We are excited to offer hybrid worship services, starting Sunday, July 11th! The services will be led from the church sanctuary with the congregation participating both in-person and virtually, through a live stream to YouTube. We will no longer be using Zoom for our services. For those who will be worshiping in person, things are not quite back to our pre-pandemic normal. To create a safe place of worship for all, recognizing that most returning will be vaccinated but not all, we will be doing many things differently. This letter will detail many of the ways in which things will be different, helping you to know what to expect, at least through September.
For all in-person gatherings, including worship, we will be following Pick-2 Principle. We will maintain social distancing and masking for everyone over the age of two while in a building together. When outside, we will either mask or maintain a social distance from those outside the group we arrived with.
We will be lining up and checking in at two tables just outside the front entrance near the sanctuary. Everyone who attends will be asked to fill out a Contact Tracing form for their group. You can complete a form in advance and bring it with you to save a little time. We’ll send out the blank forms in the Highlights the week prior to July 11th. We ask for your patience as we get everyone through this line. If your group is arriving separately, please wait near the parking lot for everyone to arrive before you get in line. It’s going to take a little longer to get everyone seated in the sanctuary, so we are asking those who do not have children in the Sunday School program to arrive between 9:30-9:45. Those who have children going to Sunday School or the Nursery, please arrive at 9:45. If you need to utilize the ADA entrance and elevator, please still feel free to do so, and an usher will meet you in the narthex.
If you are bringing children for Sunday School or the nursery, please plan on checking them in first before lining up yourself for worship. Check in for Sunday School children will be at the double external doors to Fellowship Hall, near the Church/Y doors, on the covered veranda. After gathering in the Fellowship Hall, teachers will escort the children to the middle parking lot for Sunday School outside! We’ll keep the Fellowship Hall reserved for them, should we experience a day with bad weather or smoky air. And, just so you know, all who work with our children will be fully vaccinated.
Nursery check in (for children 3 and under) will be upstairs on the 4th floor at the nursery. If you are checking a child into the nursery, please enter the Church/Y doors and proceed to the nursery via the lobby steps or elevator. When done, please return to the outside line for your own check-in. Please recognize that we cannot follow the Pick-2 Principle in the nursery with our youngest ones who don’t understand, but our nursery attendants will be masked and sanitizing hands between needed contact with children.
The sanctuary is prepared to help us maintain social distancing with every other pew roped off. After you check in for worship, ushers will lead you to the next available pew for your group’s size. We will be
seating people starting at the front of the sanctuary, working back. Bulletins will be waiting for you in the pews, and for the time being, we will skip the congestion of picking up name tags and go without.
For those worshiping virtually, you will find the service to be similar to the virtual experience we've had for the past year. We have three new cameras installed in the sanctuary so that we can stream the services live from the church. For those worshiping in person, we won’t be passing the peace in the ways we used to, and offering plates will be in the back of the sanctuary as you leave worship. With kids enjoying Sunday School for the full worship, we won't have a Time for Children for now. We won’t be singing as a congregation from the pews quite yet. We’ll enjoy music videos on a new screen at the front of the sanctuary while they play for those worshiping virtually. We’ll have live music from vaccinated individuals/small groups performing at a safe distance, before worship begins. Prayers can be shared prior to worship through our church website or by filling out the prayer request card provided in the pews; an usher will collect them. We will continue to have communion during worship once a month, taking the elements together at home and in the pews. Those in-person will be provided sealed, untouched, individual servings of bread and juice. Masks will be pulled down momentarily to partake of the elements.
When worship concludes, ushers will help us to maintain social distances by releasing the pews one at a time, starting at the back of the church. Those with kids in Sunday School will pick them up in the middle parking lot. We won't be hosting an in-person coffee hour. Instead, we hope you will continue to join us for virtual coffee hour, which will start about 30 minutes after worship ends on Zoom. All are welcome!
In the coming week, you will receive more information about how to care for yourself and others during this transition time and what will happen following worship. Look to the Thursday highlights, the church website and blog, the church’s YouTube channel, and Sunday worship announcements for updates.
We know that these changes are going to take some getting used to. We also know that there will be more changes in the future, we just don't know what they will be or when they will happen. We ask for your flexibility and understanding as we move through new ways of being the church together. Balancing varying comfort levels, physical needs and emotional needs in the congregation with care is tricky, but we’re confident we can do it well with everyone’s help! If you have questions about regathering, please reach out to the Re-Gathering Task Force (regathering@fauntleroyucc.org).
