Fellowship Pandemic Plan
(as of 4/22/21)
Since the earliest days of the lockdown, our pledge has been to listen to the medical experts and to follow the guidelines of the CDC and, locally, the Tulsa Health Department. We have, therefore, not been making our decisions based on the city policies, nor the suggestions of political leaders.
As you know, the mask mandate is set to expire in Tulsa at the end of April. That does not impact our decision as a church for what we will continue to do, nor does the availability of a vaccine. Anecdotally it would seem like we have a high percentage of church participants through at least one dose of their vaccine, if not fully vaccinated. We have not, nor will we ever, make vaccination a condition of participation, and we continue to operate from the newest information available in regards to our opening safely.
As for now, our precautions still preclude us meeting together indoors in the manner that we have in the past. But we’re reaching for new things! We held our first “parking lot” gathering last Sunday, the 18th, and will meet again this Sunday, the 25th in the parking lot, weather allowing. Here’s the schedule for the next month’s worship:
May 2nd – Live Zoom (link sent out the week before)
May 9th – Parking Lot
May 16th – Live Zoom
May 23rd – Parking Lot for Pentecost
May 30th – Live Zoom (Memorial Day weekend)
This will let us have some “baby steps” as we work towards indoor worship, likely in June, likely in the fellowship hall due to construction in the sanctuary. There’ll be more on that later.
We also have some small groups meeting – some on zoom and some in-person. If you’re interested in joining one of those, please contact the church office. We are currently holding an “Art and Spirituality” group on Thursday evenings (Zoom) and several small study groups on racial justice that meet a variety of ways – mostly on Monday evenings.
As we gather in-person and outdoors, we will still ask that you remain masked and distanced, and you’ll have the opportunity to wear a color-coded sticker to indicate your level of comfort with engaging with others:
Remember that we’re all in different places getting back in large groups, likely for a variety of reasons. So, please honor these boundaries as we all adapt to this new way of doing old things, and none of us has ever done this before!
We’re all so grateful for the gifts of medicine, the skill of researchers and the efforts to stay healthy, even though we know that our physical health has come at the cost of some mental/spiritual health. So, let’s hang in there a little longer and, in the meantime, do some “in betweens” to get us to that wonderful day when we can worship in our (new) sanctuary together!
Peace,
Chris