Dear Church Family,
God in his wisdom and goodness has brought us to this place in which we have to make some changes to our church life in order to do our part in curbing the spread of the coronavirus while at the same time remaining faithful to the Lord's command not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25). Thurston County has imposed a set of rules for gatherings smaller than 250 people. In order for us to comply with these rules, we will be making the following changes to our weekly gatherings. Hopefully, these will be temporary changes, and we will be able to go back the way things were in the near future.
- All Wednesday evening activities at church are suspended (Kids Klub, Youth Group, adult prayer meeting and Bible study).
- All other non-worship functions are suspended (Youth Group function, Bunco Night, etc) EXCEPT for book study groups.
- Sunday afternoon service is suspended.
- Sunday luncheon is suspended.
- We will not observe the Lord's Supper till such a time we are able to establish a way to observe it that is consistent with preventing the spread of the virus while at the same time being theologically faithful.
There may be one or two other changes in our order of worship, but these are the main ones for right now. We also ask you to sit as spread out in our little sanctuary as you can. We know that this is a difficult task, so just do your best. Our janitors have already been paying more attention to wiping down all hard surface and we will continue emphasizing that.
The CDC advises that anyone who is in the "high risk" group for serious illness to refrain from any public gatherings. You can read CDC's definition here. If you are in this group we encourage you to stay home. We are working on developing the capability to live stream our service. Meanwhile, you can at the very least listen to the sermon at olympiabp.net.
In addition to the restrictions above, our janitors have been and will continue to wipe every hard surface between services. We have also removed the toys from both nurseries. Hand sanitizer is available on the bulletin table. If you have an extra bottle of hand sanitizer that you can donate to the church, we would appreciate it very much.
Our Lord has preserved his Church through the centuries. He will continue to do so now. And he will do so long after we are gone from this earth. We can be confident that he will work what is good through this difficult time (Rom. 8:28).
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-and-our-church-life.html
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