Dear CGS Family -
Reflections on ReOpening our CGS Campus:
As I shared with you last week, we at CGS are actively exploring options to allow gradual resumption of small-sized group meetings within our facility during each week. We are attempting to do so in i) a manner that is safe, and ii) in a manner that is deferential to vulnerable groups within our church who perhaps face greater obstacles in maintaining degrees of community during this protracted COVID season, and iii) in a manner that is most congruent with CGS' overall mission goals of discipleship, evangelism, and community outreach.
Just as COVID has severely reduced the numbers of seats safely available in our sanctuary for Sunday worship, so too has it constrained the numbers of meeting "rooms/times" safely available during the week in our facility -- at least initially (more on this, below). This means that some degree of triage will be necessary (based on CGS' mission goals, above), and such triage will persist as long as does COVID...
MACRO:
For those who don't care about the details, here's your "one-stop shopping" list:
In accord with the context above, we are offering an "open enrollment" period thru Sunday, October 18 to assess interest among small user-groups among our church family (Community Groups, prayer groups, etc).
A sign-up document will be available on our website, and may also be accessed here.
As noted above, "signing up" is not, unfortunately, synonymous with "being granted a "time/room" in which to meet. The necessity of triage is anticipated, and this will take place in accord with the broad priorities outlined in the opening paragraph of this letter. It should be noted that -- at least initially -- neither the nursery rooms nor the children's rooms in Phase 1 will be available for use.
It is also anticipated that - in order to offer some degree of access to as many small user-groups as possible - that previously customary meeting times and frequencies for individual groups may have to change (e.g. perhaps from once weekly on Thursdays to every other week on Mondays), in order to double the potential availability for our user-groups collectively.
Nevertheless, please know that our heart towards you is to be as imaginative and flexible in accommodating your requests as safety and facility resources allow...
After the close of the "open enrollment" period, representatives of the Session and Re-Gathering Team will sort thru the requests. If/when your group secures a "reservation" schedule, you will receive additional details
regarding the applicable usage guidelines for your group, to assist you in determining whether your particular group desires to accept the constraints that will exist for all user groups...
MICRO:
For those of you who - as youngsters growing up - were the ones always responding to impositions by asking "But, why?" (often in a whiny voice), here is additional information. Proceed at your own peril: the details may prove excruciating...
There are considerable pragmatic constraints involved in safely opening our facility to cyclical usage by small-sized mid-week user-groups. These constraints differ substantially from those that govern our serial once-weekly use of the sanctuary, and are logistically more complicated. A great deal of collaborative work has been done to shepherd this process by your Session and by the ReGathering Team (this latter group consists of Norman Acker {Chair}, Bob Burns, Amelia Cassar, Chuck Jacob, Glenn Jordan, Allen Liles, Richard Mayes, Aaron McKethan, Matt McClure, RiLee Robeson, Felix Sung, and Andrew Yarbrough).
Current Provisions for Cleaning and Sanitizing our CGS Facility:
CGS contracts with a professional cleaning service (TriClean), which
provides comprehensive deep-cleaning (using viricidal agents) once weekly (customarily on Saturdays) of our entire facility prior to the Sunday worship service.
A second round of "housekeeping" for the facility occurs at the first of each week, focusing upon the bathrooms and other areas that receive heavy usage during the previous weekend.
This combined twice-weekly service now costs CGS @ $52k per year, and provides an effective cleaning/sanitizing regimen for our facility. However, it is not financially feasible to provide additional mid-week cleanings
at this price point.
Until a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is available and COVID risk recedes,
if members of CGS are to safely use our facility, those user-groups will need to participate responsibly:
Persons using the CGS facility indoors would be expected to
do so masked, expected to observe appropriate distancing measures, and expected to adhere to what are now universally accepted societal expectations regarding hand-washing, hand-sanitization, etc.
User-groups will be responsible for sanitizing the surfaces they use in their meeting room (chairs, table surfaces, etc), and associated bathroom (counters/sinks/doorhandles, etc), both before (for their own protection) and after their meetings (for the protection of those that follow:
Spray bottles containing soluble viricidal agents will be available in each of the designated meeting rooms and associated bathrooms, as will disposable gloves and paper towels. In most instances, the surfaces to be cleaned can be simply sprayed and left to air dry.
Individual user-groups -- at least initially -- will be staggered both temporally and geographically (by virtue of their assigned meeting times and meeting spaces) in order to allow a minimum of 36-48 hrs to elapse between user-group overlap (as below). This is intended in order to supplement the user-group cleaning procedures (above) by taking advantage of the natural debilitating effect of elapsed time itself upon viral infectivity and/or viability.
Initial rotations and staging for user-groups:
We will initially make a total of 9 slots available weekly for small-sized group meetings (absolute maximum of 25 persons, in accord with recently updated gubernatorial and mayoral restrictions). These slots will be distributed on each of 3 days (M/W/F), and located in three widely separated parts of the building (thus yielding a total of 9 slots weekly):
Each slot will have its own (one only) assigned exterior entry/exit point, and each will have its own set of bathrooms. This will allow a minimum of 36-48 hrs to elapse between occupancy of a given room, and will preserve a similar gap in the usage of our available bathrooms. If lapses in sanitization technique occur within user-groups, this enforced time gap between user-groups will serve as an important safety redundancy.
Procedure for allotting user-group reservations:
Within the broad considerations of safety, vulnerability and mission, we will give particular attention initially to vulnerable groups who -- by virtue of risk factors and/or technology challenges -- are at competitive disadvantage in maintaining other forms of community connections within CGS.
One additional initial operating bias is that -- since the initial user-groups will become the "compliance" models for those that follow -- we will deliberately try to select "pioneer" groups that will help establish a culture of accountability for those that follow, and who will help us assess the safety and feasibility of our protocols...
Future expansion of the number of available reservation slots:
The Re-Gathering Team recommends that -- until we have time to assess the effectiveness of our protocols (and time to track the potential emergence of COVID within our re-assembling CGS community) -- we approach expansion gradually, particularly as these gatherings will become coincident (on a weekly basis) with the resumption of our larger Worship Services...
As new evidence-based guidelines emerge nationally -- particularly regarding the degree of risk from surface contact -- we will work to liberalize our usage parameters accordingly.
Parting Thoughts -
As I shared with you last week, most of us have long previously resigned ourselves - yet with optimism in Christ - to the realization that our rhythms of gathering and communing may not approach the "previous normal" until next summer. With such a long path still ahead, I trust you understand that there is a high degree of probability that we will experience sporadic COVID cases among our congregation. And these will occur in temporal association (though not necessarily in causal relationship) with our return to worship and our gradual opening of our facility.
This is virtually inevitable and - to some degree - desirable. By which I mean that what we would ideally desire (in the absence of a vaccine) that "herd immunity" be "safely" established by asymptomatic infection
(and subsequent immunity) among the great majority of healthy persons in Durham-Chapel Hill, so that the virus will be unable to sustain itself effectively and can no longer significantly threaten the vulnerable among us.
If/when COVID cases do emerge within CGS, your Session and your Re-Gathering team are pledged to i) try and interpret these events wisely, and ii) discern between association vs causation (with respect to our meeting protocols), and iii) lead CGS well in the midst of it all...
As part of that realization, I again humbly ask you to recognize that these tentative steps we are now taking to "re-gather" on Sundays and mid-week are subject to disruption and alteration any given week. So let's lean into this uncertainty with our faith, and celebrate the confidence and adaptability that utter reliance upon Christ actually grants us...
So please continue to undergird your leadership - and each other -- with daily prayers. Lift up your Session, your Re-Gathering Team, your pastors, your staff, and each other, for "blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in Him." (Jeremiah 17:7)
Godspeed to all -
Glenn Jordan
