Update On Gathering In Person (4-28-2020)
Dear Arbor Drive Family,
As many of you know, last week Governor Ricketts announced that churches would be allowed to gather for worship state-wide after May 4th. While the official health directive has not yet been released, Gov. Ricketts indicated in the press conference that there would be restrictions on these worship gatherings.
In light of that announcement, the pastors met together this morning (4-28-2020) and discussed a way forward for us as a church. The decision we arrived at was to tentatively plan on resuming worship services on May 31st, 2020. In the time between now and then, we will continue with the rhythm we have established over the past month. That said, we understand that this is a polarizing issue and there are those who wish to resume worship immediately as well as those who think that May 31st might be too soon to plan on gathering again. This decision was not made lightly and we wanted to lay out some of the reasons we landed where we did.
Barriers to Gathering on May 10th
A major consideration in arriving at this decision was certain barriers to us gathering that Gov. Ricketts laid out in his press conference. He indicated that the health directive would include:
A prohibition of those over 60 and others who are at “high risk” to serious illness or death from COVID-19 from attending church services.
6 ft. of “social distancing” between family units at church services.
Instructions for sanitizing the facilities between services.
Possible mandatory wearing of masks.
No passing of items between congregants.
While some of these might not present much of an issue for us as a church, others have a significant impact on this decision (specifically numbers 1 and 2). In short, the size and demographics of Arbor Drive in conjunction with these prohibitions would force us to exclude some of our body in our gathering.
For one thing, we regularly have over 200 people attending worship services and we would not be able to accommodate everyone in our worship center with the appropriate distance between family units. In addition, we did not want to prohibit people from attending nor do we want to say we can gather without about 35% of the body (those over 60) being included. At that point, only a segment of the body is allowed to gather and we are not gathering as the body of Christ at Arbor Drive. Because we believe that the body gathering should be open to the whole body and therefore are unwilling to exclude some or move to multiple services, we decided to wait.
We feel that this is an expression of love for those who might be prohibited from joining us as well as a way that those who would not be prohibited from attending can honor and express the value of those who are prohibited from attending. It is our hope that these two major restrictions will be removed by May 31st.
It should be noted that May 31st is the date that we hope to be able to gather together again for worship. That date is subject to the behavior of the virus and the impact it has on our community. In the meantime and as we plan for that, here is what you can expect…
A Way Forward:
We want to encourage you to continue to find ways to minister to one another in the coming weeks. We have been blessed to be able to see how the body has cared for one another over the last month or so. We have seen God’s grace in amazing ways and we want to encourage you to continue to lean into that grace and be instruments of God’s care in one another’s lives.
We will continue providing the weekly family worship guide and devotion video. These will be posted to Facebook and YouTube on Saturday and the link along with the guide will be emailed to you and available on our website (http://www.arbordrive.org/covid19). While we cannot gather as the church for worship and this does not replace the gathering of God’s people, this can be a resource to help you and your family grow together.
We will continue hosting a Facebook live devotion on each Sunday morning at 10:30 am to encourage you in the word. While this does not replace us gathering in person and is not a worship service, it does leverage the technology that God has graciously given us to be able to interact with you and pray for you and with you. This will be on the Arbor Drive Facebook page.
We will continue our Wednesday Night Zoom meeting for a time of prayer and examining God’s word together and encouraging one another at 7 pm each Wednesday. You can access this by clicking here or by calling (312) 626-6799 and entering Meeting ID 893 576 4349. This has proven to be a blessing to those who have been involved and we would like the encourage you to participate.
As pastors, we will continue to be in contact with each member to check in on you and find out how we can be praying/ministering to you. Our aim in this is to continue to faithfully shepherd and care for you as a team of pastors.
If you need anything, you can reach us by calling the office, sending an email or sending a message on our Facebook page. If no one answers at the office, leave a message and those messages go directly to our email inbox and we will get back with you.
You can continue your faithful giving online through the website (https://arbordrive.churchcenter.com/giving), or you can drop your gift off at the office in person. If you need a giving envelope, please let us know and we will get one to you.
As we move closer to gathering together, we want to make sure that you know that if you desire or feel the need to wear a mask or gloves, that is encouraged. We want to gather safely when we do resume worship, but we also want you to be able to join us comfortable that you can take any measures you wish to protect yourself.
When we gather together again, anticipate it being limited to the worship service (at least initially) and refraining from shaking hands, hugging, etc… Also, we will be sure to communicate with you at least a week prior to resuming worship gatherings and update you as things develop in the coming weeks.
I want to close by reiterating that we did not arrive at this decision lightly and sought to make this decision in light of what we feel is best for the whole body. We sincerely miss gathering with you all and love you. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out and we will try to answer them. Thank you for your prayers and if there is any way we can minister to you, please let us know.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon