Dear Church Family,
I hope that you all are doing well. I would like to keep you all updated on our return to in-person worship and steps going forward. As you all know, last Sunday was our first Sunday back in the building since early March. I would like to thank everyone who helped volunteer and worked patiently with us as we worked through our social distancing protocols. I left Sunday feeling confident in our plan because everyone worked hard to keep one another safe. We will continue with them until we receive any guidance from the CDC or Annual Conference that says otherwise. As a reminder, all persons over the age of two must wear a face mask while in the building. I would like to thank you all for your patience and flexibility as we work hard to finding our new routine at Good Shepherd.
To clarify, our in-person worship time is at 9 am. Our online worship service will start at 9:30 am and will continue to do so until the pandemic ends. We will keep our in-person at 9 am because we are envisioning having to add a second service sometime in July as more people return to worship based on our survey results. When we do add a second in-person service, it will have the same format as the first. Please know, if we see a spike of COVID-19 cases in our area, we may need to revert to online-only again. My hope and prayers are that cases in our region continue to remain low.
On Sunday mornings, we need volunteers to serve as ushers and door openers. To reduce the points of contact, we need two volunteers to hold the door open at the beginning and end of our service. We also need two ushers to help navigate people to their seats or point out appropriate areas to sit. Please contact me, Sue Shoemaker, or the office if you could help us on Sundays!
Finally, we need some help at Good Shepherd in a few areas. As Mike Byers has moved from the area, we need help keeping up with building/ground maintenance and repairs. We currently have a few volunteers but need more. If you enjoy repairing things, love cutting grass or working outdoors, or have some time to spare, please contact the church office or me. We will put you in touch with Brian Powell, our Trustee chairperson. We want to continue to keep our buildings and grounds in good shape and need more help in this area.
Again, I wish you all well. Just because we have returned in-person does not mean we expect everyone to join us right away. We will continue with our online services ongoing and ask everyone to make a decision that is best for you.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Tom