Sanctuary Layout Social Distancing - May 11, 2020

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 Easter Greetings!

You may be aware that the Mayor of Kansas City has extended its stay at home order to May 15, 2020. Although Jackson County has not yet issued a statement, it is anticipated that they will agree to this extension, which then affects our church services and other gatherings.

The church council has been monitoring the situation and after discussion, believe it is in the best interest of our members to remain shuttered through the month of May. There are three main reasons for this.

1) The geographic location has not yet hit its peak of infected cases to even begin thinking about lowering our guard.

2) Locally, even nationwide, we do not have accessible, easy to obtain testing for our population. We are currently still in the dark regarding the number of people that may have the virus and be asymptomatic.

3) Our congregation is a vibrant one, however it does have many that are high risk and to take a chance in causing any of you illness is truly frightening.

            For these reasons, we will keep the doors shut until June 7, 2020. We will not offer worship, social gatherings or even donation collections until then. Please be assured, we still have volunteers that check our mail, check our building and keep our grounds beautiful. Jean continues to come into the office 2x a week to check phone messages and administrative duties that cannot be put off. Pastor George will continue to check in with us via FaceBook, the website, email and phone and council members keep in close contact to resolve church business.

            As a part of this business, we would have had our May semiannual congregational meeting to elect two new council persons, and provide our annual reports to you. That will be postponed until we are open again, and a date determined (we hope in June). Until that time, both Jim McDonald and Joyce Cutbirth has agreed to remain on council (their terms would typically have ended May 31st) until we can hold this election. And just to remind you, if you are interested in being on council, please let any of us know.

            We have been blessed to continue receiving offerings, as well as our Simply Giving program. If you were waiting to return to church to donate and are not on the Simply Giving program, we hope this helps you determine to continue your giving by mailing your checks to the office throughout this time. They will be deposited as received.

            Once again, we are disappointed that we won’t actually see everyone as soon as we expected. We do believe this decision to extend the time quarantined is in the best interest of all of us. You are welcome to reach out to any council person to discuss or to express interest in council work, we would love to talk to any of you. May you stay safe and stay healthy.

In Christ,

Pam Meek, council president

As you may have heard by now, the federal government is recommending less than 10 people in any gathering for the next 15 days. With that in mind, ASLC is cancelling our worship services for March 22nd and 29th, as well as the Lenten service set for March 25.

In addition, other social gatherings and meetings are also cancelled. This includes Creative Friends, choir (both vocal and bells) practices, Project Comfort, and Girl Scouts. The youth group is also postponing the synagogue trip set for Friday, March 20. Once that date has been re-set, we will communicate with the congregation. 

We expect this quarantine to last through the end of the month (March 31st), but based on future developments could be extended. We will let you know of any changes should they occur.