Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Throughout this ongoing global crisis our lives, our communities, and our world has been completely changed. We have been unable to gather together for worship and fellowship. We have been longing for a return to normalcy and some good news. Well, we finally have some good news to share!
Our Reopen Safely Team has completed its guidelines and procedures for Outdoor Gatherings at St. Peter’s and these guidelines and procedures have been approved by Council. We will hold our first outdoor activity on Saturday, August 15 with our “Socially Distanced Scavenger Hunt” and we will hold our first Drive-in Worship Service in the church parking lot on Saturday, August 29 at 5pm! We will also begin hosting outdoor movie nights and are exploring additional opportunities for our church community to safely gather together outdoors.
In addition to this wonderful news, the Weekday Nursery School has presented a plan for safely re-opening the school in September at limited capacity, significantly increased cleaning and disinfecting, mask requirements, and other procedures to ensure safety. The Weekday Nursery School will be providing a weekly report to the Church Council and the situation will be constantly monitored in case the situation changes.
The news is not all good, we are still not ready to return to in person worship in the church sanctuary at this time for a wide number of reasons, but we continue to follow the guidance of local and state health officials along with the guidance of the ELCA and Southeastern Pennsylvania to determine when it will be safe and practical, for us to return to worship in the church sanctuary. In the meantime, we will continue our online worship services every Sunday morning and we will be starting our outdoor worship services on Saturday evenings on August 29th.
As we all know, this is going to continue to be a long journey but we are very excited to take these next steps towards bringing our community back together safely. We thank you all for continuing to be the people of God at St. Peter’s and for sharing the life, love, and joy of Jesus Christ with all in new and exciting ways. While the building may be closed, the church has never closed! Thank you all for your support, care, faith, and enthusiasm as we continue forward together safely.
Your fellow servant in Christ,
Pastor Suloff
