Crossroads Family,
Greetings to each of you. We know that each of you has missed being together on Sunday mornings. It has been five months since we last met in the sanctuary and we know we are all eager for Crossroads to get back to normal.
We are blessed to have a Reopening Team that has met weekly and worked diligently to define how we do that. Their detailed plan is now posted on our website, along with instructions for small Group Leaders and those who wish to reserve space for an event at Crossroads, starting in August.
The protocols may seem burdensome, yet they are required to safely reopen the church, so the team appreciates your commitment to ensuring compliance as we start to reopen.
Originally, we set an aspirational goal of doing live Sunday morning gatherings beginning September 6
th
. However, based on your feedback from the survey we conducted and our assessment of the current and continuing health protocols required to safely reopen Crossroads for large group, in-person events, we have decided to delay reopening for large group worship until January 1
st
, 2021. This decision was unanimously discerned by both the Reopening Team and TREK to Recalibrate Vision and Mission Team.
In the survey, you clearly told us not to rush back to in-person worship. Rather, you suggested we focus on enhancing our streaming worship service in a variety of ways. We are going to do that and have already started acquiring technology to improve our streaming capability. We are also working to enhance the content of those services. We anticipate continuing our streaming service for the foreseeable future, even after we reopen for in-person worship.
In our Reopening Plan, you will notice the inclusion of protocols that would allow reopening for in-person worship under current conditions. However, as we evaluated the resources needed to execute those protocols, we realized the enormity of required resources and the difficulty in safely delivering a quality worship experience. We simply do not think returning to in-person worship is practical right now. The Reopening Team will continue to monitor conditions and advise as protocols can be safely relaxed.
We know that on one level this is disappointing news. Yet, in these difficult times, we are called to find new ways of sharing God’s message of unwavering hope. This means that right now we are called to be creative in continuing to deliver God’s message and extend our unlimited welcome to everyone. We are called to evolve and continually reinvent Crossroads. We are called to be a leader in our community on the tough topics like social injustice and racism. We are called to live like Jesus would – in the digital age.
So, over the next few months, we are refocusing our resources on enhancing current ministries and finding new, meaningful ways to connect. Rather than having large group in-person worship services on Sunday morning, we will be offering smaller group services that allow people to safely gather for spiritual reflection and to celebrate the various church holidays in the months ahead.
While some of these events will occur in our sanctuary, we will also be going outdoors to celebrate God’s nature and be a visible source of hope in our community. We will be developing new ways for our children and youth to gather, enabling their continued spiritual growth.
We need your ideas and your help. Responding to God’s call to evolve requires creativity and engagement. If you have an idea for a new ministry or event, let us know. Similarly, if you want to lend a hand, this is a great time to get involved. Just
send us a message
or give us a call.
God’s Blessings,
Reopening Team
TREK to Recalibrate Vision and Mission Team
