Worship during COVID-19
Most Sundays we celebrate Holy Eucharist, our great feast of Thanksgiving. Some Sundays we celebrate Morning Prayer, an ancient Christian prayer form that connects us to Christians across time and space to ensure that we, the Church, pray always. Our liturgy comes from the Book of Common Prayer with occasional prayers from Enriching our Worship and the New Zealand Prayer Book.
Starting May 16, we will be worshiping both inside our church buildings and online. You will be able to choose the path of worship that best fulfills your spiritual needs and matches your comfort level for personal covid risks. From the start of this viral pandemic, we have acted with love of neighbor guided by science. We know that we are not all vaccinated and therefore continue to act with concern for those who need the most protection. We will follow diocesan, state and CDC guidelines for Houses of Worship. Our safety procedures will continue to develop.
Returning to the building will not be a return to the way things were before Covid. We know we are all changed by the struggles of 2020 and 2021, and we will see that when we return to the building. While some of these changes my feel like losses, yet we gather together in full hope that our joys in gathering will outweigh the losses.
Changes due to Covid 19:
- There is no congregational singing. Those online can sing with all their might, those in person may sing with their heart and soul ONLY.
- We will wear masks over the mouth and nose, only removing to receive communion
- There is no coffee hour: we won’t serve beverages or food, we also won’t have time to gather and chat together after worship
- Households need to be seated 6 feet apart. This means some households will be in the Nave (the main sanctuary of our church) and some will be in the parish hall. Everyone who is in person will be able to physically receive Communion.
- Those who physically receive Communion will receive in one kind only. We believe that when we receive Jesus in one kind, we receive the entirety of Jesus’ Body and Blood (we call this Concomitance).
- We will not be sharing Books of Common Prayer.
The Joys we encounter:
- We will be physically together
- In our building, the connections we have with one another and with all those who have worshiped in Christ Church feel stronger
- We will enjoy the beauty of this worship space
- We still will have flexibility in the way we worship: those who are safer at home, may continue to worship online.
Covid-19 Protocols:
Just as we are excited to “return to normal” we recognize that we are not returning to the way things were before Covid-19. Instead, we are learning
how to live with this virus in a new way.
From the start of the pandemic, we at Christ Church have always been guided by love of neighbor. We continue to be so guided as we move into this new phase. We know that not everyone has been vaccinated. To maintain the health and safety of all, it is still important for those who have been vaccinated to wear masks, wash their hands, and maintain physical distance when in large gatherings. When we gWorship always available online ather in our church buildings, this is how we will do it.
It will look a little different than how we used to gather.
Worship always available online
Throughout the Coronavirus pandemic we have learned how to be one community gathered in many physical locations. Each Sunday at 9 am we gather together on Zoom and livestream our worship via YouTube and Facebook (or post recordings later). If you would like to join our Zoom gatherings, please fill out the Contact Us form explaining that you would like to be included in our email list.
Worshiping In-Church during Covidtide is sure to be different from the ways we have done it before. In many ways we will all be newcomers to the church. My family, the vestry and I have been working on videos to prepare us all for some of the changes we can expect.
Please enjoy this video to help familiarize yourself with the ways worship will be the same and the ways it may be just a little different.
Previous worship services can be found on our YouTube channel:
