Rectors Report Jan. 2021

Rector’s Report

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I think it goes without saying that 2020 will be remembered as a very strange and difficult year. As we met together in person last January for our Annual Meeting, none of us could have predicted that in a few short months we would end up having to abruptly shut down in person worship at the direction of our Bishop and spend the majority of 2020 physically distanced from one another, worshiping and meeting together virtually for the remainder of the year. But here we are.

I will be perfectly honest with all of you that this has been one of the most difficult years that I have experienced in my ten years of ordained ministry. No amount of seminary training could have prepared me for the changes that I have had to face this past year. Not only did I have to learn how to better navigate the technological world – not exactly one of my strong suits! – but I have also had to adapt to trying to continue to provide pastoral care for all of you from a distance. In addition to this, at several turns throughout the year, I have had to make difficult decisions about things like outdoor worship, trying to balance out what would be most spiritually beneficial for everyone with what I should be doing to keep everyone safe in the face of the pandemic. And finally, moreover, as the Dean of the Fredericksburg Region, I have had to be a sounding board and a pastoral support to the clergy of our Region, many of whom are frustrated with where we are and struggling with the same issues that I mentioned above. As I said, it has been a hard year.

That said though, I am very thankful and grateful for two things. One, I am thankful and grateful for God’s continuing fountain of grace, mercy, and love given to me in Jesus Christ. As I read through the Bible two times this past year, I can honestly say that through listening to God in His Word, He sustained me through all the ups and downs that I had to face. His Word has given me hope and filled me with joy no matter what difficulties have come. Without a doubt, Jesus is the Bread of Life who sustains not only me, but all of us through both the good times and the bad times. As is promised to us in the Scriptures, He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, which means that He is sovereign over everything and everyone. Knowing that He is sovereign over all this mess that we find ourselves in gives me great comfort and hope. I hope and pray that it does for you as well.

The second thing that I am thankful and grateful for is all of you. I will be the first one to admit that I have probably failed some of you in some way this past year. If I have, please forgive me. That said, as I have tried to make my way forward through this past year as your pastor and priest, I have been very thankful for your patience with me and all your kind, encouraging, and supportive words along the way. They have meant the world to me, and very often, by God’s grace, they have been the pick-me-up that I needed at the time you said them. As with all of you, I certainly long for the time when we can all be together again in person and when I can get back to visiting with you or having a cup of coffee together. I am hopeful that in 2021 we will begin to make our way back there.

I am going to leave you with some words from St. Paul that I often quote to you in my sermons. They are some of my favorite words in all of Scripture, and, I believe, an appropriate word for the time we are living in. Even though we all wish and hope for 2021 to be better, we do not honestly know what the year is going be like. But no matter whether 2021 is a good year or a bad year, we have this promise to cling to:

“If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are all being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.31b-39 NRSV emphasis added).

Remember that you are justified, forgiven, and loved by God in Jesus Christ, and there is nothing that can separate you from that love. Thanks be to God!

Your servant in Christ, Kyle+

Update on outdoor services 12/9/20

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As much as it breaks my heart to have to say this, during a meeting with the Bishop yesterday, we clergy were told that, because of the rapidly rising number of COVID cases in our state, and the ever-increasing death count, along with the risk that takes place in meeting together, all outdoor services are to be suspended from now on and for the foreseeable future. That means that we will not be able to have our outdoor service this coming Sunday, December 13th, and we will not be able to have any outdoor (or indoor worship) for Christmas Eve. At this time, the only services that we may have are the virtual services that we have been having on Facebook Live.

I know that this news may be very disappointing to many of you, especially the bit about Christmas. Much like you, I look forward to being together on Christmas Eve and having the opportunity to sing Christmas Hymns and receive Holy Communion together. But alas, it won't be for this year.

That said, and please hear me clearly, Christmas is NOT cancelled! Although we may not be able to meet inside or outside for some time, we will continue to meet online, and we will still hear our Lord's Word and we will still rejoice in our Lord's birth at Bethlehem. Jesus is present to us, and with us, whether we are meeting in person or virtually, and the Good News of Christmas is still going to be the Good News of Christmas. The Gospel is not going away! So, our Christmas celebrations will continue, although we will be having Evening Prayer and not Communion this year. I also have some plans on how to get us a little bit of Christmas music as well. Stay tuned for updates on that.

In light of this, then, our service time for this coming Sunday will be at 10am on Facebook Live. Children's Sunday School will be held at 9:15am and Adult Ed will be held at 11am.

Please continue to take care of yourselves and remember to follow the guidelines. Not only are you doing this for yourself, but more importantly, you are doing it for your neighbor. Wearing masks, social distancing, and washing our hands is our act of love for our neighbor.

If you have any question, please don't hesitate to be in touch. I will see you all on online at 10am on Sunday!

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+

Update on future services (11/18/20)

As the old saying goes, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." After sending out my plan for services from now until Christmas Eve yesterday, I attended a meeting with our Bishops yesterday afternoon, at which we clergy were informed that all outdoor services are now limited to no more than 25 people. Indoor services, of course, are still prohibited. On top of this, there are now new restrictions when it comes to how Communion is to be distributed; at the present moment, I'm awaiting a response from the Diocese to clear up what those restrictions are, as I was not fully clear on a couple of things from yesterday's talk.

All of this is to say that I am going to need to amend the schedule of services that I put out yesterday. If we can still celebrate Communion outdoors, our services will be limited to the first 25 people who RSVP, and I may need to ask that if you sign up one week, you allow others to sign up at the next opportunity. Regardless of this, I can confidently tell you that we will continue with streamed Morning Prayer services.

Also, and this is perhaps the bigger issue that I'm concerned about, if we do an outdoor Christmas Eve service, which I teased yesterday, it will now be limited to 25 or fewer people. So, in order for me to allow as many of you as may desire to attend an outdoor Christmas service to attend, I will need to possibly schedule multiple services on Christmas Eve, along with having time to stream one from inside the church.

To that end, I would like to ask for your help. Would you please email me or Madeline in the next week or so and let us know if you would like to attend an outdoor Christmas Eve service if one was made available? I am making no guarantees on it happening right now, but it would be helpful for me to know your interest. Once I have a list of all who would like to attend, I will look to schedule service times and assign 25 or fewer to each service.

I apologize for the up and down of all of this. With so many things changing right now, flexibility is key. I appreciate your understanding and patience.

Stay safe and well.

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+

Update for upcoming worship services

First, let me say thank you to all of you who have come out to our outdoor Communion services the past several weeks. It has been nice to see all of you and to be able to worship together in person. I'm looking forward to doing this some more as COVID numbers and the weather permit.

That said, I want to let you all know w hat my plans are for our worship services going forward. For this coming Sunday, Nov. 22nd, we are going to do virtual worship only. Our service of Morning Prayer, Rite II will be held on Facebook at 10am. After the service, at 11am, we will have our Zoom Adult Ed lesson on Ch. 39 of Genesis.

For each of the four Sundays in Advent, which begins on Nov. 29th and ends on December 20th, I would like to try do as follows. On the First andTthird Sundays in Advent (Nov. 29th and Dec. 13th) we will do both a virtual service and an outdoor Communion service. The virtual service will be held at 9am and the outdoor Communion service at 11am (note the time changes). On the second and Fourth Sundays in Advent (Dec. 6th and Dec. 20th) we will do a virtual service only at 10am.

I know that it will most likely be getting colder as the month goes along; that just means that you'll need to remember to dress warmly if you plan to attend the outdoor services. If it appears that the weather will not be good or if COVID case numbers make it untenable, we will revert back to virtual worship alone, and we'll do that at 10am.

Finally, for Christmas, it is my hope that we will be able to have both a virtual Evening Prayer service and an outdoor Communion service on Christmas Eve. At the present moment, though, it's still too early for me to make any definitive calls on this. Stay tuned as we get into December and I will let you know more about this.

Thank you to all of you for your patience, understanding, and flexibility during these times. We are certainly not in an ideal situation right now, and I'm laboring to do my best to try and find a pattern that is both beneficial and safe for everyone. As you are well aware, the number of COVID cases is rapidly rising, not only in our area but across the country. In the midst of this, I remain committed to doing whatever I can to make sure that we both get to continue to worship together and that everyone remains safe.

As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Stay safe and well. God's peace to all of you!

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+

2021 Pledge Letter and Card

There are 2 attachments to this blog.  The first is a letter written by Fr. Kyle (PDF) addressing this years Pledge information.  Also, you will find a pledge card (PDF) which can be sent to Church of the Messiah in 1 of 3 ways.  
1.  Though the regular mail. 
2.  By email...a designated email is provided in the letter which is confidential and will only be opened by our accounts administrator. 

As always, if you have any questions, please email me or Fr. Kyle directly.   

Communion Service 10/13 at 10am - RSVP REQUIRED

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,   

As of this past Sunday, the Bishop has given permission to churches in our Diocese to begin celebrating Holy Communion under the following guidelines:  

1. Communion can only be celebrated outside the building in the church yard or some other approved place.

2. It can only be administered in one kind -- the Bread.  A small amount of wine is permitted to be placed in the chalice and consumed by the Rector, but no one else is to receive wine from the chalice.

3. Everyone must wear masks throughout the service.  At the time of Communion you may come forward to receive the Host, take your mask off quickly at a designated spot (I'll point that out at the service) and place it in your mouth, and then put your mask back in place.  

4. The Peace will be shared only by word and wave.  There will be no handshaking or hugging as a sign of the Peace.

5. On top of this, as the Celebrant, I have a number of directions about wearing a mask while celebrating at the Table and making sure to sanitize my hands several times prior to the administration of Communion, which I will be following.

Noting these things, I have written to the Bishop to ask for permission to celebrate Communion at our outdoor service on October 4th.  All of the requirements that were laid out for that service are still in place.  You are responsible for bringing your own chairs and Prayer Books or printed booklets.

In an effort to maintain distancing, there will be no Procession or Recession, no acolytes, and no processing of the Offertory or Gospel.  There will also be no Prayer Corner ministry.

The Vestry will be checking your temperatures as you come to church and I have been instructed to keep a list of names of all in attendance.  Should an outbreak occur, I may need to report that for contact tracing.

If you are interested in attending, please let me know.   If you sign up, please note that you are agreeing to abide by all the requirements.  

If this proves doable, we will look to have another Communion service once or twice more in the Fall, perhaps at a different time to make it accessible for more of you who wish to attend.

Let me know if you have any questions and don't forget to RSVP.  Thanks!

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+

Outdoor Worship Service (9/2/20)

This past week, at our August Vestry meeting, the Vestry and I discussed the possibility of holding at least one outdoor service during the Fall when the weather starts to become more amenable, most likely on the first Sunday in October.  As we prepare for that possibility, we need some input from all of you.  Following the guidelines that are mentioned below, I would like to ask each of you to please email me (frkyletomlin@comcast.net) at your earliest possible convenience and let me know if you would like to attend an outdoor worship service.  If you don't want to, there is no need to respond.  I'm only looking for the "yeses." This will help us to figure out some logistics about where we should meet on the property and whether or not we need to be concerned about having microphones and speakers.

Here are the guidelines that everyone must follow if you are to attend:

1. Everyone must wear a mask for the duration of the service.  You cannot attend the service if you don't have a mask. This is for the safety of everyone, especially since you might be an asymptomatic carrier of the virus and not know it.

2. You must bring your own chair to sit on during the service and seat yourself, or your immediate family, 6ft away from other individuals.  This includes 6ft front-to-back and 6ft side-to-side. 

3. You must bring your own Book of Common Prayer 1979 or print out the service booklet at home.  There will be no handouts issued at the service. You must likewise bring all these things home with you.  We will not have a disposal vessel for the booklets; you need to take them home and dispose of them yourselves.

4. As our buildings are to remain closed following the direction of the Diocese, there will be no bathrooms available and no one may go into the church without permission from the Rector.  A strong suggestion: Don't drink 5 cups of coffee that morning!  Save it for after church. :)

5. The service will be Morning Prayer, Rite II and will be kept to around 30 minutes in length.  Communion is still not an option for us, although the Diocese is soon to issue guidelines for how Communion might be safely handled, which could eventually lead us to getting back to Communion.

6. There will be no congregational singing.  Rochelle may sing a solo or two, but only she is to sing, and at some distance from the congregation.  We would only have an opening hymn and a closing hymn that day.

7. The Diocese and Commonwealth are asking that we keep the congregation size under 50 people, so it will be first come, first served, and that will be based on your email RSVP to me, which I asked for above.

8. There is to be no handshaking or hugging, and everyone will be asked to maintain social distancing while talking with one another.

9. There will be no Coffee Hour or refreshments available after the service.  You may converse in the parking lot afterwards though, following guidelines, of course.

10. The service would begin at 8am, so as to capture a cool temperature and to fit the service into our already existing schedule of Children's Sunday School on Zoom at 9:15am, the streamed service on Facebook at 10am, and Adult Ed on Zoom at 11am.

11. The service will continue to be streamed at 10am on Facebook.  That is not going away.  And there is NO pressure on anyone to attend this outdoor service.  If you are not comfortable being out right now, I completely understand; please do not feel the need to attend.

12. Lastly, and most importantly, if you are running a fever or not feeling well that day, PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND.  If you are even feeling slightly off, it is probably better not to risk it and put anyone in jeopardy.

Please note that, like so many of you, I really do miss in-person worship.  I'm looking forward to the day when we can get back to "normal."  But, as I've said before, these things are not in my hands or the Vestry's hands.  They are in our Diocese's hands.  At the present time the best we can do is outdoor worship.  So let me know as soon as you can if you would like to do this, and the Vestry and I will work on putting it all together.  Thanks!

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+

Update from 7/30/20

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

First of all, I want to say that it's good to be back with all of you.  Holly, Eva, and I had a refreshing and relaxing vacation spending time with family in NJ.  It was good to get away for a little while and get recharged for the Fall.

Secondly, on behalf of the Vestry and myself, let me say thank you to all of you who participated in the Parish Survey that was recently sent out via the Survey Monkey link.  It is very helpful to have your feedback as we make plans for our parish for the Fall.  With that said, I'd like to share the results of that survey with you and add some concluding comments. 

Overall, we received 67 surveys in electronic and paper form. Here are the results:

1. How many of you would be interested in outdoor services in the Fall, knowing that you would be required to wear masks, sit socially distanced, that there would be no singing and no Communion, along with no handshaking or hugging?

46% said yes; 54% said no

2. How many of you would be interested in indoor services once they become an option following all of the above directives?

35% said yes; 65% said no

3. How many of you would prefer to continue streaming services until it is safe to return?

55% said yes; 45% said no

4. How many of you have health issues that make you particularly susceptible to COVID-19?

55% said yes; 45% said no

5. Age ranges of those who answered.

62% were 65 years old or older; 38% were between 26 and 64 years old

6. How many of you have been watching the online services?

81% said yes; 19% said no

7. How many of you have computer access?

97% said yes; 3% said no

8. How many of you would like to call in to hear the service over the telephone?

7% said yes; 93% said no

As you can see from the results, the bulk of the respondents were over age 65; susceptibility was pretty evenly split but leaning toward more folks having health conditions that put them at risk; interest in outdoor worship was pretty evenly split, but leaning more toward interest; indoor worship was largely no; and most people are watching our services regularly online. 

One thing I was able to identify is that 4 people would like to participate in worship via the telephone; currently, we have one person doing this.  To that end, if you are interested in listening to the service via telephone, please contact me and I will get you connected with the conference call number for this coming Sunday.

Where do we go from here?  The Vestry will take these results and discuss them at our August meeting, and use them to help us make decisions regarding our plans for the Fall.  For now, we will continue streaming our services during the month of August and the beginning of September.  As before, please note that our offices remain closed, and the staff and I are all working from home.

For clarification's sake, please note that we are still in Phase I of the Diocesan Phased Regathering plan.  That means that we have not yet arrived at a 14-day rolling average of decrease in both new cases and deaths according the data from the Virginia Department of Health tracker, which is what we are following, so we are not in a position to have any plans approved by the Diocese for us to start meeting together for indoor worship.  As of Monday, our 7-day average of new cases for our health district (Rappahannock) was 31.4 and our 7-day average of new deaths was 0.4, both of which were up from one week ago (25.4 new cases and 0.1 new deaths). 

I hope that all of this is informative to all of you.  As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to be in touch with me.  I'm always happy to try to clarify things for you.

Please continue to hang in there and stay safe.  Also, please continue to pray for an end to this pandemic and to pray that a vaccine comes along soon.  By God's grace, we will make it through this.  You can trust Him.

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+

Phased Regathering Update from Fr. Kyle

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  I hope and pray that all of you are safe, healthy, and doing well, and that you've been finding some opportunities to enjoy the nice (if not hot) weather we've been having recently. 

First, let me offer an explanation for why I have not sent out weekly updates the past few weeks.  The reason is that there hasn't been much for me to update you on. Over the last few weeks, we have been in a holding pattern, awaiting the guidelines for Phased Regathering to be published by the Diocese. I'm glad to say that they have now been published, along with guidelines for outdoor worship.  You can read them here:

http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/www/CMS/files/Covid_resources/COVID_19_Guidelines_English.pdf  

http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/www/CMS/files/Regathering_for_Worship_Outdoors_3.pdf

The Vestry and I met yesterday via Zoom to discuss these guidelines.  What follows are the decisions that the Vestry and I made for the near future.

1.  What phase are we in?

It was brought to my attention yesterday by one of our Vestry members that there is some potential confusion about what phase of regathering we are actually in.  According to the Commonwealth of VA, we are in Phase II of our return to business with Phase III set to occur in July (July 12th).  That means that many of the nearby churches are starting to gather again for some form of limited worship, as many of you probably well know. 

But here's where things get confusing.  We, Church of the Messiah, are not following the guidelines of the Commonwealth, but we are following the guidelines of the Episcopal Diocese of VA, since we are a part of the Episcopal Church.  The Diocese has a different set of guidelines for phased regathering, and is approaching this much more conservatively than the Commonwealth.  According to Diocesan guidelines, we are still in Phase I, which is me, the Priest, returning to recording/streaming services from the church with few-to-no-other persons present.  Furthermore, during Phase I, the office staff and I are still required to work from home. That's why you see me continuing to work from home and stream our services alone from the church on Sunday mornings.

Phase II, according to Diocesan guidelines, may not be started until we have had a 14-day rolling average of decline in the number of new cases in our geographical area according to the Health Dept.  We have not yet reached that place. This means that we are not able to begin Phase II at the present time, even if we wanted to.  When we are able to begin Phase II, which will allow limited attendance, mandatory masks for every parishioner, 6ft social distancing at all times (that means no hugs or handshakes, by the way), no singing, and still no Communion, among other things, we need to present to the Diocese a plan for how we will safely go about handling the service(s).  And then, of course, following approval, we need to be able to actually execute that plan. 

Phase III, which is a full return to worship with singing and Communion, will only occur once the virus is eradicated or there is a vaccine available to ensure everyone's safety.  That may not occur for quite some time, certainly not with the increase in cases that we now see happening in a number of States.  And again, this is not necessarily going to be in line with what the Commonwealth of VA is doing.

2. So where do we stand?

After a lengthy discussion with the Vestry yesterday, we unanimously agreed that for the remainder of the summer at least, we are going to continue to remain in Phase I and have me stream our services from the church on Sunday morning.  The reason behind the decision is several fold.  First, the guidelines for Phase II ask me, the Priest, to ask all of you who are in the "at risk" category (65+ and/or with health issues) to remain at home even if we do reopen.  That means that for a significant portion of you I would need to ask you to remain home.  Second, there is a matter of manpower that would be needed to ensure that the guidelines are enforced.  The level of cleaning necessary after each service alone was of some concern to the Vestry and I.  We're not sure that we have the manpower to do this well right now given the overall age of our congregation.  Third, several Vestry members have noted that there is some reluctance among a number of you to returning at this time.  For all of these reasons, we are going to hold off entering Phase II for now, even when it becomes available for us to do so after the 14-day decline.

3. What about outdoor worship?

Just last week, the Bishop did give us permission to have outdoor services with a limited number of participants and the following guidelines:  No Communion.  Everyone MUST wear a mask for the whole service.  And everyone would need to social distance at all times.  At the same time, it is expected that I would continue to stream the services for those who could not or would not attend.  This would mean that I would either need to get a PA system in place or do two services (one indoors and the other outside), because my iPad will not pick up the sound well outside.

After some discussion, the Vestry and I felt it was best not to do an outdoor service for the remainder of June, July, and August for the following reasons.  First, the heat.  Unfortunately, VA in the summertime is not known for its cool weather.  With the strong possibility of high temperatures, combined with people needing to wear masks during the whole service, we felt that it might be difficult for some people to breathe or cause some to feel like they might pass out.  We don't want to put anyone in that position.  Second, much as with the Phase II indoor service, the set up requires quite a bit of manpower from the under 65 year old group and that might not be manpower we have at present, especially with people going away or having summer plans.  The last thing we want to do is promise an outdoor service and then have no one to carry out all the set up and clean up.  Third, to be perfectly forthright with you, we are still seeing increases in the cases of COVID-19 in our area and, for a number of us, that gives us a good deal of cause for concern.

What we did all agree upon is the idea that we would look at possibly doing an outdoor service sometime in September -- perhaps only as a one-off, mind you -- as long as conditions permit us to do so.  We will be exploring that idea more at our August Vestry meeting.  So please stay tuned for more on that.

Now, I know that there may be some of you who are not pleased by these decisions that we've made.  Please understand that these decisions were not made lightly or easily.  I fully understand how eager some of you are in desiring to get back to church and to have life go back to normal.  I get that.  Quarantine fatigue is a real thing.  But please try to understand that the Vestry and I are most concerned with the safety of everyone in our congregation and, therefore, are wanting to handle everything very conservatively.  Even if we do enter Phase II sometime in the near future, please understand that church will not be "normal."  Masks, social distancing, no singing, and no Communion are going to be the way forward for quite some time.  That will make church anything but normal.  While I certainly miss seeing all of you on a regular basis -- and I know the Vestry members do as well -- I don't want to do anything that might put one of you at risk.  That would not be acting in love, and we are called to acting lovingly toward one another.

That said, we will weather this time.  Things will NOT always be like this.  By God's grace a vaccine will be developed or medication will become available that will allow us to go back to our usual ways.  In the meantime, we can pray and trust God to bring us through this situation.  He will do it.  He is faithful and He has this whole situation in His control.  Even if we don't see it, it is true, because that's what He promises us in His Word.  

Before I sign off, just a few last pieces of business.  I know that some of you may still have questions.  I want to be able to try to answer those questions as best I can.  To that end, in the next week or so, I'll be setting up a Zoom "town hall" meeting for our church so that you can sign on and ask any questions of me that you'd like.  Stay tuned for an email with a link to that meeting.  Second, in order to get a better sense of where you all are regarding your comfort level with returning to church, I'll be sending out an online survey with a few short "yes or no" type questions.  Be on the lookout for an email with that as well.

Please stay safe and well.  As always, if you need to reach me, you may do so on my cell or via text or email.  God's peace to all of you.  You are in my daily prayers.

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+ 

Weekly update 5/29/20

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace and peace to you!  I hope that you are all safe and doing well, and staying (relatively) sane during this time.  I certainly miss seeing all of you on a regular basis, but I hope and trust that a day is coming soon when we can all be together again.

I wanted to take a few minutes to address two things with you.  First, I wanted to let you all know that despite the reopening of a number of churches in our area this past weekend, we are still not ready to take that step just yet.  The Diocese is currently working hard to develop guidelines for a plan that would allow us to return safely in a limited capacity and not place anyone at risk.  After that, it will the responsibility of myself and Vestry to develop a parish plan that will then need approval from the Diocese before we can take any action on it.  This is not an easy task.  I know from doing some of this work that the more you look at distancing guidelines and other restrictions, the more you realize how many things will be affected and how tricky it is to get anything moving forward in a safe way.  So, I would ask all of you to please be patient with this process.  Once the guidelines are available and our parish plan gets worked up and approved, then we will be able to start returning in a limited way, but all this might not be for quite some time still. So hang in there.

Second, I want to say thank you to all of you who have been keeping up with your pledges and giving so faithfully! Overall, given our circumstances, we are sticking pretty close to our budget in terms of income and our expenses are quite low right now.  That said, in order that things stay this way, I want to encourage you all to remember to keep up your giving during this time.  If you haven't been contributing and would like to, the best way for you to do so is to write out a check and mail it to the church office.  The mail is still getting checked regularly, so your check will be received.  Another good option is to talk with your bank about setting up automatic withdrawal.  The bank will cut a check and send it to the church on your behalf, in which case you don't need to remember to do so.

Well, that's all from me for right now.  Please remember to keep praying for those who are sick and for the medical professionals who are caring for them.  Pray for the speedy development of a vaccine and medication, and also for an end to the pandemic.  Remember that God has this whole situation in His control and He will see us through.  We have nothing to ultimately fear.  Stay safe and well.  God's peace to you all!

Yours in Christ,

Kyle+