Hello Riverlawn!
I miss you and I am looking forward to the time when we will be back together in person! There are a lot ofdifferent opinions of when that should be. We released the steps to our RELAUNCH plan last Friday via social media and our webpage. A lot has changed since we finalized our RELAUNCH plan to begin meeting June 21. There have been urgings from our President for churches to meet. Our Governor has turned over restrictions to the local governing bodies. Our county commission has turned the restriction responsibilities over to the individuals in our county. At this time, we have recommendations but no “restrictions”, solely based on community health, placed on us from the authorities. Although the commission did say we should adhere to the safety recommendations so as to not have a cluster of COVID-19 cases take place in the church. Does that change our RELAUNCH date?
No. We are still planning on our first in-person worship services to take place on Sunday, June 21 at 8:00, 9:30 and 11:00 a.m. Our timing is not based on recommendations from the governing authorities; it is based on when we will be ready. Your leadership team, elders, and pastors made a decision to make the most of our time without people in the building and start our remodel project of the current building. This project is part of phase 4 of our Beyond Our Walls vision initiative. When everything happened so quickly in the middle of March, the leadership believed this would be the perfect opportunity to make the remodel changes without having to work around any normal weekly scheduled activities. We have been targeting June 21 as a return date for weeks, as have multiple other churches our size in the community. We cannot meet in our auditorium earlier due to the remodel.
We recently considered other creative options for June 7 and June 14 to get some of us back together to worship. Some of the drawbacks to doing outside worship here were as follows: expense for equipment that would only be used twice; a projected attendance rate of around 35-40%; losing a lot of quality to livestream, if it was even possible; and in that we would lose the impact we have made for the Kingdom with our online presence. It was decided that our best option would be to encourage the church to get together for house worship on June 7 and 14. This would mean small groups, community hour groups, friends, neighbors, etc., gathering at someone’s house to watch the service and worship together.
I have been in constant communication with and learning from other pastors, church leaders and ministry leaders around the country. Thirty percent of the COVID-19 clusters in our county came from religious gatherings, and the last thing we want is to give the “Church” a bad name in the community or give people a reason to be down on God’s Church! I know some will be upset with our decision, and maybe even start attending a church that relaunches earlier. I understand, and that does make me sad, but am excited that they are so ready to get back to worshiping God with others.
We are looking at having an event the second week of June to give a sneak peek of the remodel and allow us to get together and worship God through some different activities. (Details to come!) I can’t wait to see you!
Stay Faithful,
Jeff Isaacs
STEP 1
Worship On Site
-3 – 1 Hour Services
-Enhanced safety precautions
-Touch free interactions
-Livestream Services
Vulnerable Population encouraged to stay home
Kids – Not Meeting
Students – No All Group Gatherings
Small Groups – At Their Discretion
Community Hour – Online
STEP 2
Worship On Site
-3 – 1 Hour Services
-Enhanced safety precautions
-Touch free interactions
-Livestream Services Kids – Limited Gathering
Students – Student Worship for Jr. High/Sr High
Small Groups – At Their Discretion
Community Hour – Possibility
STEP 3
Worship On Site
-3 Services
-Enhanced safety precautions
-Touch free interactions
-Livestream Services
Kids – Full Program
Students – Full Program
Small Groups – Full Program
RELAUNCH
How to Stay Connected or Get Involved
Family & Kids
Kurt Schneider -Family Pastor
kschneider@riverlawn.org
Devin Donnell – Kids Pastor
ddonnell@riverlawn.org
Students
Eli Bayless – Students Pastor
ebayless@riverlawn.org
Missions
missions@riverlawn.org
Young Adults & Small Groups
Josh Gores – Discipleship Pastor
jgores@riverlawn.org
Connections
Greg Schuessler – Connections Director
gschuessler@riverlawn.org
Women’s
Alisha Illian – Women’s Ministry Leader
questions@riverlawn.org
