Resuming In-Person Worship
Sep 30, 2020 |
Dear People of St. Mark’s,
It has been profoundly hopeful to me during this time of being separated from one another to remember that exile is not new in the human experience. The prophet Jeremiah after encouraging his people to build houses and plant gardens in a foreign land, reminds them that there will be a time for return. Of course they, and we, probably would have preferred a specific date. We as a community have charted a cautious course, given the risk profile of our congregation, and I have been grateful for the expertise of our parish subcommittee and the leadership of the Vestry as we have looked to the future. I’m also unbelievably grateful for the creativity and hard work of our staff who have worked mightily to provide meaningful and consistent opportunities for us to worship online with one another.
With San Antonio currently in a less active phase of COVID-19, we are ready to try some modest opportunities for resuming modified in person worship in October. We still encourage you to carefully consider your own risk factors before participating, and we will continue to have our main worship service on Sundays at 10.00am online. We also ask you to sit with these plans “lightly” as we will continue to the monitor the numbers and may have to make changes. We are going to try this for the month of October, during which we will survey the congregation to get a better sense of what people’s needs are. As a community accustomed to planning at least 18 months ahead, this is not a comfortable place to reside. We have learned that being flexible and nimble is more important than casting long-term plans....