Update: July 23, 2020
Dear Church Family,
It is tempting to characterize the past four months as a time when our church has been closed, but we believe it’s more accurate to say it’s a time when our church has left the building and found new and different ways of remaining open to one another and the needs of our community.
Our weekly Zoom classes continue to be a source of support and encouragement. Several of our small groups are finding creative ways to support one another through notable events like weddings, funerals, births, and baptisms. Individual members are taking the initiative to call or text and take care of one another. Our students are meeting together at the building for small group lunches. Our children and parents are learning together as they work through their Summer Fun boxes. Because of your consistent generosity, we are able to not only continue funding our ministries but also offer support to our members and neighbors who are experiencing financial difficulty.
While we are thankful for these bright spots within this dark season, we are also eager to resume gathering together on Sunday mornings. Six weeks ago, we were making tentative plans to relaunch our public worship gatherings in late July or early August. After watching the pertinent Covid-19 numbers climb to all-time highs in early July, our task force recommends we delay our plans until Labor Day, while closely monitoring local data for encouraging signs of declining numbers. We know this is not the news you want to hear, and it is certainly not the news we want to deliver, but we also know, given recent local and national trends, both patience and prudence are just as important at this stage of the pandemic as they were at the beginning.
Our plan for August is to continue encouraging and offering socially-distanced small group events and ministry opportunities, including:
- A men’s golf outing in early August.
- A women’s ministry event in The Commons. (Aug. 18th)
- A drive-through, drop-off benefiting one of our ministry partners.
- An early Sunday morning communion service in the shady section of our parking lot. (Aug. 2nd)
- Sunday service “Watch Parties” comprised of two or three families or individuals in homes across the metroplex.
- Weekly youth and young adult small groups.
We’ll be sharing more details about all of the above in the days and weeks to come.
As challenging as it can sometimes be, we encourage you to look for reasons to offer praise and gratitude to God. As we see throughout the Scriptures, it is often in the midst of dark and difficult times that God is doing his best work.