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This Church changes lives!
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Updating our COVID planning
CLC Plan to Regather v. 4; Returning additional, in-person worship opportunities
CLC Plan to Regather, v.4
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Like you, we have become avid watchers of local COVID-19 news, infection rates, and we monitor changes in local, regional, statewide, and national guidance. With vaccines continuing to roll out into our area, and with recent downturns in various rates and metrics we are all feeling hopeful that we may be able to relieve the strictest pandemic precautions. However, important ongoing guidance still cautions that "normal,"
restriction-free gatherings lie some time in the future.
In our continuing prayer, reflection, research and guidance-collecting, Christ Lutheran remains committed to placing our most vulnerable as foremost in our thinking: until all our beloved can gather, we are not back to "normal." Until all of us are safe, we continue to voluntarily take precautionary restrictions.
Our Staff and Council have recently revised our "CLC Plan to Regather" to reflect recent guidance and our current understandings and approach to the ongoing pandemic. Recent metrics and measures of COVID infections allow us to move, cautiously, into the right-most "Hybrid" column. This allows us to return limited in-person worship opportunities; see below for information and plans for how we intend to move forward. As always, please note that
this is very much a "living document" that we are constantly revisiting and revising as situations warrant, and is subject to ongoing change.
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In-person worship opportunities
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While livestream worship continues to be our primary gathering, recent COVID rates have moved in positive directions, allowing us to reintroduce additional, in-person worship opportunities next month, beginning March 7 at 10:30am in the Sanctuary. In order to do so safely, we have put the following precautions in place:
- If you feel in the least bit unwell, please stay home! Help us keep our beloved community safe.
- Masks are mandated, from the parking lot until we return to our cars.
- Capacity is limited, and pre-registration is required; see https://clcvalpo.churchcenter.com/registrations
- Seating is adjusted to provide 6-feet distance between rows, and we ask family groups to leave 3 chairs / 6' of pew space between groups.
- Our HVAC system will run throughout our service with outside air intake maximized to increase ventilation. We have installed UV sterilization filters in the Sanctuary and Church Hall systems to provide additional mitigation.
- Hand sanitizer is available and encouraged throughout the building.
- We will not use bulletins, hymnals, nor pass offering plates.
- We continue to avoid congregational singing and unison, supported speech
- Communion distribution has been adjusted to reduce the risks of contact
Our services will include: prayers, reading, preaching, and Holy Communion, with appropriate modifications to our distribution practices. We will continue to monitor relevant guidance as we consider when and how to add additional components into our services.
Please note!
- We can only begin these services if we have the help to do so! As you know, worship requires many hands, and for us to gather, we need: ushers, readers, prayer assistants, communion assistants. Please see our signup
form and let us know how you will help -- if we don't have sufficient signups for a particular service, we will have to cancel that service.
- In-person opportunities are dependent on continued positive developments in terms of infection rates, COVID metrics, and relevant guidance, and are subject to last-minute cancellation if necessary.
- We are hard at work with plans for Holy Week and Easter, including when and how we will incorporate in-person options. Watch your email, our webpage, and our Facebook for further information.
- Again, because it bears repeating: Our livestream worship remains our primary gathering.
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