Worship Changes

Pastor Tom and Pastor Steve along with the Church Planning Council have been working together on a fall schedule that will begin on Sunday, September 20th. This plan has been put together with prayer, lots of reading concerning current guidelines, and with lots of conversation. We recognize that not everyone will be comfortable with our plan as it is laid out here. Our hope is that by communicating these plans, you can make the best decision for yourself and your family as to whether you choose to worship in person or continue to worship online. We believe that Christ is present whether you are in the sanctuary or in your easy chair at home. 

• We will have a clear seating plan for the sanctuary and parish hall (if attendance warrants) with diagrams of how people are to enter/exit the space. Parish hall worshippers would enter through the parish hall outside door. Sanctuary participants would enter through the main doors. This eliminates cross traffic and allows for physical distancing

• Worshippers will be seated from the front of the sanctuary to the back of the sanctuary and in the balcony as they arrive. This will be necessary to maintain physical distancing. (You probably won’t get to sit in “your spot.”

• Masks are required to be worn by parishioners at all times except when taking communion.

• Hand sanitizer will be available for people to clean their hands as they enter and exit the sanctuary.

• Pastors and singers will be allowed to remove their mask while singing or speaking. Singers will be placed in the choir area and will be more than 27’ from the first row of worshippers.

• We will be limiting the amount of singing during worship but will be looking for creative ways to enhance our worship with music and art.

• We will continue to print bulletins for those attending worship and adding the words to the livestream as we are currently doing. The parish hall (if needed) will have a “live worship feed” from the sanctuary.

• We will continuing to stream the service online via YouTube and post recordings on Vimeo and Youtube and post the sermon to Podbean.

• We will offer opportunities for individuals and families to receive communion who do not feel comfortable coming with the larger group to worship. This special service will be held by sign up and will probably not occur every week. You will be able to sign up in groups of 10 to come to the church for a brief communion service probably late on Sunday afternoon.

• If enough people attend worship so that we seat people in the parish hall, we will have a pastor in the parish hall to lead the communion liturgy so that parishioners in both spaces feel like they are an important part of worship. 

Volunteers Needed

• We will need several people who are trained to take the temperatures of those arriving for worship.
• We will need front desk volunteers to monitor people coming into the building as worship is taking place.
• We will need ushers to help people get seated and also to dismiss people once the service has ended so that we maintain proper physical distancing guidelines.
• We need help with creating the seating plan and traffic flow plans for the building.
• We will be looking for musicians who are willing to record music during the week that can then be added into the service on Sunday morning.
• As our plans grow and change during the fall, we may have other volunteer opportunities as well.  

Weekly Schedule