What to expect regarding masks
Greetings church!
I hope you are enjoying the rain, finding some Christmas lights to enjoy with your family, and wrapping up your Christmas shopping, both literally and figuratively. I wanted to write you all in response to California’s indoor mask mandate that took a lot of us by surprise this week and to let you know what we as a church will be doing. But before I get into specifics let me make you aware of what we believe our role is in all of this.
The church continues to exist for all people. The color of your skin, the number of vaccines you have received, your sexual orientation, even your personal belief about who God is does not and will never disqualify you from being allowed to attend FBH on a Sunday morning. God calls us to love the believer and non-believer alike, there are no caveats to that love. Often it is us, in our humanity, that puts conditional clauses on who is and is not welcome at church. Galatians 3:28 reminds us that for the believer, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” And for the non-believer, we should have no expectation of them living according to the standards set by God and through the church.
So, with that in mind, we want to be conscious of what we are being asked to do by our governing officials without violating what scripture says regarding how it is we should respond to one another. So, this is what we will be doing:
1. If staff is inside and not on stage, I am asking them to wear their masks. I won’t be asking Kyle or Jeff to sing or communicate from the stage with a mask on. I also will wear a mask except when I am preaching.
2. Our office will be closed to the public, but appointments can be made through the church office (office@fbhanford.org) or through the staff emails directly.
3. Our volunteers that are working with kids will be wearing masks as well, if they are not inclined to wear a mask, we will simply slide them to the second half of January when the mask mandate is over.
4. It has never been the role of the church to police what people wear on a Sunday morning. Everyone at this point in our recent history should understand what the government is expecting. So, if you wear a mask, great. If you decide not to wear a mask, that is your prerogative, and we are happy to have you with us in church.
What we won’t tolerate is for this mandate to divide our community down lines that are not explicitly stated in scripture. This is not an issue that has to do with salvation and because of that we won’t be drawing hard lines one way or another. Everyone is welcome on Sunday morning regardless of having a mask or not.
All of these things also apply to our Christmas Eve services that will remain at 4:30 and 6:00 PM on December 24th.
See you Sunday!
Pastor Peter