At Church of the Nativity, we are participating in a phased return to in-person interactions. Our return has been carefully planned by church staff and clergy under the direction of our Diocesan bishops. It has been wonderful to gather together and experience worship and communion! Please keep in mind that while the Diocese is continuously re-evaluating and easing restrictions whenever possible, we are still limited in the ways we are permitted to gather and worship. In particular, these are guidelines we are now observing:
- Outdoor worship gatherings are limited to 50 people total, including clergy, staff, and lay ministers.
- One-kind (bread only) communion is permitted with health and safety restrictions. Please return to your seat with your wafer before removing your mask to consume it.
- We must stay socially distanced at all gatherings! Please keep a six-foot distance from all fellow parishioners and members of the clergy. This includes while queuing for communion and while fellowshipping before and after the service.
- We are not permitted to pass offering plates. Please mail your contributions or use the PayPal and Venmo links on the church website.
- We must wear masks at all times while on the church grounds. Reusable masks are available at services.
- We must sanitize our hands frequently. Sanitizer is available at the outdoor services.
- Congregational singing is not permitted at in-person gatherings.
- Due to a lack of an outdoor covered area on our grounds, in-person services will be cancelled if it rains.
- Limited indoor gatherings are now permitted. We will be planning, exploring, and experimenting within the Diocesan parameters for gathering indoors later in the fall and winter.
When I returned to my classroom on 9/21, I returned not to “normal,” but to an alteration of my COVID routine. I sit in the familiar environs of room 210, but the 32 student desks remain empty. My students continue to learn from home, and I have learned over the past two months how to interact with them through the computer. Staff meetings take place online, too, because it is not safe for compromised individuals to return in person.
Likewise, our church building looks the same and is reassuringly familiar, but we interact with each other differently. Our primary service remains the 10:30 online video premiere, available on YouTube and Facebook. This is where you will enjoy musical performances, liturgy to participate in, hymns to sing along with, and a variety of familiar faces reading lessons! Because of the growing dark and cold, we plan to pause in-person outdoor worship when the Advent season arrives, after Sunday 11/22. During the Advent and Christmas seasons, our prerecorded services will provide a way for us to stay connected with one another through special music and familiar liturgies. In January, pending the easing of restrictions, we will re-evaluate another return to in-person worship. It has been difficult for many of us to feel like ourselves without the familiar routines of church, and it is even more difficult when we still do not know when and how things will return to “normal.” Through all of the uncertainty, separation, anxiety, and change, please remember that we are still together, because we belong to one another.
In Christ,
Carrie Mash
Sr. Warden