Due to surging numbers of COVID cases, Governor Little released an order this week moving Idaho back into “Stage 3” of the reopening plan. Last night the Session met to discuss the implications of that order on our activities as a congregation.
Our desire is to make a good faith effort to comply with our governing authorities. But even more, we want to act wisely for the sake of those who are vulnerable in our church and in our community.
To that end, we want to communicate the following:
1. This Sunday’s dessert auction will be postponed. All other food events, including coffee hour, at the church will also be suspended until further notice. Our annual Thanksgiving meal at the church will also be cancelled this year.
2. “In-person” worship and other church activities will continue. Adult Sunday school will meet in the sanctuary to allow for spreading out. We also ask that everyone renew their efforts to practice the COVID protocols released earlier which include spreading out in the sanctuary during worship.
3. Finally, we strongly encourage everyone who is able to wear a mask while inside for worship until further notice. As a Session, we recognize how cumbersome this may feel and we will be doing our best to set a good example.
Decisions about responding to COVID can create strong feelings. We all have different thoughts about what we think is best in this unusual and confusing season. To be sure, there is a lot that we don’t know right now so many of our responses can feel like “best guesses”.
But this is also an opportunity for us as a church to demonstrate love to one another and to our community. In this way we cooperate with God making something good out of something that Satan meant for evil. So in the words of the Apostle Paul:
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:4-7)
Living Waters Evangelical Presbyterian Church 