Dear Pullen Family,
I am writing with an important announcement about our church in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are in the season of Lent, a season that daily reminds us that our belonging in the kin-dom defies isolation. The purpose of this letter is to help us continue to be community to one another as we deal responsibly and courageously with the realities of this moment.
Thursday morning I convened a “Response Team” of lay leaders and staff to help guide our congregation through these days as we face the growing public health crisis of the COVID-19 virus outbreak in our community, state, nation and world. The team met Thursday evening to make decisions for our church. The group consisted of four Deacons: Rob Schofield, Mark Nance, Shannon Neiley (a pharmacist) and Shane Barham (a public school principal); Chair of Coordinating Council, Lisa Grabarek; two members with experience in the health profession, Dr. Bob Harris, MD, and Carol Hobbs, RN; and two staff members: Brooks Wicker and me. What follows are the decisions that we have made to keep our Pullen community, and the community beyond our church walls, safer.
1) Sunday groups, Sunday morning worship, and Wednesdays at The Table
We will suspend indefinitely our Sunday groups, Sunday morning in-person worship, and Wednesday night programs. There was unanimous agreement that our church follow the advice of health professionals and state officials and help “flatten the curve” in terms of the spread and containment of the virus. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has asked that all organizations, including faith-based organizations, suspend gatherings for groups of 100 or more. We see a moral and social responsibility to contribute more to containment of the virus than our current programming allows.
During this time, your staff will live stream worship every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. on
Pullen’s website
(Vimeo
vimeo.com/pullen
or
Facebook (
facebook.com/PullenChurch
). We encourage you to join us virtually for worship. If you are not able to join us at 11, we hope you will continue to keep worship a part of your Sunday routine by watching the archived service, which is always available on our website and Facebook page.
Our suspension of large-group activities is indefinite because medical experts are not able to say when it will be safe to gather again in large groups. Emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, and spiritually, we should prepare ourselves for a marathon rather than a sprint.
This does not mean that we will stop evaluating the situation on a week-to-week basis and make necessary updates to our plan. To the contrary, we will continue to monitor regularly what health officials and state leaders are recommending for organizations like ours. We will communicate with you weekly through our Monday email to the congregation.
2) Church building hours and use
The team also agreed that the church should operate on a modified schedule for office hours. The church will be open Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The church office will be closed in the afternoons given that volunteers staff the office during those hours. We want to minimize the time our volunteers are out and about. Church staff will continue working regular hours. As is true of many other workplaces right now, however, they will work from home when they can and at church when necessary. But know this: your staff remains available to you. We will list all staff contact information in the Monday email for the next several weeks. This information is also on the website.
For now, we agreed that it is appropriate for the church building to be available for councils and committees to conduct essential planning. We encourage each group to use their discretion about how often they need to meet and whether a face-to-face meeting is necessary. All meeting organizers should ensure that those who don’t feel comfortable with face-to-face interaction are able to participate meaningfully. Pullen will be offering access and training on virtual tools like video conferencing and telephone conference lines for our lay leadership. We are asking that councils and committees notify the church when they are meeting and keep a record of those in physical attendance, should that information later prove useful.
3) Roundtable Ministry
Our twice-weekly Roundtable Ministry will continue, but instead of sitting for a communal meal, we will provide guests with two prepared meals to take with them. Some Tuesdays and Thursdays we welcome and serve over 100 guests at Roundtable. Many of them do not have access to health care and so would suffer especially greatly if they contracted the virus. The wisdom was that the more compassionate way to respond would be to return to our former model of handing out snack bags and bus tickets at the door. Each guest will receive two snacks bags along with a bus ticket. This will require us to donate more items that are included in the snack bags over the next few months, so please heed those calls for donations (Vienna sausages, juice boxes, crackers, and protein bars). We are confident that the congregation will rise to this challenge.
4) Use of facilities by outside groups
We will continue to allow outside groups access to our facilities. Many groups that use our building are part of the collective glue that holds the broader community together. Making their work more difficult would be counter-productive. Currently, we do not have any groups that exceed 40 people in participation. Brooks Wicker, our Church Administrator, will communicate with those groups in the near future to go over some basic guidelines about using our facility during this time, should they choose to continue in-person meetings.
5) Community care
The Response Team was confident that our church could find ways to continue to nurture and build community without communing in mass. We are, after all, an imaginative and creative bunch! I am reminded of something that my good friend and colleague, Malkhaz, once said to me:
“It is in the challenging times that God’s people discover new ways that the Spirit is leading them.”
These are challenging times. If we keep our minds and hearts open, who knows what new things might come out of this time that will strengthen our community? For certain, we will need to find new ways to stay connected with one another. The staff, along with lay leaders, are already brainstorming ways that we can connect and stay in touch. We would love to hear your ideas.
We do not reach these decisions lightly. Rather, it is from a place of deep concern and solidarity with our broader community that we take these steps. We hope that you will accept these guidelines in that same spirit.
I will close with a practice that we will be using throughout this season of disruption:
First, pay attention to your breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Next, invite your mind to quiet itself – be willing to let go of the endless thoughts.
Now, invite your heart to calm itself – be willing to let go of fear and anxiety.
Finally, invite your body to relax – drop your shoulders, soften your face, and breath deep into your belly.
In this moment, we live into our faith and trust the bonds of our community.
With gratitude,
Nancy
