From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

We are now planning for a return to in-person worship. I have wanted to write those words for a year now and I am delighted that we are moving toward being together again, in some modified ways, very soon!

The first weekend of in-person services will be Easter weekend. The Easter Vigil will be our first in person service with a small number of families who will be able to worship in-person.

On Easter Sunday we will have six in-person services. Two at 6:30am, two at 8:00am, and two at 10:00am. All of these services will be outdoors.

The attendance will be capped for each service and we will have a registration section on our website to reserve spots at these services.

For Easter Sunday, we are compiling a list of parishioners, especially those over 80, for whom we may not have electronic contact information.  We will contact them and issue invitations by phone and help them register should they desire to attend. Then we will open the general registration page for folks to self-register.

All clergy who will celebrate Communion at these services will have received both doses of the vaccine by then.

There will be a lot more information to come in the next week or two about how to register, safety protocols, and more.

Holy Week services (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil) will be live-streamed not pre-recorded — those services will be available to attend online directly on the website or on our YouTube and Facebook live feed. More information about those will come as well!

Staff, Vestry, our Health Cabinet, and more are working on the specific details around how we will gather. Those who attend will be required to wear a mask and social distance will be maintained. The Easter Day services will all be Communion services though, of course, anyone who does not wish to receive can make that choice. Communion will be administered with pincers (think of sugar tongs) not directly from hand to hand.

There will also be a pre-recorded Easter Day service that people will also be able to take part in — that service will have much more robust music than we can do in-person at this time.

We are still looking at our options for the Sundays after Easter. Our hope is to return to in-person services on a regular basis soon after we take any lessons we learn from Easter Day and adapt going forward. 

We expect that, beginning the week of Easter, we will begin to invite people to register for a small number of slots to attend daily masses during the week as well.

Details about the schedule after Easter will also come soon.

There will be many more details to come, and more to be worked out, but I cannot think of a better day or time to begin gathering together than Easter.

Our approach to the pandemic has been to be guided by the advice of health professionals, the science, and the data. Given the high degree of protection that masks and distancing provide, combined with the vaccine rollout, and observing the safe ways churches have navigated this as they’ve tested re-gathering in other places, we are ready to move forward with this next step.

Easter Day will look different — there will still be caution mixed with hope, relief, and joy. In other words, it will be much like the first Easter. We, as Christians have done from century to century, will gather to hear the news of the Risen Lord and we will celebrate the abundant life he brings. It will be a different celebration, not quite back to normal, but we will mark the same hope that has caused Alleluias and Hosannas to be sung from age to age.

More details are to come — but I hope that you will offer a prayer of thanks today as we take this next step in faith, hope, and love.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert