Coronavirus (Covid-19) Congregational Update
Letter from the Minister
To First Presbyterian Church Family and Friends
August 13, 2021
Dear FPC Family and Friends:
The pandemic swirls about us again in a new variant of the original virus, resulting in the sickness and deaths of many people in our community. Information provided to the public by health care experts indicates that the Delta variant of the COVID virus is more virulent than the virus we faced a year ago. Hospitals around our state are stretched to the maximum with sick patients who require ICU attention. The news has not been promising lately.
In all of this, still, we are blessed. We are blessed because we know that God continues to watch over us and to be in charge of the world. God in Jesus Christ is the hope we have, the assurance we feel in our bones, that whatever might come to challenge us -- we are in those divine hands and we are held close to God's heart. God is with us and will not leave us. Let us not abandon our faith but take heart from the love and faithfulness of God as revealed in his Son Christ.
At First Presbyterian, we will continue to gather for worship. Your COVID Response Committee met during this past week and unanimously agreed that we continue to gather in person. However, you probably will see the bows back on the doors of the pews on Sunday. Masks will not be mandated, but you probably will see all of your church officers and many others wearing masks again. Please remember that as Christian brothers and sisters we act not according to selfish desires but according to the love and grace given us by God in Christ.
If you have not been vaccinated, your COVID Response Committee asks that you prayerfully consider getting the vaccination. Even though we are seeing people become ill from the Delta variant who are fully vaccinated, those people almost to a person are able to recover at home.
Come to worship! Come safely -- to worship fully, as God calls us to praise and thanks for the many blessings that are ours. Come and pray with your church family. Look at one another and see Christ reflected in every face, young and old; hear the voices of your church family joining with you to affirm faith in our wise, all-knowing God.
Praying with you and for you for God's blessings to continue in abundance,
Joan