Return to church

[mgagnonlv]

@Waterfall,
I'm not sure that services at a drive in would work for our communities! As we are in downtown Montréal, about 2/3 of our members are carless, so that would be a good way to exclude most members.

Our church is starting in-person services this weekend, on top of all the online services. I don't know how many people will show up in person, but I suspect most people will stay online for quite some time. And in the long run, even if we were to be entirely worshipping in person, we need to find a way to serve our new far-away members.

 

[Waterfall]

@Waterfall,
I'm not sure that services at a drive in would work for our communities! As we are in downtown Montréal, about 2/3 of our members are carless, so that would be a good way to exclude most members.

I hear you, it's not for everybody, heck not many towns have drive in's anymore but we just happen to have one that just opened this summer.....this church is probably 90% under 50, maybe even under 45.
They have cars mostly......I'm pretty sure those who don't will be given alternatives or double up with someone who does....they're pretty good that way.

 

[Luce NDs]

We are having an in-person service today .. since the sanctuary holds 150+ and typical attendance is 25-35 ... we should be grossly spaced out ...

 

[BetteTheRed]

We had a lovely service outside this a.m. Lines painted on the grass, and 6' lengths of yarn helped us space our lawn chairs appropriately. Everyone masked unless at the pulpit (the rev and the reader, me), sound system was set up so we could hear well. Wasn't as cold as it has been previous mornings, so some of us were a little overdressed. It was decided that since there'd be no singing once we re-gather in the sanctuary, that we could sing today, masked, softly, and not "moistly", lol. It was really nice to see a bunch of people I have missed a great deal.

 

[Carolla]

@Waterfall,
I'm not sure that services at a drive in would work for our communities! As we are in downtown Montréal, about 2/3 of our members are carless, so that would be a good way to exclude most members.

Our church is starting in-person services this weekend, on top of all the online services. I don't know how many people will show up in person, but I suspect most people will stay online for quite some time. And in the long run, even if we were to be entirely worshipping in person, we need to find a way to serve our new far-away members.

I'm curious to know if your indoor service went ahead or not mgagnonlv in light of the new restrictions on gatherings being down to 25 in Quebec. So worrisome what those COVID numbers are doing.

 

[Luce NDs]

We had a lovely service outside this a.m. Lines painted on the grass, and 6' lengths of yarn helped us space our lawn chairs appropriately. Everyone masked unless at the pulpit (the rev and the reader, me), sound system was set up so we could hear well. Wasn't as cold as it has been previous mornings, so some of us were a little overdressed. It was decided that since there'd be no singing once we re-gather in the sanctuary, that we could sing today, masked, softly, and not "moistly", lol. It was really nice to see a bunch of people I have missed a great deal.

"Moistly" singing is like a dewed redneck! Strange masked man ... who went down for fresh ideas ... thus understanding of the narrative is hypo ... underlion?

 

[revjohn]

We at George Street United in St. John's NL have done our best to touch base with every member and to get their input into the matter. There is no clear direction to re-enter the Church.

We are aware that a significant portion of the congregation longs to be back to what they remember. We are aware of an equally sizeable contingent who so fears contracting Covid-19 that they will not come back until we can guarantee that we will not be the host site of a new cluster.

Of course, we cannot go back to what they remember because public health directives discourage certain of our familiar routines. Likewise, we cannot guarantee that we will not be the sight for a new outbreak we can only commit to doing our best to prevent such from happening and hope that all who choose to participate will be just as diligent.

At any rate, we have our plan in place (plan B as it happens). We will have a soft launch on October 4, 2020 with members of the Modified Mission Team Board and Choir attend to help us find the faults in our plan. Then, on, October 11, 2020 we will open invitations to our first 100 person worship. We will wait until November 8, 2020 for our next 100 Worship. December is going to require a lot more planning.

According to the plan we put into place we felt we would need 3 teams of 4 for our expanded ushering roles (which include disinfecting the sactuary) we had enough volunteers for 1 team (we have a lot of members who are in the most vulnerable demographics in terms of age and health) so we are grateful for these volunteers and do not want to burn them out through extended use. We will assess the team after these three services to see if they feel that they can offer more.

 

[GeoFee]

In some ways institutional boundaries have been diminished in our small corner of the Church. Our conversations have become more personal and less bureaucratic. This following my presentation of Jesus as the revealer of God’s way. Not as doctrine or theology, but as treasure buried in a field. A basic shift from the dominance of fact to the restoration of metaphor, as the key to biblical interpretation. The presentation of the bible as a book of stories rooted in experience, deployed to permit insight opening to the way of life which God intended for our human being.

“Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable.”

 

[mgagnonlv]

I'm curious to know if your indoor service went ahead or not mgagnonlv in light of the new restrictions on gatherings being down to 25 in Quebec. So worrisome what those COVID numbers are doing.

I was not attending our first live in-person service and won't be either for the foreseeable future. It is both a question of personal preference and needs of our community (i.e. they find me "more useful" online). Our first service was limited at 50 persons, which was still the norm until Monday, but there were only 25 persons present, including all leaders. From what I heard, the few who were there really appreciated being in person, as they are people who are not comfortable online. I don't know how many persons will be present this week, but from what I heard, we have less people applying for in-person service this week than we had last week, so the 25-person limit should not be a significant issue. Just to say that I think our Zoom services will remain the norm for most parishioners for quite some time.

All that being said, I agree with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Québec, that it is unreasonable to limit churches to 25 or 50 persons (depending on zones) while theatres and other performance places are limited to 250 persons. In theatres, distance between patrons has even been reduced at 1.5 m (without face coverings) or less (with face coverings)! Bars are even open, and one of their main issues (apart from drunk people losing control) is that they often have too loud noise level and not enough lighting, which means people need to go close to eachother just to understand eachother.

One problem I see with current "church quotas" is that the government applies observations made in megachurches or overcrowded evangelical churches to traditional Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church buildings that are typically undercrowded. I know many Roman Catholic Churches with enough pew seats to sit 1000-2000 people that have less than 50 people in attendance on a pre-COVID Sunday. Some priests would love to have people standing 5 m apart because it would be a dramatic attendance increase!