Dear CGS Family, 

We are so grateful to you for the Grace you have extended us in the midst of this rapidly evolving global moment. Here are some updates for you, followed by some concluding words of encouragement: 

Welcome to the "New Normal!" Our church is absolutely not "closed", not whatsoever. But many of our communities and ministries are meeting and operating within "virtual spaces."  Check the homepage of our website for schedule changes and for a curated library of previous church-wide communications. (The access points for this information may be found in large tiles located towards the bottom of the webpage.) 

The office remains open during normal operating hours, but in accord with national recommendations a number of our staff are working remotely. If you come to the front office door and need entrance, please use the doorbell. 

This is a challenging time for our pastoral and program staff: they are investing heavily in their respective ministries, adapting to rapidly evolving demands. 

As of March 22 - and until further notice - we will worship together each Sunday in a virtual context (initially via a recorded broadcast from our sanctuary, posted to our website). The entry portal for (and details of) this Sunday's services are accessible from our website homepage. 

We have made several adjustments to our email distribution algorithms, and are (cautiously) optimistic that fewer of our communications will be erroneously routed to your Spam/Junk folders. However, please continue to monitor all of your personal email for "stray landings." Additionally, we have created a new tile (located towards the bottom of our cgsonline.org home page) which is labelled Library of Recent CGS Newsletters. Clicking on that tile will link you to an archive of important church-wide communications. 

We are thoughtfully considering how to optimally modify our SMC calendar. Some of our classes will be transitioned to virtual gatherings in the weeks ahead; the Gender Issues class is postponed at present. 

In closing, one of the articles we have curated for you on our website (Resources / The Commons / Flattening the Curve) was written by three fellows of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Fellowship at Duke Divinity School. In that article they note that: 

     "It is interesting that the coronavirus gets its name from a spiked ring of proteins on its surface that resembles a crown, hence the title of "corona." In many ways, the coronavirus is revealing the crowned heads we already worship-health, self-protection, medicine. Our global, sustained attention to COVID-19 demonstrates that which we look to out of anxiety, control, and fear. 

    Of course, we know that Jesus wore a different crown-one that calls us to worship not out of anxiety or control but out of a love that drives out all fear. That crown doesn't make this coronavirus moment any less serious; however, it does tell us where to cast our anxieties, who to comfort, and which thorned crown to remember."