COVID Guidance
COVID-19 Guidance Document
Faith Church leadership has met to discuss returning to church to resume face-to-face worship services. While we know that everyone’s situation is different, both in terms of comfort with being around others and pre-existing health conditions, we have tried to do our best to consider and accommodate all of our members in making our decisions. We conducted a brief survey recently that has helped us in shaping this document, along with personal conversations with many of you. While we know that it is not possible to make everyone feel comfortable, we truly are making our best effort. If there is anything that you feel we have not considered, or should consider, please feel free to get in touch with Pastor Jeremy or anyone from Church Council. We know that things will continue to change and evolve, and we will try to make decisions that keep in step with the constantly changing guidelines from our local, state, and federal government agencies. What follows are some of the preliminary steps that we are taking so that we can resume worship services at Faith Church.
We have resumed face-to-face services on June 14th.
We will continue to make the services available online for those in our congregation who are not yet comfortable being with large groups of people.
Our service will be abbreviated. It will follow a very similar format as the online services we have done in the past several weeks. The service elements will be 2-3 worship songs, sermon will continue. Worship services will be family-centered as no children programming will be offered for this season.
The main lobby doors will open at 10:15 Sunday morning to encourage safe social distancing in this season. We will have greeters at the main doors to limit surface touch transmission.
The following church programs will be postponed until further notice, to stay within social distancing guidelines. As we get more guidance from the various agencies and get input from our congregation, these programs will resume, most likely with some restrictions to, again, stay in accordance with suggested guidelines.
All Sunday School classes
Children’s Church (during our worship time)
Vacation Bible School
We will not be passing offering plates to collect offering. We will have “giving stations” positioned at the front and back entrances of the sanctuary for people to leave their tithes and offering, either as they enter or leave the sanctuary. We will continue to offer the various online giving options that Pastor Jeremy has incorporated during our online services, as well.
We will not be printing or handing out bulletins. If you liked to take notes on the bulletins, we encourage you to bring your own notepads to use, until we feel comfortable resuming the printed bulletins. Announcements will be posted on our TV in the narthex and our big screen in the sanctuary before worship time.
For obvious safety reasons, we will also postpone our coffee station access. Please feel free to bring your own coffee with you. The church will not be offering the coffee station until we feel comfortable that we can do so safely. We will have bottled water available, upon request.
We are going to limit access to the building to worship services only, until further notice. Considerations for funerals and weddings for congregation members being the exception. This too, will change over time as we get more guidelines from the various agencies. At this time we will not be renting our facilities to outside groups.
The areas of the church that are not currently being used for worship service activities (ie. Sunday School rooms, gym, etc.) will be closed off to contain our cleaning area to the areas which are used for our worship service (Sanctuary, restrooms, lobby, and entrances)
Communion will be conducted differently, you may bring your own or we will have “all in one” communion kits available for you to pick up as you enter the sanctuary on Communion Sunday (first Sunday of each month).
Masks are highly suggested. Out of love for each other and the possibility of being an unknown carrier, we ask you wear a mask. We are not requiring it because we know some simply cannot due to other health concerns. If you don’t have a mask, we have one for you!
We will be changing the arrangement of our sanctuary to adhere to social distancing. Pews will be positioned differently. The worship team will be positioned differently as well. Other changes may be necessary, again, to adhere to all of the recommended guidelines.
Our nursery resumed on Sunday, July 19.
Possibly the biggest question that has yet to be addressed is… “What are the cleaning procedures going to look like now that we are coming together again?” We have formed a cleaning committee that is doing a fantastic job of “thinking of everything”. Plans include contracting with an outside cleaning company to do a deep clean of the building on Monday June 8th. We will be providing masks for those who may not have them, providing hand sanitizer stations throughout the building, and posting signage to remind our congregation of the areas we need to wipe down as we move through the facility. There will be a lot of attention to detail in this area, as we want those who join us back at church to feel completely safe. If there is something that arises that may cause you concern, please let Pastor Jeremy, Andy Klaber or any member of Council know so we can address it.