Friends--

In consultation with the members of our Church Reopening Committee, I have decided to cancel the in-person worship service planned for tomorrow, Sunday, August 1.

Given the work that went into the preparation for resuming in person worship and our excitement about coming together again, this was not an easy decision. It was made necessary by a number of factors:

1) The rapid increase of the spread of the delta variant in the past week and the changing CDC guidance have raised new concerns about the safety of in-person indoor gatherings. We have consistently put the safety and well being of people as our highest concern and that will continue. We will have a better understanding the situation in the days.

2) We had electricity problems at the church on Friday and Saturday. While we think these have been resolved, we are not completely certain. The air conditioning was off for some of this time and it is vital that we have uninterrupted ventilation when meeting in person.

3) While parking is never great, the resurfacing of Clinton and Jefferson streets means that there is not on-street parking by the church.

We sent an email notice to the entire congregation and posted a notice about this on Facebook. I ask you to call your church friends to let them know about this as well so that the word gets out to everyone.

We will record a worship service on Sunday and post it to our website as quickly as possible. Because we have upgraded our internet capabilities, we expect to post the service on Sunday morning.

In the days ahead we will reassess our plans. We hope to have in-person worship in the coming weeks and will do so when it is safe and appropriate.

Peace,

Bill Lovin