Pastor’s Corner: Plans to Gather for Worship

March 16, 2022

The last couple weeks have seen rapid changes in COVID-19 precautions from the state and county governments. Frankly, the abrupt drop in restrictions took your church leadership by surprise, since previous “re-openings” have been far more measured and gradual.

Advised by Dr. Ming Peng, our church COVID-19 coordinator, the Board of Deacons and the Church Council have agreed to set Sunday, April 24, for our first gathered service since August of 2020. It is not ideal, I know. That is the Sunday after Easter, and I suspect many of you have studied the calendar and hoped that we would be together on Easter Sunday.

When we do gather, we plan to continue with precautions that are no longer required but which are prudent given the continued circulation of this disease. We will require masks. We will maintain physical distance between family groups. We will not sing hymns together for a while. We will not hold our periodic refreshments times after worship.

We simply couldn’t imagine this working on Easter Sunday.

Late last year, we set a gathering date a long way in advance. We had to abandon that plan because of the Omicron wave. That may happen again. Epidemiologists warn of high transmission rates in Europe, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. We could see another rising tide, and we may suspend our gatherings once more. That would break my heart.

But it would not break it as thoroughly as a wave of illness and death in our congregation would. We will maintain our cautious approach, and pray for one another’s health, welfare, and spirit.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric

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Photo by Eric Anderson