Letter from Elders regarding Care Group ministry.

Dear church family

 

We had written to you earlier in the week regarding ongoing vigilance in this pandemic and how we ought to respond to keep one another safe.

Just after having written that email, the Provincial Health Officer issued an order limiting household gatherings to the family and six others: six others that are known as the “safe six”, in other words people with whom you regularly socialize.

With that in mind, we had just decided to introduce the concept of micro care groups with the larger families in the church hosting and having six others make up a micro care group. There were going to be 12 of these micro care groups. Within hours, the Fraser Health CEO and Medical Officer of Health made a request that we consider not socializing even in groups of six. The rationale for this is that the numbers of Covid 19 positive cases are on the rise especially in our Health Authority.

To be clear, the latter is a request to consider, unlike the order which is enforceable by law.

Care group leaders and coleaders met last night and decided that given the complexities of organizing a formal ministry in the midst of these orders and requests, and the chance of things changing again in the near future, it would be wise to shelve a formal care group ministry at this point until the environment would make it easier to organize and implement. We will simply encourage you to do what we do in the summertime which is to fellowship with one another in an informal way.

This way, it will be up to the families involved when, if and how they get together, and allows for individual positions of conscience, or standards of safety. We would encourage you to consider others more important than yourselves and be respectful so that when you do get together, the risk of somebody getting sick is minimized.

We trust that you will enjoy these more informal times of fellowship and encourage you to continue to get to know one another, encouraging and spurring one another on despite what is going on around us, but being sensitive and prudent.

 

The Elders