City Church Re-Opening Guidelines
Dear City Church Family,
City Church will resume our gathered worship service at Grace Covenant on Sunday, June 14th, at 4 P.M.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, City Church has been guided by twin priorities: nurturing the spiritual well-being of our people and protecting the physical well-being of our community and our neighbors. Additionally, City Church has followed the guidelines of the government in order to stay safe at home and to ensure Richmond’s public health capacity. Now, in light of the special permission granted to churches by the state to resume gathered worship with certain precautionary measures in place (i.e. no more than 50% of a building’s capacity, maintaining social distancing, with required use of masks) and recognizing the importance of gathered worship for the church, we are eager to return to a scaled-back service.
We are keen to return to worship while living with grace and charity towards one another.
The practical shape of living with grace right now means reserving judgment against others who may make decisions for themselves and their families that are different than ours. The practical shape of our love right now means adopting certain new protocols and practices in order to protect the most vulnerable within our community. We are committed to unity of love without uniformity of position.
City Church is fortunate to worship in a sanctuary as spacious as Grace Covenant, which has a total capacity of 750. While 50% capacity would permit 375 people, appropriate social distancing protocols reduce the functional capacity to around 275. Based on the results of the congregational survey, we expect still far fewer than that to return to gathered worship during our initial phase of re-opening. We expect to operate under 25% of the sanctuary’s capacity.
We also recognize that some in our community are either unable or unready to return, feeling safer at home. We are committed to continuing to provide resources to help everyone at City Church continue to worship.
The Phased Re-Opening Taskforce (Adam Bailey, Erik Bonkovsky, David Boyce, Cara Campbell, Liza Clark, Mack Hendrix, Stefan Kling, Jennifer Murphy, and Caitlin Wise) has worked hard to establish clinically-informed protocols that will foster a safe return to worship for our church family. While we are confident we have thought through logistics thoroughly, we welcome all clarifying questions and we covet your feedback on how we can improve the process. What follows are guidelines that will shape our return to worshiping together.
Erik, for the Re-Opening Taskforce