Executive Summary of The Needs of the Saints: Returning to Church 4.0
As the Omicron wave appears to subside, and in light of new guidance on “COVID-19 Community Levels” from the CDC, we feel that it is appropriate to take stock of the current situation and update the COVID-safer guidelines put forward in the Returning To Church series.
We undergird these recommendations with the Christian values of Community, Hospitality, and Care and Concern for the Vulnerable, giving special consideration to the often-difficult task of balancing diverse needs and opinions, while calling Christian communities to renew their commitment to the common good and to seek new life and new energy in this moment.
In response to the CDC guidelines, and in alignment with our values, we offer five key points of awareness:
- The COVID pandemic is not over. Safer protocols can be adjusted, but should not be discarded altogether.
- Individual members of communities will be at different levels of willingness to drop risk mitigations. Consider the needs of all, without neglecting those of disabled or vulnerable members.
- There are likely to be more COVID waves. Plans for risk mitigations should be adaptable to circumstance on short notice. We offer detailed recommendations, best practices and suggested ways to structure plans starting on page 6.
- Communities outside of the church are likely to loosen or drop safer protocols. Seek creative, both-and solutions rooted in joy, thanksgiving and love for those we serve, and a sense of the Holy Spirit’s continued presence.
- The COVID pandemic has long-term implications for the church. Now is the time to prepare for future needs.
We have replaced our previous Unsafe/Safer/Safest rubric with a new Levels of Concern scale, which can be found below.
We draw metrics from COVIDActNow.org. We invite churches to scale their mitigations up and down as conditions change, with our “safest” recommendations to be found in Table B below.
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