Grace and peace to you, University Christian Church! I’m so happy to share the news that we will return to in-person worship on Sunday, June 20. It’s been a profoundly difficult year. Last March, our congregation moved to online ministry so that we could love our neighbors and ourselves well during a global pandemic that soon raged out of control. We didn’t think we would be physically separated for so long. We stayed at home, socially distanced, and lived with a huge amount of uncertainty. We grieve the nearly 3.5 million people worldwide who have died from COVID, as well as all of the other losses that we have experienced over these past fourteen months.
At the same time, we celebrate the many ways we were able to stay connected as a congregation, to keep serving God’s people, and to continue to grow in love even through this challenging time. We give thanks that we are now at the point where we can return to worshipping together, face-to-face, as more and more people are vaccinated and the world becomes ever-safer. We give thanks for the scientists, public health experts, healthcare providers, and essential workers who have made it possible for us to get to this point. Let us also give thanks to UCC’s COVID Task Group for their diligent work in discerning and preparing for our return to in-person ministry: Craig Bell, Dr. Bill Howland, Zach Kilborn, Ron Martin, Rev. Chelsea McCutchin, and Suzanne Quenette.
The pandemic isn’t over yet. To help protect the most vulnerable in our communities, we still need to be careful and take precautions, get vaccinated, and encourage the people around us to get vaccinated. However, we can more safely worship together in person, and so we will do that beginning on June 20. Thanks be to God!
There are some aspects of our return to the sanctuary we would like to make you aware of:
When you arrive, please come to the breezeway to check in and to pick up your bulletin and prepackaged communion.
We ask that everyone continue to mask, even if you’re vaccinated, so that we can be as welcoming and inclusive as possible to those who aren’t yet able to be vaccinated. Masks will be available for you if you forget yours at home.
An usher will guide you to an open pew, as we will keep some pews closed for social distancing.
Worship will look a little different. For now, one singer will sing the hymns, and the congregation will be invited to prayerfully listen.
After the service, you’re invited to go to the courtyard to visit with each other outside. Ushers will dismiss the congregation by rows, so we will avoid bottlenecks.
If you feel sick, have any COVID symptoms, or have been recently exposed to COVID, please worship from home.
There will be some other slight adjustments that you notice once you’re at UCC. If you’d like to help volunteer on Sunday mornings at the check-in table or as an usher, please let us know.
If you aren’t quite ready to return to in-person worship, that is okay! Please be gentle with yourselves as we take steps back into physical spaces together, remembering that not everyone is at the same comfort level of being in-person or with physical touch. We will continue to live stream worship services and are setting up Sunday School classes to have the technology to include Zoom participants. We know more than ever after this year that online participation is real and meaningful, so we will keep facilitating that way of being church together, too.
Church, what a year it has been. Through it all, God has been with us, and UCC has kept on actively living out the love of Jesus Christ through thoughtful worship, compassionate service, and spiritual growth. I can’t wait to be able to do that with you together in person, by the grace of God. We’ll see you soon, and until then, remember that you are being prayed for and that you are loved immeasurably by the One who indeed creates, redeems, and sustains.
In peace,
Rev. Megan Peglar