I love fall. It is my favorite season. First, I love watching leaves turn colors and I love the crinkle of leaves when I step on them. I get absolutely giddy crunching leaves. It is also cooler than summer and we all know that in the summer heat I melt(:
Yet, that brings new challenges to our time of worship together and means solutions need to be found for us to be able to worship, especially for those that want to have a way to gather together in-person for worship. First, starting in OCTOBER (not this coming Sunday) worship will begin at 10am. The extra hour will make it a couple of degrees warmer. THIS SUNDAY WILL STILL BE 9am (and is supposed to be about 20 degrees warmer than last Sunday).
Our Re-Entry team met and created a plan for returning to the church. The plan was approved by our Administrative Council and is attached. There were lots of discussions and we were all trying to find a balance between safety and being able to gather in our beloved church. Worship will not be the same as before and guidelines and rules were created in attempt to find a place for everyone in our church to be able to worship in some way. We will have 2 different places in the church to worship with slightly different guidelines that will be covering those 2 places based on peoples needs and comfort. We also will continue to live-stream the service to both Facebook and Youtube. We can also continue to have a call-in number that people can utilize to listen to the service.
Please know that each person has their own situations and we are offering all these choices knowing some choices are not acceptable to some people. We also wanted to create a plan that would allow everyone to worship with us and we did not want to turn people away due to capacity issues. This plan allows for that to happen but the plan only works if we follow the most important rule (which is also the current law in Maryland) masks must be worn and for safety must be worn properly in the building.
These are trying times. Your church wants to be here to support you and create ways for people to come together with others in worship. We know some people are feeling lonely and lost during this time. They need some place where they can be with others and see other people. For some, church is the only place they really have connections and they need to be able to see other faces. This plan is trying to balance safety and the need for community. If none of the options work for you please call/email/text me to discuss this.
We will get through this. At some point, we will all be able to join together again in our sanctuary and worship again. Until then we must continue our journey together in new ways. What a day it will be when we all will be able to gather together again in God's house. On that day I plan on us singing the classic Wesley hymn sung when Methodists gather after a time when they have been physically apart "And Are We Yet Alive" attached is link with a little background on this hymn: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-and-are-we-yet-alive.
Until then, let us continue to worship together in the way we feel most comfortable and be glad that your church has created ways for those that are in a different situation to also be able to worship.
Peace,
PH
410-758-7707
Renetry Proposal 092020 PDF
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