Dear Members and Friends of IBCZ,
On Wednesday evening, Nov 18, the Elders and Deacons met online to discuss our worship services for December – specifically, whether or not we should open the church for people to attend our worship services. We know that all of us are eager to begin meeting again to worship together, but of course, we do not want to do that if the potential of spreading the Covid virus remains.
After much discussion, we were unanimous in deciding that we should continue to offer live streaming worship only, at least through the month of December. As much as we would love to meet and worship together, especially for the Advent season, we believe this to be the most responsible decision at this time. We will still do what we can to celebrate Advent. For instance, we will have someone light the candles of the Advent Wreath and do the reading each Sunday, beginning with the first Sunday of Advent, which is Nov. 29th.
We also discussed the possibility of opening the church just for our Christmas Eve Service. Certainly, we all would love to join in worshiping for that special service. Since that is still about six weeks away, we decided we would have another meeting in three weeks. If the Covid numbers have dropped significantly and remained low for a period of time, we can consider meeting for that service. If the numbers, and along with that the risk, remains high, we will just live stream our Christmas Eve Service. We will let you know by the middle of December.
Thanks to all of you for your prayers for the church leadership. We really do want to make the right decisions on behalf of the church, and we trust the Lord to guide us in doing so.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Bob