Dear Crossroads Family,
We have now had three Sundays of corporate worship services at the limited capacity of 25% and many restrictions, yet it has been encouraging to take this first step toward regathering as the church. It has been wonderful to see and talk with many of you in person! For those who have not been able to attend yet, I hope the live-stream/recording has been helpful to you, but I miss seeing you face to face. I certainly understand the need for some of you to remain safely at home, and know for others that the many restrictions make it difficult to attend.
I wanted to pass long a few changes we are making to our Sunday gatherings in the hope of allowing some more of you to attend.
1. Starting this Sunday (6/21) we are opening the Lower Level Multi-Purpose Room (LL-MPR) as a more kid-friendly environment to watch the live-stream of the service with other families from the church. The same restrictions will remain in place (social distancing, wearing masks, no congregational singing), but there will be the expectation that kids make noise and squirm and may need to be taken out from time to time. As a reminder, children under two years old are not required to wear masks at any time. We will also have two classrooms set up with tables available for parents who need to take kids out of the LL-MPR. We will have coloring activities for the kids at the tables. The live-stream will be playing in both of these rooms as well.
While this is still far from ideal, our hope is that it can be a step for more of you to return to church on Sunday mornings. It also provides an opportunity to personally interact with the church family. This option will allow for up to 80 more people to attend the service at the church facility on Sunday mornings. If you are interested in this option, please respond to the sign-up email that you will receive today and choose the “Lower Level” option.
2. We plan to shorten the service by 15-20 minutes in order to be more conducive to young children and to all of us wearing masks. The total service time will be about one hour and ten minutes. This will be challenging for me, but these are unusual circumstances, and this is only temporary…don’t get too used to it!
3. We have modified our entrance procedure slightly. You will no longer be required to wash hands upon entering the building. You still need to check in outside, and ushers will be available inside the foyer to escort you to your assigned seats.
If you do sign up for a service and your reservations are confirmed, we ask that you make every effort to attend the service. If for some reason you cannot make it, please notify Kirk or Shawna as soon as possible. Every Sunday we have more requests than we have seats available; others would gladly take your place in the service if you are not able to attend.
It appears that the present restrictions will remain in place until at least June 30 in accordance with the latest Public Health Order. We will keep you updated if anything changes after this date. Thank you for your willingness to meet together in spite of the limitations and restrictions. It is still very much worth it! I look forward to seeing more of you in person on Sunday mornings.
In Christ,
Pastor Mark