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Churches Taking Responsibility

Esther Ritchey — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 09:00:00 +0000

By: New Churches

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Churches Taking Responsibility

By Ed Stetzer

In the wake of the NY Times article which was critical of churches in the ongoing pandemic, I thought it would be helpful to offer examples of churches that are going above and beyond both to minister to their people and communities and to honor the guidelines in their various states.

Many churches have stepped back from meeting even with social distancing guidelines, moving back to online-only services because of the more recent spikes in cases in their state. A prominent example below comes from the particularly thorny circumstances found in California, where cases are setting all sorts of records in the wrong direction.

Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California (CCCM) has gone to extraordinary measures to do just this. CCCM is the mother church of the entire Calvary Chapel movement that has spread the gospel through churches around the globe.

After I spoke Sunday at The Hour of Power, I headed over to Calvary Chapel to see my friend (and a student in our grad program), Brian Broderson.

Now, a few notes before we jump in. First, they followed all the guidelines and even went above and beyond. The guidelines changed this week and they will adjust accordingly, so this is an example from last week and it may help you plan accordingly. Second, we will see spread through churches— as we have through stores, homes, schools, and more. However, in my view, churches need to work the hardest and plan better than anyone else to show how we love and care for our people.

The Plan

Here was their plan. Executive pastor Jordan Taylor described the church’s response. They have a school on their campus with a football field, so they planned to do large outdoor services. However, the state, federal, and local governments were not giving room for this, so they decided to divide the campus into nine zones and spread out—thus following both the letter and spirit of the law, keeping their people safe, and worshipping together.

They have video and audio at each of the nine sites with a ministry team, a host team, and a health team. The ministry team takes care of ministry needs, the host team takes care of hospitality, and the health team cleans and sanitizes in between services.

They currently are to host about 600 people per service time, about 250 indoors and 350 outdoors. The 250 are spread between three stations indoors as each space is limited to 100 people. Like many churches across the country, they’ve found that many people are still hesitant to attend public worship or be out in public.

CCCM also deals with two extremes common in churches during this season of uncertainty: one extreme is angry about masks and don’t want to wear them, and another demands that churches require masks. So, one of the zones located near the handicap parking area is designated for those who are at high risk. “We want to show them honor,” Taylor said, so this zone requires all people wear masks. Then, the second week of reopening the state required providing masks for all people meeting indoors as well.

Another feature of their plan is spacing between parking. Why this added distancing detail? This is a unique direction from California to churches that’s not required by retail businesses or other venues. “We went back and forth on this because it’s not required of anyone else,” Taylor observed, adding, “We ultimately knew that people hang out in parking places and people want space, and we knew that we had the space to do this. We’re not going to have the issue of people storming down the gates to pack this place out, so we decided to honor people in this small way.”

The church created directional pathways and signage.

With the campus having a school as well, it allows for plenty of spacing, information tables, and help for reserved seating.

One thing they’ve learned is that people aren’t used to reserving seats for services, so they have a pretty high no-show rate of about 20 percent from seating reservations. They employ reservations in part to help in-house tracing. “We’ve had people on staff contract COVID-19,” Taylor said, “We want to bear the responsibility of being able to contact anyone who has been near an infected person.”

Senior pastor Brian Broderson reported that a recent Sunday had 433 registered for the second service and more for the first. He commented on the prohibition of congregational singing in his state:

We are not congregationally singing, because we don’t want to spread the virus. We have two staff members who have come down with COVID, and there is definitely a spike in California, so we decided we’re going to go with [the no singing approach].

While its fashionable among the media to cite outliers who spurn the guidelines for their state, more churches by far are following the model of Calvary Chapel in both caring for their community and honoring those in authority.

Source: Churches Taking Responsibility

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Creating Safe, Spacious & Sanitized Services

Sean Cronin — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 09:00:14 +0000

by TheChurch.Digital: Welcoming back your folks is not going to be easy. Some have likened it to launching a campus or even planting a church. I don’t think it is gonna be that difficult, but I do acknowledge it’s not gonna be easy. That being said, with some focused coaching and increased effort, you will be able to welcome your people back to safe, spacious and sanitized services.

There are also unique circumstances each of our churches face like population density, denomination differences and how your governor is feeling this morning. But I have compiled generic best practices that apply to all of us regardless of your unique circumstances. Also, you may have already reopened. Don’t worry, you can still implement the best practices below.

Communication

Before we talk about creating services we need to talk about communication that will set you up for success. These three foundational communication points will ensure your people know your plan and want to actually participate in it.

1st – Survey Communication

Survey your people. If you haven’t done this already, DO IT. It will garnish valuable and actionable information. I serve on the executive team at ?Christ Fellowship Miami?, and we discovered a ton of useful info through our survey. The biggest discovery was our volunteers were coming back in thirds. A third would be willing to serve once we reopened, a third a couple weeks after we reopened and a third a couple months after we reopened. The discovery of a decreased volunteer base had major implications for how we planned our reopening.

A survey also communicates you value the feedback of your congregation. There will always be folks that throw stones at your leadership and plans, but you minimize that group and the stones they can throw by giving them a voice into the process through a survey. Here are a couple of very practical ways to conduct the survey.

Keep it anonymous to allow greater levels of honesty.

Incentivized participation by allowing people to provide their email address to be entered into a gift card draw.

Consider Google Forms for the survey. It is easy to use, gives real time results and puts all the data into pretty charts.

Provide a catch-all question at the end of the survey with “anything else you would like us to know”.

If you want to survey your folks, but don’t know what questions to ask, then visit benstapley.info/welcomeback? for a free downloadable template survey. It will help you hit the ground running.

2nd – Over, Cluster & Deadline Communication

You need to step up your communication game by over communicating, cluster communicating & deadline communicating.

Over communicate by repeating your main talking points until you’re sick of hearing them. Then repeat some more. Your goal should be to communicate so much that you start hearing people parrot what you’ve said.

It can be confusing to send out updates to your staff and guests every day. Cluster communication combines your talking points, allows people to get multiple points of information at once and avoids this confusion. If you don’t practice this principle, people will stop listening to your bombardment of singular communication.

Even if you don’t have answers or info at present, let people know when you will. This is deadline communication. You might not be able to make the call on when you are reopening right now, but at least let people know when you will. Deadline communication brings comfort and calm to wondering and worried hearts during a stressful season.

3rd – Confidence Communication

Discern when God has called you to reopen and execute that. On one end of the spectrum there is Ed Young and ?Fellowship Church?. They reopened weeks after Easter. On the other end there is Andy Stanley and ?North Point Community Church?. They won’t reopen until they can do church like they did before. After you prayerfully consider when God is calling you to reopen, confidently communicate it to your congregation. Remember, what is right for you isn’t necessarily right for others. So refrain from scolding churches that disagree with you.

Creating Safe Services

Now that we’ve covered foundational communication, let’s talk about creating safe services. Here are five ways to do that.

Symptoms? – In your communication before you reopen, encourage anyone that is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms to stay home. This releases any unnecessary pressure of having to make it to church for guests with symptoms. It also gives guests without symptoms a greater degree of confidence in coming.

Masks? – I recommend you require all staff and volunteers to wear masks and that you encourage guests to wear them. Also, provide masks for any guest that forgot theirs at home. That being said, if a guest doesn’t want to put a mask on, I wouldn’t prevent them from entering your auditorium. The risk they present to the other guests is pretty minimal and you could have a very volatile situation on your hands if you start banning unmasked guests from entering.

Touchless Thermometers? – Keep a couple of touchless thermometers on hand. This allows volunteers or guests to have their temperature tested if requested. A volunteer might feel fine getting ready in their air conditioned home. But after serving for an hour at your church during summer, their temperature may rise. A touchless thermometer is a quick and easy way to verify if your body is just naturally feeling warm or if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.

Touchless Experience? – Aim to provide a touchless experience. There are a number of ways you can do this. Ditch the bulletin and provide message notes on your website. Remove the bible from your pews or chairs and direct people to an app. Use a texting service for digital connection cards instead of physical ones. Stop passing the plate and provide a drop-off location at the exit for cash and checks. Or better yet, encourage recurring giving online. Other than the bathroom, prop open all doors. Cause no one wants to hear you doing your business.

Food & Beverages? – Stop providing unpackaged food and beverages to your staff, volunteers and guests. Stick to individually wrapped items such as granola bars, crackers and bottled water.

Creating Spacious Services

So we talked about creating safe services now let’s talk about creating spacious services. Here are five ways to do that.

Limit Capacity ?- To ensure guests are seated six feet apart you probably need to limit your seating capacity to 25%. You may want to ask guests to reserve seats. This helps you have enough volunteers and seats to meet the demand. ?EventBrite? and ?Planning Center? are two great platforms for event registration. Check out ?cfmiami.org/reopen? to see an example of this.

Limit Contact? – The more we limit contact, the more we limit infection. So here are a number of ways to do that. Fist bumps and elbow touches instead of bear hugs and high fives. Ask people to submit prayer requests through your online connection card instead of calling them forward at the end of the service. And stop the meet and greet. No longer needing to say hello to your neighbor during church may be the only silver lining with COVID-19.

Limit Flow? – Limit traffic flow to one-way throughout your experience to ensure the safety of everyone. There should be a seamless flow of people from your parking lot, into your auditorium and the back into the parking lot. How folks connect and interact in the parking lot after the service is over is on them.

Model Spacious Behavior ?- No one is gonna remember your rules when they show up. So you have to model spacious behavior. Coach your staff and volunteers to refrain from their natural instincts to bear hug a good friend they haven’t seen in months. Lead pastors, this is gonna be hardest for you cause the majority of people will be approaching you. Wave at guests before they approach. This lets them know you love them but that they should keep their distance.

Provide Spacious Seating? – When people enter, seat them from the front to the back. Skip every other row and leave three seats between clusters of people. Also since your worship team will be singing in the direction of your guests, start the first row of seats fifteen feet from the stage. This will limit air particles projected onto guests. When the service is ending the pastor should instruct how to exit. The safest way is wedding style with ushers releasing rows from the back to the front.

Creating Sanitized Services

So we talked about creating spacious services now let’s talk about creating sanitized services. Here are three ways to do that.

Hand Sanitizer? – Place hand sanitizer stations at entrances and exits. Nuff said.

Clean Before Service? – Provide professional-level cleaning before, during and after each service. I suggest using an electrostatic spray, which is recommended by the CDC, to clean all of the chairs and surfaces in your auditorium. It only takes ten minutes to dry and this ensures your guests sit on a sanitized chair.

Reopen In Phases? – The easiest way to keep things sanitized is by reopening in phases. This is because kids struggle with keeping social distance. So start with a family friendly service with no kids program. Then after schools in your area start allowing students back into the classroom, consider reopening your kids program. If parents are comfortable sending their kids back to school, they will probably feel comfortable sending them back to church as well.

Conclusion

So those were my tips on how to welcome back your church by creating safe, spacious & sanitized services. If I missed any tips let me know. I would love to hear from you and learn from you. You can ?email? me at benstapley@gmail.com and read more blogs at ?benstapley.info?. Have yourself an awesome day.

Source: Creating Safe, Spacious & Sanitized Services

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