COVID-19 Update, March 16, 2020
Garden City Members,
In these chaotic, scary, and socially distant times we want to provide you with predictable rhythms, good news, and connection. As you’re probably already well aware, this afternoon Santa Clara County (and 5 other Bay Area counties) issued a highly restrictive “Shelter in Place” order. Click here to read the full extent of the order. This order heavily disrupts your daily life and the normal functioning of our church family. Though this is uncomfortable, we trust God’s sovereignty and we believe this moment is an opportunity for us to grow deep & wide in our disciple-making mission and to be creative together. As we navigate this new terrain together, here are 4 rhythms/options that will structure our church life at this time:
1. Sunday Gatherings at 10am. We want to create a weekly sense of unity and gathering as we all shelter in place by asking you to tune into The Hub every Sunday at 10am for a house church/worship experience together. A fresh worship liturgy will appear on The Hub just before 10am every Sunday that will include a short Bible teaching on the key text that drives each new chapter of our Discipleship Culture Guidebook, then a process of engaging that content together, singing together, praying together, and dreaming together. We’re not allowed to invite others into our apartments and homes to join us for this, but we want to encourage you to get creative and use video conferencing tools to do this with your Life Group and perhaps an additional Life Group. One of our Life Groups did this last Sunday and it worked well (pictured below). Over 400 of you tuned into last week’s worship/discipleship experience on The Hub (use link above if you missed it). And, obviously any mid-week Life Group gatherings also need to be virtual right now. Get creative together.
2. Daily 2 minute Video Devotional Monday-Friday at Noon from a Staff member or Elder, plus additional equipping and communication. Every weekday at Noon on The Hub you’ll receive a 2-minute video devotional from a staff member or elder based on that day’s Word & Prayer Plan reading (get the plan here, or on our App). We’re doing this so that you hear daily from a mix of our leaders, and so you can integrate this daily rhythm into your new normal of life at home. This starts on Wednesday. In addition, be on the look out for additional short videos, blog posts, and other forms of communication from us designed to deepen and advance our discipleship.
3. Anytime Opportunities for a 15 minute virtual visit/prayer session, or 45 minute outdoor walk with 6 feet of separation. In the next few days a button/tab will appear on our website where you can request a 15 minute digital visit/prayer session with a staff member or elder, or a 45 minute walk that takes place outside and with the mandated 6 feet of separation. Based on how we’ve read the guidelines so far, we think these outdoor walks can be practiced and depending on how you interpret “essential” in those guidelines our sense is that some in-person outdoor pastoral care/relationship is essential. As you read on page 11 of the Guidebook on Sunday, “The design and purpose of our church is not programs or accomplishments, but relationship, relationship, relationship.” We need each other and we want to get creative in providing relationship right now. We hope many of us will take advantage of this avenue for connection, care, and prayer.
4. Creating and seizing opportunities to serve our church body and serve our city that will appear on a weekly updated list on The Hub. We need you. We need your ideas and leadership. From Sunday’s “Dream Together” section of our liturgy you’ve already been emailing ideas to the Staff Team team@gardencitysv.com and Elder Team elders@gardencitysv.com. Keep sending us those ideas, which Fred Mok will be compiling into a running list of ideas and practical options for how we can be the church and make a difference during this difficult time. The list will be updated weekly, on Tuesdays. You’ll also find additional posts and communication from us on this topic. Also, our church has a Blessing Fund for providing financial help to people in our church family who are in need, or people in our city who are in need. Are you bumping into a financial need? Then email the Elder Team or directly email elder Shea Salinas shea@gardencitysv.com with this need/request.
We know this time is distressing. Yet, as I wrote in an article last night, Don’t Waste This Coronavirus Moment. This is an opportunity for our church to be attentive to God and highly creative with our mission. Please expect this time (even the 4 items above) to be messy. We’re flying by the seat of our pants here, and none of us took the “How to Pastor a Church During a Global Pandemic” class in seminary.
All of the above is in effect until April 7th. The following Sunday is Easter Sunday, where there’s a chance we’ll be able to all gather together again, but our best sense of things right now is that we will not be able to gather and that this change of forms for our church will stretch longer. We’re in this together and will get through it, even thrive through it, together. Finally, we ask that you continue to give generously during this season to support and further our mission to make, mature, and multiply disciples.
I’m probably missing something in this email. It seems with each new day there’s a lot of adjusting and communicating to do. As always, just write to me or all of the elders or staff with any questions you have.
Now is a fantastic time to be good news people in a bad news world. Let’s not quarantine our faith, let’s be a smiling people who are contagious with the gospel, joy, and hope. Moments like these wake people up to their mortality. And people’s biggest problem is not this virus, it’s sin. Let’s pray right now for many people in the Bay Area to repent of their old life and enter into a new life of faith in Jesus Christ.
I love you and miss you!!!
-Justin