Update on Church Lock-down Easing
Further to the previous communication, the Trustees held a meeting recently to discuss further the work required around the church re-opening, and to consider in particular the plans to try and open the Church on the 16th August. The Elders and Trustees have been working closely over this time to ensure we are carrying out all necessary work to allow us to return to Church!
As a group, we are anxious to re-commence our Church services as soon as possible.
However, the Elders and Trustees working together have come to the conclusion that due to recent “spiking” of the virus in various places throughout Scotland, we believe it would be prudent to delay the proposed date for recommencement of our Church Services.
When the first provisional date was given in the last communication, the outlook from the government, and the process of easing the lockdown, was working in a positive manner. However, since then, the instances of confirmed Coronavirus have increased, and the Scottish Government has delayed moving into phase 4. In fact, in some cases the Government is actually reversing lockdown measures, as can be seen from the recent news in Aberdeen.
Due to this, we have reconsidered the date and think it best to push this back to sometime in the future. We will continue to observe and take into consideration the Government’s guidelines. The health and safety of the members of Ebenezer Church a major consideration in any decision to re-open the Church, and we believe that we should be guided by the Government’s advice.
One item which we have considered, and which we could accommodate safely, is a Prayer meeting. This could commence within the church, under the current Government guidelines. The consideration for this, is that it would be a smaller group, with prayer only, and the time within the church would be shorter.
This smaller group would also allow us to do a trial run to safely check what we have in place for entering/leaving the church, that the risk assessments comply with regulations, and that we can maintain a safe environment for church services for the future.
The Elders & Trustees are therefore seeking to hold a prayer meeting on Wednesday 19 August 2020 commencing at 7:30pm.
Everyone is welcome to attend this prayer meeting. However, we would request that those who attend would adhere to the signage and one-way system for entering and exiting the property. We will also take the name of all who attend, to conform to testing and tracing requirements.
The seating and access corridors will be marked off for social distancing. It will also be compulsory for every person to wear a face mask within church.
As we mentioned above, this is only a trial meeting. It will allow us to see if we can safely meet in some form at the moment. It may be that the trial highlights some further areas we need to consider under our risk assessment. We are also not at this moment in time saying that from that date forward, we will hold a prayer meeting every Wednesday night in the Church, and it may therefore mean that this is a one off meeting. However, we will always be closely monitoring how things progress, and of course will seek to keep you informed as best we can.
We look to the Lord for this return to church and pray that as we do, we will glorify and honour Him.
In Christ
The Elders & Trustees
Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Cor 15:58
