Good Morning Church family,
Let me first say Thank You to all of you for your encouragement. We have been so blessed by the cards, texts, emails and messages we have received. This has been a very challenging time to give leadership, so your kindness has been greatly appreciated. Please, keep praying for our leadership, staff and board members who are dealing with many decisions on a regular basis. Thank you! You should know that we pray for you each week, and if there is anything we can be praying for, please let us know.
This week we started detailed conversations about what it would look like to reopen our facilities at RiverCross Mission and RiverCross Church. As I stated last week, we are not making any plans to return to worship services at this time, but we are starting to look at what it might take to hold small meetings, and small group gatherings in our facilities. We are living with the tension of people needing to be together, and the importance of that happening safely. The government of NB has given clear guidelines about what we must do to ensure a safe space for anyone who enters, so let me give you a sneak peek of some of the conversations we are having:
- What will be our designated entrance and exit?
- When people enter, they should clean their hands? How, and what supplies do we need for this? Should people wear masks? How do we make sure people who are not feeling well do not enter our facilities? What kind of signage do we need?
- How many people can be in the bathroom at once? How often should they be cleaned?
- How do we provide the option for people to gather in person, but also participate online if they are not comfortable going out?
- How many people can now occupy each of our rooms with the requirements of physical distancing? What signage and cleaning are needed?
- What about food, coffee, hand shaking and greeting each other with a ‘holy kiss’ … :)
Our leadership is working on these questions and many others, to make sure that we are able to provide a safe space for our church members, volunteers and staff. We will keep you posted.
Let me share some exciting things that are coming up:
- On Sunday Pastor Matt and Amy will give an update on our kid’s ministry plans for the summer.
- Next Sunday during our Sunday online service, we are going to be highlighting our Community Outreach ministries. This ministry continues in a new way, and you will get to hear from members of this ministry next week.
- Next week we start a new sermon series, Small Things that Make a Big Difference, exploring all the things WE CAN DO, that really make the biggest difference. This Sunday will be our final week in Philippians and we’ll talk about anxiety, contentment and how God meets our needs.
- June 14th we are going to honour our graduates, so if you have a high school or post-secondary grad in your family, please let Marlee know at the church office immediately. We are all feeling an extra burden for our graduates as they are missing out on many of their normal celebrations, so please be praying for our grads.
- Back in December you gave generously so that we could make some necessary improvements to the brickwork of our RiverCross Mission facility on Main Street. That work will begin this spring/summer and we look forward to the improvement it will bring.
Finally, please continue to pray for Alpha! We are offering Alpha in both English and Mandarin, and God is moving in peoples lives. Pray for people who are searching for faith, or who feel like they have lost their faith. This Sunday night, the Alpha talk makes a clear offer for people to make a commitment of faith, so please pray for God to open people’s hearts.
Thanks, and please know we are here if you need anything!
Pastor Rob
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