May 30, 2020
Beloved in Christ,
Yesterday Governor Pritzker announced that he would lift restriction on the number of people who would be allowed to gather for worship.
While we are so grateful that Illinois’ response to controlling this outbreak has been so effective, we are at the same time frankly unprepared for this sudden change in policy. Grace’s council realizes that we have a significant amount of planning to complete before we feel safe in returning to community worship. Governor Pritzker has also acknowledged that he believes continuing to limit the number of people in church is the best course, according to the Chicago Tribune: “Pritzker’s new order continues to encourage faith leaders to follow public health guidelines and says the ‘safest practices’ continue to be online, outdoor or drive-in services, and indoor services that cap the number of congregants at 10.”
Several factors require more planning before we at Grace are ready to open to 50 people. We need to establish a registration program so people can select which service they will attend. And we need to coordinate with the Food Pantry, which currently uses the Narthex space to safely sort and package food to meet the increased (by 42%!) demand. Their mission is critical, and while we can still worship at home, they cannot feed people from home. We are committed to making sure they can safely continue their work, since so many other food pantries have been forced to close (due to lack of space needed for social distancing), and so many hungry people depend on them.
Just this past Wednesday I attended a webinar hosted by the Metro Chicago Synod to assist churches in planning to return to community worship. The synod provided us with several documents, including guidelines and specific and detailed planning sheets to address various facets that must be considered; their implementation will require a significant amount of preparation. Also participating in that webinar was Dr. Deborah Burnet, Chief of General Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. Dr. Burnet indicated that she believed it would still be a matter of months, rather than weeks, before groups of 50 would be safe to gather indoors.
Grace’s council is meeting on Monday night to undertake the strategic planning needed to meet the criteria for our safe community worship. We hope to complete that work as quickly as possible, but we are still committed to considering the opinions of public health officials and making sure we have done everything needful to protect our community. We will follow up with you as soon as we have updates on a timeline for returning to community worship. If things in Illinois continue to improve as they have, we look forward to that being sooner than we expected!
Thank you for your grace, patience, and faithful support.
In Christ,
Pastor Melody
Beloved in Christ,
Yesterday Governor Pritzker announced that he would lift restriction on the number of people who would be allowed to gather for worship.
While we are so grateful that Illinois’ response to controlling this outbreak has been so effective, we are at the same time frankly unprepared for this sudden change in policy. Grace’s council realizes that we have a significant amount of planning to complete before we feel safe in returning to community worship. Governor Pritzker has also acknowledged that he believes continuing to limit the number of people in church is the best course, according to the Chicago Tribune: “Pritzker’s new order continues to encourage faith leaders to follow public health guidelines and says the ‘safest practices’ continue to be online, outdoor or drive-in services, and indoor services that cap the number of congregants at 10.”
Several factors require more planning before we at Grace are ready to open to 50 people. We need to establish a registration program so people can select which service they will attend. And we need to coordinate with the Food Pantry, which currently uses the Narthex space to safely sort and package food to meet the increased (by 42%!) demand. Their mission is critical, and while we can still worship at home, they cannot feed people from home. We are committed to making sure they can safely continue their work, since so many other food pantries have been forced to close (due to lack of space needed for social distancing), and so many hungry people depend on them.
Just this past Wednesday I attended a webinar hosted by the Metro Chicago Synod to assist churches in planning to return to community worship. The synod provided us with several documents, including guidelines and specific and detailed planning sheets to address various facets that must be considered; their implementation will require a significant amount of preparation. Also participating in that webinar was Dr. Deborah Burnet, Chief of General Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. Dr. Burnet indicated that she believed it would still be a matter of months, rather than weeks, before groups of 50 would be safe to gather indoors.
Grace’s council is meeting on Monday night to undertake the strategic planning needed to meet the criteria for our safe community worship. We hope to complete that work as quickly as possible, but we are still committed to considering the opinions of public health officials and making sure we have done everything needful to protect our community. We will follow up with you as soon as we have updates on a timeline for returning to community worship. If things in Illinois continue to improve as they have, we look forward to that being sooner than we expected!
Thank you for your grace, patience, and faithful support.
In Christ,
Pastor Melody