Christmas Eve Worship Notes and COVID-19 Safety

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Dear Members and Friends of Holy Trinity,

 

With the Christmas Eve worship services fast approaching, I thought I would give you an update on several related items to those services.  First of all, thank you for your input with the Church Council in recent phone calls.  After tallying all the projected attendance numbers, here are the results of those who have indicated they are planning to attend our Christmas Eve services:

 

11:00 a.m.  “The ABC’s of Christmas” Service – Expected attendance is 28

3:00 p.m.  “The ABC’s of Christmas” Service – Expected attendance is 26

8:00 p.m.  The Liturgical Christmas Service – Expected attendance is 43

11:00 p.m. The Liturgical Christmas Service – Expected attendance is 44

 

I thought I needed to share how this will work.  Even though you have given us your projected worship attendance, we will not be monitoring the front door with a clip board to see who is and who is not on the list.  We will be using the Honor Policy and leaving that up to folks to abide by their preferences. In case you are wondering, our last two worship services are right at our maximum capacity which we have determined to be around 42-45 (depending on the size of each family).  This is based on using every other pew and sitting at the ends of each pew.  If you are uncomfortable with that many being in worship, I suggest you either switch over to one of the first two worship services (if you would like to do that, please let me know) or stay home.  The 11:00 a.m. and the 8:00 p.m. worship services will be recorded and placed on the church website soon after they are completed. 

 

We are doing everything we can to help ensure that each worship service will be a safe place to worship, even in this time of COVID-19, including the following:

 

 

  • Offering plates will not be passed during the worship service but instead, be placed at the entrances.
  • To help facilitate social distancing, we will be using every other pew in worship, and using the ends of each pew.  Each seat will be marked with a bulletin.
  • The Sanctuary will be fogged after each service.
  • To minimize possible exposure to the virus, worship services will be shorter than what we are accustomed to.
  • All hymnals have been removed from the pew.  We will continue to use a bulletin containing the worship service. 
  • Several recent studies have found that forceful, sustained breathing, such as during singing, appears to pose a greater danger of spreading the coronavirus.  To minimize these dangers, the singing of hymns, the Kyrie, and the Psalms, will be omitted.  We will be using a soloist and the remaining parts of the liturgy will be spoken.  
  • The Sharing of the Peace has been omitted.
  • We will be refraining from handshaking and hugging.
  • No nursery will be offered at this time.
  • The distribution of Holy Communion will be modified to minimize touch.
  • We will be using wafers instead of bread at this time.
  • Cups of wine and grape juice will be pre-filled, and cups will be spaced out on the serving tray to eliminate accidental touching of nearby cups.
  • For the protection of others, the wearing of masks is strongly encouraged during worship.  You are encouraged to bring your own mask, however, masks will also be available at the door.

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

We are living in strange times indeed because of the coronavirus, but we can endure these modifications to worship knowing that these changes are not permanent.  God will help us through.

 

In Christ,

Pastor Fischer