COVID-19 Update from the Pastor

Council has met to discuss our ongoing response to the covid-19 pandemic. The council has begun developing a plan for reopening that will reflect the scientific data from the El Paso County health dashboard. The council has determined that the sanctuary will remain closed to worship through Easter. We are hopeful, however, that soon after Easter, we will be able to return to indoor worship in some capacity if the trend downward continues.

We are in a very interesting time where many people have received vaccines and feel personally safe to return to more crowded venues. However, faith leaders, including myself, are not eligible for a vaccine until March 5. As our pastors and worship leaders get vaccinated and more and more of the congregation receives vaccines and the trend lines of the pandemic push downward I am confident that we will return to indoor worship this spring. We do need to keep an eye out for the variants of the virus and the possibility of another surge which would necessitate delaying a little longer. But, all in all, the end is in sight.

It’s helpful to me, when I get impatient, to look at the numbers. In February we had an incident rate of 125.5 and a positivity rate of 5.97%. Last August we were lower than that with an incident rate of 34.6 and a positivity rate of 4.53. Now that was before we had vaccines, but it does remind me that while we are lower relative to the peak in December, we are still higher than many other points during the pandemic. But we’re going the right direction.

Given the decline and turn to Yellow on the dial, we have decided to return to outdoor in-person worship on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and Wednesdays at 12 p.m. and 7 p.m weather permitting. We will still provide online worship and are committed to that being a permanent feature of our ministry. The outdoor Sunday worship will be live and not a watch party like we did last year. In addition, we are allowing small groups to return to meeting in person as long as they wear masks and their numbers do not exceed 50% of the room capacity in which they meet. I pray these small measures will give us some comfort as we endure the waiting till we can resume worship in the sanctuary.

Thank you for understanding and hanging with your congregation during these trying times.

-Pastor Travis