Greetings everyone!
What a joy it was to make this announcement last night. Still, just in case you were not able to watch last night’s livestream, I wanted to give you a heads up of how we are proceeding to move forward.
As per Governor Hogan’s guidelines, churches are able to meet at 50% capacity while indoors. Based on our count prior to the outbreak, that makes us good to go! We are able to resume both 8:30 and 10:30 services. I do ask, if you are able, to attend the 8:30 service, as the 10:30 typically has more people and was very close to the 50% prior to closing.
Also, unless you are serving, we ask you limit your attendance to one service.
If you or a household member are sick, please refrain from coming to church until everyone is better.
If you have a compromised immune system or underlying health issues, we will leave it to your discretion as to whether you come or stay home. Please do not feel pressured to attend. We will continue to have the 10:30 teaching on Facebook Live and Livestream via the website as we did prior to closing.
Marylanders are “strongly encouraged” to wear face masks. For the sake of others, I will wear a facemask during meet/greet and take it off for worship/teaching.
As hard as it may be, we are asking everyone to refrain from shaking hands and physical contact.
We will do our best to facilitate appropriate distancing in the seating area by using staggered seating. Please sit with your household to maximize seating capacity.
Bathrooms will be available; however, we ask that you limit bathroom usage as much as possible.
There will be no food yet before services.
There will be no children’s ministry for the foreseeable future. Children who attend must be able to sit through the service. My office will be available for nursing mothers as before.
You will enter the church from the front as before. We will exit via the side door next to the stage (If you are parked on the other side of the building and have difficulty walking, we will assist in you leaving through the other side door. Please see Aaron, Jordon, or myself if that is the case).
Other ministries:
Sunday evening prayer will resume this Sunday at 7:00pm. Looking forward to praying together again!
As per other ministries (Men’s and women’s discipleship, youth, etc), we want to put our focus on reopening for May. We may have to make adjustments after we see how this Sunday goes. As of now, we are shooting for June to restart the other ministries, but I will let you know for sure later in the month.
Ministry Needs:
Probably our greatest need of the moment are cleaners. The church needs to be sanitized after each service. If you are interested in helping with this, please call or text Jordon at 240 609-8089.
Jordon will be reaching out to our current greeters. We do not want you to feel pressured to serve in this area if you are uncomfortable doing so. We will; however, need greeters moving forward to assist in distributing hand sanitizer. We have this covered for this week.
I would also like to assign a seater, so we have someone making sure we stagger seating appropriately.
Please keep us in prayer as we make this transition. As always, if you have any questions, I am always here to bring clarity where needed. May the Lord bless you all. Can’t wait to see you Sunday in person!
In Christ,
Luke Miller
Senior Pastor
Calvary Chapel Cumberland