03/14/2020
St. Paul UCC will worship on Sunday, March 15, at 10:15 a.m. Here are some details:
In the midst of well-placed concern about COVID-19 (Coronavirus), we want to be cautions without overreacting. We are keeping a careful eye on the situation, but we do not feel it is necessary to take extreme measures at this point. The Church Council will meet Monday and will consider our next steps.
For now, we will be taking some common-sense precautions and we encourage our members to also take precautions as well.
Here’s are some of the things that we will do as a church:
As your pastor, I will wave and provide verbal greetings on Sunday. We encourage everyone to do likewise as you greet each other. Hand shaking and hugs should be kept to a minimum.
We will not pass the offering plates during worship. Instead, we will have offering plates at each entrance. You may offer your gift as you enter or as your leave worship.
We will adjust how we serve Communion, to ensure that multiple people are not touching the elements before they are consumed.
As we did last Sunday, we will not end worship in a circle holding hands, but rather have everyone stay in place in the pews.
The Church Council will be discussing and evaluating how and if we will hold Coffee Hour where food is served.
We encourage folks to sit apart from one another, to spread out through the Sanctuary.
We will continue to record and post the sermons on Facebook, so that people who wish to stay out of a public setting can still feel connected to worship. The bulletins and sermons will continue to be emailed/snail-mailed to those who are not in worship.
We will have containers of hand sanitizers in the building for people to use, but like everyone else, we may have a hard time refilling/replacing these.
Here are some things each of you can do:
If you are immune compromised, or in a high-risk group, and you feel that the risks for you personally to attend church are too high, please stay home.
If you are sick, stay home. This is particularly important if you are coughing or have any other respiratory symptoms. If you have been exposed to someone with coronavirus recently, even if you don’t have symptoms, you should also stay home.
Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. (Did we mention, wash your hands?) And if you touch your face, go back and wash your hands again. Hand washing for 20 seconds (sing The Doxology as your wash!) kills more germs than hand sanitizer.
In worship, you may want to set a little further apart from others than you typically would.
As mentioned earlier, greet one another with warm words and a smile and perhaps an elbow bump. As hard as it will be, limit handshakes and hugs.
Each day brings more news and information about the COVID-19 and how it is affecting us, as individuals and as a society. At St. Paul UCC, we want to do everything possible to insure health and safety. That means being conscious of the value of isolation and social distancing to limit the spread of this disease.
We will continue to update you as things continue to unfold in the days and weeks ahead. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Through all of this, let us continue to pray for those who have been affected by the coronavirus and that common sense and vigilant care for one another will continue through this pandemic.
