In March, when COVID-19 struck, the session made two immediate changes to our worship service: we stopped passing offering plates and communion trays, electing instead to place offering plates at the exits and asking you to come forward for communion. Those changes only lasted a week or so before we suspended public worship. When we resumed our worship services in May, we kept those changes in place. This coming Sunday, we are taking steps to return (in large part) to our pre-COVID practices.
First, we will begin passing the offering plates during the service as we did previously.
Second, our communion servers will pass the trays to you as you are seated in the sanctuary. Each tray will continue to have the double-stacked cups of bread and wine (or juice). We will consume both elements together.
For those who wish to have a gluten-free communion wafer, you will take them from the front of the sanctuary during the Passing of the Peace as you did before the pandemic began. Some of you may also wish to take the gluten-free elements if you want to avoid a plate that has passed by others.
Why are we making these changes? Two reasons.
First, since returning to two services, the attendance at our first service has been larger than expected, and we have run out of space to seat people in the sanctuary. By returning to a more normal way of practicing communion, we are able to remove the tables from the front of the sanctuary and add additional seats. Hopefully that will allow people who have been stuck in the narthex to join us in the sanctuary.
Second, one of our trusted medical advisors who has been helping to inform all of the session’s decisions reminded us this week that the scientific world is in agreement that the virus spreads more by airborne transmission (droplets) rather than by contact, so it seems safer to have everyone sitting in place, passing a plate, than to be walking through the same space one after another to take the communion elements from the front of the sanctuary.
As always, I appreciate your continued flexibility as we navigate the many changes made necessary by the pandemic. I am glad that our most recent changes are taking us back to a more normal way of worshipping together.
I look forward to worshipping with all of you on Sunday!
In Christ,
Pastor Eric