Worship Online for the Next 2 Weeks

Dear People of Faith, Given the rapid spread of Covid in our community, the council has decided that for the next two weeks worship will be online only. At that point, we will assess both the state of Covid in Butte County and the air quality to determine if it is feasible to also do in-door or outdoor worship in-person.

The entire staff have now received their test results back. Only Luke, our Director of Worship and Music, is positive for Covid. The rest of the staff are back in the office, but wearing masks and maintaining social distance. Luke is fully vaccinated; his symptoms are mild, those of a severe head cold. Though doing fine physically, Luke is dismayed in feeling that may have put members of our community at risk and disrupted worship. I share with you what I shared with Luke: I believe the Holy Spirit was at work in moving Luke to test himself not only on Monday, but also on Thursday last week. So far no one appears to have contracted Covid from Luke, and his infection forced us to realize that due to the Delta Variant we are in a new stage of this pandemic, one in which we need  to recognize that even vaccinated people can contract and spread Covid, albeit with much less risk to their personal health. By pushing us to pause indoor in-person worship when we did, Luke may well have spared our community a great deal of suffering, and even saved lives.

Even with Covid, Luke is working from isolation at home to prepare meaningful and beautiful worship for our community. Luke asks for your prayers. Please pray for his health and for his spirits as he goes through at least 2 weeks of isolation.

God bless you all, and thank you for being the Body of Christ, Pastor Ben