group of Christian women, men, and children that really live their faith and are adapting to new normal and transformations in worship, ministry, and spreading the Good News!
Your Session, staff and I met on Tuesday evening to discuss what the near future of “Church” looks like. It became quite evident very quickly that resuming operations was going to be quite complicated. We are going to meet on May 12th to vet a number of area that need to be addressed. We will begin a methodical process of ways to gather and efficient processes that take into account wellness, safety, and congregational need to come together.
We are utilizing CDC guidelines, government edicts, and our own intelligence of the group to address social distancing, numbers gathering, and how we can be inclusive of the entire church family. It is a daunting task in which made us realize that it will be safety first and not our emotions. What was clear is that we all, everyone misses each other greatly but we don’t want to become part of the statistics.
We are blessed to be in the position to take this time to do it correctly because we really have only one chance or the results could be disastrous. Worship, Youth Group, and Women’s bible study will continue to be done on-line. We are looking at enhancing and expanding some of our PKW programs for at home participation and perhaps life groups to begin using expanded ZOOM Pro to meet and connect. We are investing in software, infrastructure, and ensuring our staff is being utilized to its utmost potential. We are bringing back our musicians and ensuring they are socially distanced to begin a “normalized upfront” worship service on May 10th.
We will be asking for all y’all to participate in some data gathering as well. After all, this is your church; and your Session and Staff want to hear your thoughts and concerns before we begin laying out our process back together. This “questionnaire” will be generated in a number of formats as well as offering the opportunity for discussing you thoughts with a Session member.
Finally, this is all new to us. Some of our steps will be forward and some will be a stumble. I pray for your patience, input, and support. Our first and foremost charge is to ensure the safety and well-being of you, the congregation. We pray that you have been in touch with your friends and they with you. We know that the family of believers, here and FPCLC, are totally committed to each other and to God; inspired by the Holy Spirit and saved through Jesus Christ our Lord! Please keep the Session and your staff in your prayers!
Peace,
Pastor Ken