As we are in this period of pandemic, we are reminded of how important family is to our spiritual connection. Along with many houses of worship and businesses, earlier in March, we pivoted from on-campus worship/ministries to online offerings. Earlier this fall, with the guidance from our Leadership Council and leaders from the Florida Conference, we reopened a portion of our on-campus operations – including Sunday morning worship. Our reopening process has included the implementation of CDC guidelines, new policies, and enhanced safety protocols. All these efforts are because our church leadership chooses to prioritize the safety of others – our most vulnerable. This is the reason that we ask those on-campus to stay physically distanced, refrain from hugging each other, and at times sit a little longer in their seats so that we can ensure that everyone leaves the building in a safe manner.
Part of our safety procedures now calls for online registration. For us, registration is an important way that we honor the safety of our larger family. Though we temperature checks upon arrival, registration provides a proactive way to manage contact tracing – which is very important. Though an individual or family may not be experiencing COVID-19 symptoms when they join us for on-campus worship, it is possible that later in the week they develop the virus. Through our registration process, we can efficiently and quickly contact those who were exposed.
For our church, this is not just a ‘what-if’ situation. Over the past several months as on-campus operations have resumed on a phased basis, we rely on these safety protocols, which have been utilized repeatedly and are invaluable to our ability to quickly provide notification and take action when exposure occurs. Currently, Pastor David is self-isolating out of an abundance of caution and in accordance with our protocols. We share this information with you as transparency is important to our church leadership team. We appreciate your patience and cooperation in protecting the health and safety of our family.
I don’t know about your family culture, but in our little DeLaune family, we like to match. Not every day of course, but occasionally we will wear matching clothes or color coordinate. I have to say that this comes naturally to me. You see, I am the oldest of three girls. One sister, Samantha is 4 years younger than me and Amy is 6 years younger and I can vividly remember holidays, especially Christmas and Easter where we would match each other for church and family photos. Sometimes my mom would sew the dresses by hand and work tirelessly to have us all in matching Sunflower print dresses for Easter with a matching tie for my dad. We would wear frilly dresses at Christmas time, with curled hair and matching bows. I loved it until probably around 4th grade and then I was over it.
But at the heart of the cultural pressure to buy into these things is a deeper and more innocent love that we develop as children. When we are young, we want to mimic our parents and be like them. And if we were honest, us as parents like it too when our children want to be like us. As I was thinking about my own children wanting to match their father earlier this week, I thought about how we are called, as followers of Jesus to match our Heavenly Father. Let me explain.