May 27, 2020
Dear Church Family,
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr is credited with saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” How true that is!
On Monday, May 26, Governor Newsom released new guidelines and recommendations for houses of worship, which will allow EFCC to immediately begin hosting worship services and smaller groups. In order to meet these guidelines, we will need to abide by the following state and county prescriptions (
California Guidelines for Churches
).
Yesterday our staff met to discuss a proposed plan, which was then affirmed by the Board of Elders last night. I’d like to share with you these plans for moving forward over the next few weeks.
First, we will continue to follow the state’s guidelines and restrictions for in-person gatherings. Second, we will continue to take the maximum amount of leeway afforded to us by the government. Third, we are engaging in constant, ongoing evaluation.
With that said, our plan is to resume in-person worship services on the weekend of June 6/7. As mentioned, we will abide by the state and county requirements, which means we will limit attendance in any one service to 25% of the room’s capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower.
We plan to start on June 6/7 with three on-campus service times: Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m.
We have the ability to provide services in multiple locations at the same time, and we are working toward that end. Pre-registration to attend these worship services will be required, and we will get that information to you as soon as it is available.
At this point, all services will be video venues. We will show the same full service video that currently can be viewed online.
Staff, elders, ushers and greeters will be available to assist those who attend. All will be required to follow the measures that have been implemented so as to limit the potential for exposure. Concurrently, we are working on plans to open the campus for small group use, while taking every reasonable precaution to ensure the safety of each individual, which are in line with the worship service guidelines.
All of this is very fluid and it’s our intention to keep you as informed as possible. Once we have more information relative to our specific plans for the worship services and for accommodating smaller groups of people, we will make those available.
In the meantime, we, the EFCC elders and staff, greatly appreciate your notes of encouragement, prayers for wisdom, patience and grace as we move in uncharted waters.
Grace + peace,
Ryan Paulson
