Covid-19 has become a very divisive issue in our nation. We must not let it divide His Church. It is not about masked people or unmasked people. It is really about liberty and love. Liberty, or freedom, is a wonderful thing. When the Son sets you free you are free indeed! Yet, in scripture, we see where love is greater than liberty. We must be gracious to one another. There is no absolute right or wrong on this issue. There are many opinions about how and when to reopen. From the surveys we have received from our faith family, here are a sampling of the comments.

“Although I would love to be in God’s church, there is concern that if we are unable to meet in our growth groups (25-30 people), it seems counter-intuitive to meet in the church with a greater population. Although protecting those >65 or with underlying health issues is most important, I would assume hand sanitizer/masks would be required. Overall, I feel confident when growth group resumes, I would be ready to come back to live services in church. I truly enjoyed the outdoor service and will pray that is an opportunity for us to gather in the future.”

“Continue to offer both, online services and live service for people to choose for their level of comfort. Emanuel, God is with us!”

“I am ready to go back and see my church members”

“I don’t have any areas of concern except for those at high risk. I believe those who can safely return, should and those that are uncomfortable or at risk should continue to worship at home.”

“I think if people wear masks and sanitize their hands which should be fine.”

“I think that we should encourage our Senior adults to stay home. It would be heartbreaking to lose one of these over this pandemic. Also, people will not social distance, so we should delay corporate worship until later. I went to the parking lot rally & people were hugging & not

social distancing. I felt uncomfortable & then mean when II asked people not to hug me.”

You know who is right in the comments above? All of them! We are all allowed to have opinions, even differing ones in this matter. Yet, we must always maintain and move forward in love. So, we must use wisdom in our decision making. We need to take as many of our members on the journey of relaunching FBW as possible. It will require patience. Scripture reminds us that love is patient.

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Whatever we do, we must not go backward once we get started. In building momentum, we are listening to you. Hundreds in our FBW faith family have participated in surveys regarding your comfort levels in returning to our campus. Three questions stood out in the survey:

1. Please describe your current level of comfort in returning to live, in person, church services.

60% of those surveyed indicated they were not comfortable returning.

2. Please describe your level of comfort meeting at outdoor events as an interim step for small groups or worship.

74% of those surveyed indicated they were comfortable returning outdoors.

3. When do you think it will be best to return to live church services?

60% indicated that they would feel more comfortable returning in 4 weeks or more.

Therefore, over the next few weeks, we will build momentum toward the new Church year that begins in August. Our hope would be to resume small groups, regular worship hours and ministries when or around when school starts. It will be gradual ramp up until then. We will not be first to open or the last. We will learn from the best practices and mistakes of others. (See the tentative plan below)

We are commanded in scripture to obey our leaders. We should appreciate our local, state, and national authorities. They have given churches autonomy to make decisions for themselves that other entities in our culture have not been given. At the moment, churches are the only groups allowed to have large public gatherings. However, how and when we gather reflects on the name of Jesus. So, we must open decently and in order. We have been given a great stewardship in these days with people’s lives. While you might be willing to risk your life, you cannot speak for another. Too many churches have rushed into restarting only to backtrack. For example, there are two churches in our area that reopened one week only to close the next week because someone tested positive for Covid-19 and exposed the entire crowd. Those churches had to communicate this information to its members, who in turn have been asked to quarantine for 2 weeks and get tested. As people are getting back to work, setbacks like these do not just hurt the church or the name of Jesus, they hurt families, businesses, and the greater community. Our authorities are working to reopen our country, we must work with them. Each church is different and will use different matrices to return. We are responsible for this body of believers and its ongoing witness for Christ.

We must love our neighbors. Over these weeks of Summer, we will continue to meet the physical needs of those who need food. In these last 3 months, we have served over 40,000 meals. We have been able to do this because you have given and served generously. And we will continue to need you to give and serve as our community efforts will be ongoing. In addition, we will be exploring other creative ways to bless our cities in the weeks to come. For example, un lieu of VBS, camps and mission trips, our neighborhoods will be our primary mission field, as they should be. We also hope to offer some great community-wide events.