RB Community has always been a church focused on providing a safe place for people to gather in love and care for each other. As the church begins to open following the COVID-19 shutdown, we are firmly committed to your physical safety and health when you return to our beautiful facilities. Our strategy is to embrace a series of phased re-openings.
As you recall following March’s orders to close the campus, we immediately moved our activities online. Through an expanded social media outreach, our updated website, and a new e-newsletter, we have maintained an ongoing commitment to communicate consistently, worship the Lord and grow in faith. As we move forward we are ensuring that our worship services, our family ministries, and our adult education classes will continue to be available to you online, just as they are now.
Your safety and security are topmost in making plans for how to reopen our campus. When we do open, it’s going to be a new world. We will have to change the way we do things, and everyone will need to learn some new safety procedures to include a combination of wearing masks, practicing social distancing, restricting the size of gatherings and disinfecting our campus. We want to be sure we have everything in place, so we are planning strategic steps ahead of our opening for in person worship.
Soon after we have clearance, we will begin a “Beta Test Phase” of small, limited gatherings on our campus. It will look like the following:
- Continued online worship
- On campus outside prayer gatherings (limited in size)
- On campus Bible study led by Pastor Mofid Wasef (limited in size)
- Memorials, funerals, and visits to the Memorial Garden by appointment (email: frances@rbcpc.org)
- Minimal staff presence on campus
- Deep cleaning after every event
We will learn from our Beta Phase before we advance to our “Phase One” plans. In Phase One we will:
- Continue our online worship services
- Hold one Sunday worship service in the Sanctuary
- Hold one Arabic-speaking service in the Fellowship Hall
- Determine how we can offer more small group gatherings on campus
- Bring more staff onto campus with limited one-to-one appointments
We will be on the lookout for other ways we can open our campus safely and securely until we are able to return to the fully open campus we all long for. And we remind you how each of the phases we are naming are subject to adjustment as we learn more from our pastoral care team, receive feedback along the way, and discern best new practices. Read these plans with grace - our intention is to share where we are in this moment and to convey, "We have been working on some plans for in person gatherings, but always with your safety in mind.”
In summary:
- We have plans in place for our first Beta Test Phase of on campus gatherings.
- We have details behind our Phase One plans for worship that are still being adjusted.
- We will clarify restrictions and best practices to keep people healthy as we come together in person.
- We are waiting to confirm when we can begin our Beta Test Phase.
from the Senior Pastor, Dr Bryan Stamper
"Your staff and your Elders appreciate you, our faithful family of Jesus followers, who continue to support the church as we navigate the coming weeks. Thank you for being the people of God in this time when the world needs to hear the Good News about Jesus Christ.
Let us pray for declining infection levels and a vaccine that will give us the confidence we need to return to pre-COVID activity levels. You and I are still the church called to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Risen! He is Lord of all! His love never fails!"
Pastor Bryan