Dear Church Family,
You may have already heard that the deacons and pastor met on April 29th and decided to postpone returning to a normal church service until at least the first Sunday in June. The intent of this letter is to explain the reasoning behind this decision, and to make sure you understand how much we love and miss each of you, as we have been apart for so long now.
While decisions like this would normally be handled by the entire body through a church business meeting, as you know it is unwise, and as of today, unlawful for us to meet together to conduct such a meeting. Furthermore, our constitution does not allow for an official meeting without a quorum of 15 members present for the meeting. With this in mind, the deacons, along with the pastor, took it upon ourselves to prayerfully meet (while keeping a safe distance) to make this decision on behalf of the church.
We want you to know that we all truly want to get back together to worship again as a unified body. However, we love each of you enough, that the thought of making ANYBODY sick, or putting ANY ONE PERSON in jeopardy, was enough to conclude that it would be better to postpone resuming normal services through the month of May. Of course, there are risks associated with waiting to meet again. We understand that some may choose to find another place to worship. Some may simply miss out on much needed spiritual nourishment because they have “gotten out of the habit” of attending church. Others still may not be compelled to make their tithe unless they are at the church building, and we may struggle financially. While these are real concerns, they were greatly outweighed by the risk of having one of our members contract this terrible illness because they attended one of our worship services. As the state opens back up and people begin to get back out into the community, we will be keeping a close eye on the impact around us. If necessary, we will again evaluate to see if it is safe to return to services in June.
There are other factors that helped to ease our minds about this decision. For the past several weeks of posting services on Facebook Live, Bro. Brock’s sermons are routinely being viewed well over 700 times. This is amazing, and reminds us that God continues to work even when we feel like things are “messed up”. We would expect giving to be down, but people are now using online giving and continue to mail in their tithes and offerings. While we likely would have had larger giving during the month of April if we were meeting normally, there is no reason to believe we will struggle to pay our bills during this time. Finally, the deacons are trying to reach out to as many of our active church members as possible. If you have a need, please, please get in touch with one of us so that we can pray with you and help in other ways, if possible.
To conclude this letter, we pray that you feel a nearness to God in this time and a peace that surpasses all understanding. Like you, we are very anxious to return to a time of fellowship and corporate worship. We feel confident that God is preparing us during this time for an amazing time of revival, and the lost world around us to receive the Good News of Jesus. I would encourage you to look for opportunities, maybe in new ways, to share His love with someone today. There is too much technology around us to use social distancing as an excuse to not share Jesus during this time.