{"id":15472,"date":"2022-02-26T10:33:01","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T15:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/?p=15472"},"modified":"2022-05-10T17:44:20","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T21:44:20","slug":"covid-19-update-february-24-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/covid-19-update-february-24-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 Update February 24, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Everyone is pleased that the Coronavirus case count trend is decreasing each day, as anticipated by our medical and scientific community.&nbsp; That positive news has precipitated COVID policies and protocols to be relaxed which in turn effects how we as a church operate.&nbsp; Like everyone else, we are shifting away from an overly cautious approach and back to a more palatable stance.&nbsp; The following guidelines will help lead us as we look to the future with a bit of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\"><li>Starting Sunday March 6<sup>th<\/sup>, we will go back to having our two regularly scheduled worship services @ 8:30 a.m. for our more traditional service and our 10:15 a.m. for our less traditional service.&nbsp; We are thrilled that both the Sanctuary Choir and Finally @ First will be participating in the services.&nbsp; This will be the First Sunday of Lent so it is a good Sunday to get back into the habit of coming to church.&nbsp; Naturally, for those of you who choose to stay home, we will still stream our 8:30 a.m. service and put it on our webpage @&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/fccej.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fccej.org<\/a>.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\" start=\"2\"><li>Meetings and Groups will be shifting back to a hybrid model where those folks who want to be in person can come and sit with their fellow committee members or friends.&nbsp; Those that want to participate in our church community via Zoom, will be able to remain engaged and active via the internet.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\" start=\"3\"><li>Masks are still required during worship and our in-person gatherings.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\" start=\"4\"><li>Some of the events that have been on hold will resume, like our Friday Morning Coffee Clatter at Martone\u2019s every Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. or our Bridge Club on the 3<sup>rd<\/sup>&nbsp;Friday of every month from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m. in the Marvin Lounge.&nbsp; Our Essex Eats Out program that provides free meals to the community on the first Friday of every month will begin on March 4<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;and transition back into production by offering meals to folks who will remain seated and in their cars in our parking lot.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\" start=\"5\"><li>Pastoral Visits will now be open to personal interactions so feel free to invite Rev. Mark or Rev. Josh over for any pastoral conversations or rituals.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\" start=\"6\"><li>Starting March 6<sup>th<\/sup>, our Faith Formation Program will be in-person only and during the 10:15 a.m. service time.&nbsp; And our youth group will begin meeting in person and go back to the two group format: Junior Youth after church and High School Sunday afternoons.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone is pleased that the Coronavirus case count trend is decreasing each day, as anticipated by our medical and scientific community.&nbsp; That positive news has precipitated COVID policies and protocols to be relaxed which in turn effects how we as a church operate.&nbsp; Like everyone else, we are shifting away from an overly cautious approach [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-life-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15636,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15472\/revisions\/15636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fccej.org\/v5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}