Sundays in the Sanctuary
Faith, if you are ready to come back to the sanctuary for Sunday morning worship, we’d love to have you. According to what you’ve told us, many of you will not be ready to come back for quite some time…and that is ok. We intend to keep our presence online strong each Sunday morning at 11:00 am on our three channels: Facebook Live, YouTube, and our website.
Hopefully, you’ve received a voice message and a letter giving you the information you need to make a good decision for yourself and your household. If you still have questions, email me and let’s visit. In today’s blog, I want to walk you through some of the parameters we’ve considered in the decision to open the sanctuary each Sunday morning, beginning Aug. 30, for 80 people who have saved a seat.
As I’m sure you know, the rate of infection in Tulsa is still high. Fortunately, the number of new infections is trending down. Hospitalization numbers have stabilized. This appears to be a result of the mask mandate for the City of Tulsa. Our first parameter is and always will be — safety. Faith, in terms of infection risk, it is not any safer now than it has ever been to gather in large groups, indoors, for extended periods of time. However, we know more now about how the virus is transmitted and how to mitigate our risk to each other. We know that wearing masks really does help. We know that keeping 6 feet of distance really does help. We know that keeping your bubble of direct contact small really does help. We know that hand sanitization really does help. And, we know that transmission from touching surfaces is much less likely than initially thought. The treatments for those who get seriously ill have improved, meaning that people are slightly less likely to die as a result of an infection. For all these reasons, the crisis management team felt like we could open relatively safely with clear safety protocols. Hear me clearly — our opening on Sunday morning does not mean we think there is no risk of infection. It just means we feel more ready to mitigate the risks as we understand them.
Our decision to keep only one service is a part of this mitigation. We are simply limiting the length of time people are in the sanctuary and the number of people who will be in that space. It is also the result of low volunteer response. Back in June, we were trying to gear up for a larger scale opening in mid-July. I was reaching out to people who had been on our Sunday morning teams and those willing/available to return and help us manage our risk was extremely low. Of those who were willing to come back and serve, they only wanted to serve for one hour (understandable). This meant we’d need twice the number of volunteers we thought we needed. With the low response rate and the increased need in order to safely open for two services, we put a pause on our plans. It happened to correspond with a huge surge in infections in Tulsa, so that made our pause even longer. Our plan is to run initially with staff in place to support those in the building on Sunday mornings so we don’t have to rely on volunteers that might not be ready to return yet.
In addition to only having one service, we are limiting capacity at 80 people. Several weeks ago, Randy Dahl measured out every pew to discover how many people could be seated in the sanctuary spaced 6 feet apart. With Randy’s measurements and sitting every other pew, the capacity in the sanctuary is 80 people. We feel this is a safe number. In order to make sure we can respect our safe capacity, we are asking you to save-a-seat. At noon today, the website platform we are using for saving seats opens. The link is: bit.ly/faith-save-a-seat. This platform keeps a running total of how many seats are still remaining. After you save your seats, you’ll receive a confirmation email. In this email is a link to cancel in case you need to do that. Please help us by canceling if you are not coming. Others might be waiting for your seat. To answer this question in advance, there is no wait list — but you can check back on the website. If people cancel, it will open up additional seats.
When you arrive, we want you to be as safe as possible. Please wear a mask the entire time you are in the building. Please check in at the sanctuary entrance (three sets of doors at the back). Our staff will have the list of reservations to confirm that you are here. Please honor the 6 feet of distance between you and anyone not in your household. The sanctuary opens at 10:45 and we ask that you be in your seats by 10:58. After service, we ask you to exit the building before having conversations with each other — outdoors is always safer. We’re creating an infant/toddler friendly space in the Susanna Wesley Room and we’ll have activity packs for the younger kids. Families will stay together during the service. We are learning as we go. Remember, we are building the plane as we fly it.
Some of you have asked about outdoor worship. We are moving this to Wednesday evenings and will begin on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 6:30 pm. You can expect 30 minutes of worship (music & devotion) and then an additional 30 minutes of circling our chairs in the parking lot in breakout groups. Each age group will have their own breakout groups. Heather and I will be leading these for adults and we’re planning a soul check in time. It will be an important time of connection and being face-to-face with each other. There is no limit on the number of people that can attend, so we hope you’ll make this a regular part of your week.
Finally, I wanted to offer a last-minute invitation to join a Disciple Bible Study group. This year, we’ll be all virtual. We have four classes set and ready to go. I’ll be teaching the introductory class which is a prerequisite for the other classes. Nikki Frasier and Dan Wilson are teaching the Green Disciple Course. This course focuses on Genesis, Exodus, Luke & Acts. Eric Polak is teaching the Purple Disciple course. His course focuses on the Prophets and the Letters of Paul. You can sign up for these courses through our online form. We are planning to start the first part of September. In order to get materials sent by mail and get information to all participants for a strong start, we need to know you are planning to sign up ASAP. I think this is a year when being rooted in the scriptures and having an accountability group will be more important than ever, so I hope you’ll sign up.
