Washington State lifted most mask mandates in March 2022, but Faith Church still requires masks to attend worship in person as a way to protect the most vulnerable among us from Covid-19, including the youngest children who cannot yet be vaccinated as well as any immunocompromised brothers and sisters in our midst.

Guidelines we are currently operating under:

1. Masks are required for church-sponsored indoor gatherings, including Sunday worship and formation classes.
2. Masks are optional for church-sponsored outdoor gatherings.
3. Anyone in leadership during the worship service (pastor, readers, singers) can unmask to perform their role and re-mask when finished.
4. Mask-wearing is required at In the Beginning Preschool for students, staff, and parents indoors on campus.
5. We do not check or keep a record of vaccinations in order to be welcoming to families with children, as well as anyone prevented from getting the vaccine for medical reasons.
6. Outside groups using our facility during the week can choose their own rules for masking, but should expect to mask around church staff and in the main building where the preschool meets.
7. We follow infection and hospitalization rates for King County, Issaquah, and Sammamish closely to determine when / if changes to these policies should occur.

January 7, 2022

The church leadership regularly monitors COVID data and best practices in order to make the best decisions about our life together and our community’s health and wholeness. Case numbers in our area have skyrocketed in the last month due to the omicron variant, and as a result, we will make some changes to better protect one another when we gather. We feel it is still safe to have in-person worship, however, because incidents of serious illness requiring hospitalization or resulting in death remain very low in our area, at least in part due to very high vaccination rates.

Effective Sunday, January 9, we’ll make the following changes until further notice:

• No congregational singing or ensemble singing. Soloists will sing with masks on.
• Volunteer worship leaders will keep masks on.
• Coffee and snack service will be suspended. You are welcome to bring your own coffee/beverage, but please replace your mask as soon as you’ve finished taking a sip! Families are also welcome to bring snacks for children to consume during fellowship time, but we encourage all eating to happen in front of open doors for maximum ventilation while masks are off.
• You are encouraged to upgrade your mask or wear a surgical mask under your cloth mask (we have surgical masks available if you need one for worship!).
• Please leave space between households in the chairs. If you’d like to sit right next to someone, ask them before you sit down! They may have distanced themselves on purpose.

Pastor Elizabeth will continue testing weekly in order to preach without a mask on, which will assist those with hearing difficulties to understand the sermon.

While we cannot promise a risk-free environment, we believe that these mitigation efforts are effective at keeping an omicron outbreak at bay, and that in-person gathering is important to many people’s spiritual, emotional, and mental health. If you are not comfortable gathering in person at this time, please know that we understand your concern and look forward to connecting with you online. All Sunday services will continue to be livestreamed on our Facebook page. Sermons can be found on our weekly podcast.

If you have any questions, please email the church office.

December 3, 2021

Despite the news about the omicron variant in other parts of the country and the world, COVID numbers in our area have fallen significantly in the last two weeks, allowing for congregational singing earlier than we expected! To this end, we’ll allow anyone who wants to join in congregational singing to do so beginning this Sunday, December 5. Everyone will still need to keep masks on, and soloists who remove masks will need to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative COVID test. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!

October 28, 2021

A few weeks ago, I shared that we would follow the King County vaccine verification protocol, even though faith communities are exempt from the mandate. Upon further review and consideration, however, we have decided not to require vaccine verification for church attendance at this time. When we fully considered the pros and cons of vaccine verification, we found that it would be complicated and difficult to maintain records or check vaccine cards every Sunday morning; and that it would not bring us greater safety as a congregation, since we already know that our community has incredibly high vaccination rates, and since we remain committed to mask-wearing.

At this time, we will begin requiring vaccine verification for any worship leader who removes their mask during the worship service. If you are serving as a reader, liturgist, or soloist, for example, you will need to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative COVID test result no more than 48 hours prior to the service, beginning Sunday, November 7. All other attendees are welcome to attend services with their masks on without showing a vaccine card.

We continue to encourage vaccination against COVID-19, including boosters and vaccines for children where approved, and we appreciate your consistency in mask-wearing to keep us all safe and healthy.

October 8, 2021

Closed Windows

With the weather turning colder, we will close the doors and windows of the sanctuary building this week to keep you warm. Please note that while we have had these open for ventilation purposes (to limit the spread of germs), we have also had new filters installed on the furnace to keep our air clean! We’ll still be safe worshipping indoors, and now will be warmer, to0.

October 1, 2021

As we continue to monitor the COVID statistics in our area and the recommendations and mandates from civic authorities, we’ve made a couple of changes to our policies.

Soloists can sing in worship

We continue to monitor daily case counts per 100,000 people to inform our decisions about congregational singing. We need to be below 5 daily new cases/100K for us to all sing together, and our policy has been that we need to be below 10 daily new cases for in-person soloists. However, since we know in-person music is incredibly meaningful for those in the sanctuary, we have made an exception, that soloists may now perform regardless of the daily new case count numbers, as long as they are fully vaccinated and show proof of a negative COVID test within 48 hours prior to the service.

For example: I would like to sing the prayers of the people on Sunday and believe this is meaningful for the community, but our daily new case count right now is 10.5 (over the limit of 10). Since I am fully vaccinated, I can take a COVID test this weekend, and as long as it is negative, I will be able to sing in church without a mask on Sunday while observing physical distancing.

We wanted to let you know about this change in policy so you can make an informed decision about whether you’d like to attend the services in-person, knowing that our case count might still be too high for in-person singing, but we are allowing soloists with full vaccination and negative COVID tests.

Proof of may be required soon

You may have also seen the recent King County policy requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test to attend indoor events as of October 25 for everyone eligible to be vaccinated. The mandate specifically says that churches are not required to verify vaccinations but are “strongly encouraged” to do so. We have agreed, for the sake of the health of our community, not to exempt ourselves from this kind of mandate just because technically we can, so Faith Church will be exploring what that looks like for our congregation in the next few weeks. We understand that the vast majority of our eligible congregation is already vaccinated, so for most folks, this will simply be a matter of showing proof of vaccination so that we have it on file. If you are eligible for vaccination but unable to be vaccinated, but would like to attend worship in-person, please let me know so we can talk about how best to accommodate your needs.

August 2, 2021

Dear Church,

When we began meeting for in-person and hybrid worship in June, we promised to reevaluate our situation on August 1. We had planned to loosen up the restrictions quite a bit this month in preparation for a bigger opening in September, but with the rising case numbers in King County and around the country – and the latest information about the highly-contagious nature of the Delta variant, even among vaccinated individuals – we have re-evaluated the situation and will only slightly change our restrictions at this time, looking forward to more “normalcy” later in the year.

Here’s what changing:

• We have removed the 75-person capacity on worship registration. As many people as would like to register can do so.
• We still would love for you to pre-register if you are able. Don’t let registration stop you from attending, but do register if you can. This makes check-in much more efficient.
• We will still have a check-in at the door as a mode of contact tracing.
• We have put the sanctuary chairs back into rows, rather than pods of varying sizes for varied households.
• The rows are slightly farther apart than they were pre-COVID to allow for more air movement, and we will request that you leave a space between households; otherwise, the sanctuary will feel much more “normal” than it did before.
• In-person community groups such as Boy Scouts, Al-Anon, and Community Bible Study are welcome to return.
• Staff are working in a hybrid format, sometimes in the office during the week and sometimes remote. We are reachable by phone and email, wherever we are working!

Here’s what will stay the same for now:

• Masks are required for worship. Until our rate of new cases drops considerably, or children become eligible for vaccination, we will continue masking for worship. This protects the whole community, not only from COVID-19, but also from other germs that are circulating in our community.
• We’ll keep doors and windows open (including the big gray wall) for air circulation.
• Worship will continue to be livestreamed for those who remain at home (or otherwise away), and we will conduct as many gatherings as we are able in a hybrid format to allow for both in-person and online participation.
• In-person meetings of groups in which every person has shared their vaccine documentation with the church can meet without masks or time limits if they so choose. However, we encourage mask-wearing, even among vaccinated persons, as long as the Delta variant rates remain high.
• We will not provide snacks/coffee for worship.
• Singing will be limited to solos or duos in worship, with congregants invited to hum.

What’s coming this fall:

• Sunday School for all ages will resume.
• Nursery care for very young children will resume.
• New air filters will be installed throughout the church.
• Worship pre-registration will be traded for on-site or in-seat check-in.
• Snacks and coffee service will resume with some limitations.

We will resume in-person congregational singing as soon as we are able. The number we are currently watching is the “daily new case count per 100,000 people.” The PNW Conference tells us that when the case count is between 5 and 10, we can only have soloists in worship. The numbers in Issaquah and Sammamish are currently hovering around 7. When our daily new case count per 100K dips below 5, we can resume congregational singing with masks. When that number dips below 1, we are allowed to sing indoors without masks. 

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions. We are doing everything we can to balance our need to get “back to normal” and to protect the most vulnerable among us. We know that some members of our community feel like we’re being over-cautious while others think we are not doing enough. We will keep trying to balance these extremes to provide safe most meaningful discipleship, fellowship, mission, and community experiences. 

Peace be with you,

Pastor Elizabeth

April 30, 2021

Dear Church,

As the weather gets warmer and drier (well, maybe not so dry today, but in general…), more activities are opening up and COVID restrictions are being slowly and carefully lifted. The kids are mostly back in school, at least part-time, teams are taking to fields and courts around the area, and more and more people are picnicking in parks and cycling on trails. This gives a hint of “normal life”—the life for which we’ve been waiting and hoping for more than a year.

It’s also turning the conversation toward “reopening” the church. The Pacific Northwest UMC Conference has been very careful and quite conservative with guidelines during the pandemic, for which we have been grateful. But we also know that, though Washington State is in a “fourth surge” of the virus, it’s time to start trying new things. The staff and worship team are bringing in new A/V equipment for future hybrid worship (where some people are in the building and some are online), we’re combing through guidelines to figure out best practices for in-person gatherings, and we’re making plans to get back together beginning this summer.

I am so eager to see you in person, to preach to a live audience, and to greet you in person—even if it’s behind a mask and without a handshake or a hug. That being said, we still have some work to do on logistics and planning, and I hope you will be patient with us as we roll out the next phase of our life together. We will share a third Reopening Survey next week, and I hope you will respond quickly and honestly to help us with this planning. Then, as soon as we are able, we’ll share our guidelines for the next phase of our life together.

I don’t anticipate that we will ever “go back” to the way we did life together before the pandemic started, but I trust that God is doing a new thing, and that as long as we are paying attention to the Spirit and following where She leads, we will be the beacon of love, hope, and grace that God has called us to be—during this next phase of life and for years to come.

With you on the journey,

Pastor Elizabeth

September 1, 2020

Dear church,

When we first decided to take a break from in-person worship due to the threat of coronavirus in our community, I remember talking at length with colleagues on the phone, trying to decide what to do. In over a decade of church leadership, I had never cancelled in-person worship before. At both churches I served before coming to Faith, there were snow days during which I literally put on my boots and trudged through empty streets to get to church, only to sing and pray with the few people crazy enough to join me. I believe in the power of community, of singing and praying together in the same space, seeing the image of God in each face, and caring for one another over cups of coffee and conversations. Cancelling in-person worship is something I would never do casually. I know that, even if we produce amazing online worship, it is not the same, and it doesn't meet your needs for community connections.

When we first closed the building in March, I imagined it would last only a few weeks—or we'd be back in the building for Easter at the latest. That was 26 Sundays ago. Six months. Half a year. Whole seasons have gone by, and our building doors are still shut. And while COVID transmission statistics in King County are starting to improve slightly, full relief from this pandemic is clearly still a long way off.

In the last several weeks, we have issued two "Reopening Surveys," in which you have made clear that you are not ready to gather as a worshipping community until things are much better in our area: the vast majority of you said you would not be comfortable gathering for worship until King County enters Stage 4 or there is a reliable and well-distributed vaccine for COVID-19. Our Reopening Team has been meeting for the last few months to make sure we are ready with safety protocol when we do gather, but we have also made the decision that we will not gather for in-person worship until at least January 3, 2021.

I know this is not a surprise to many of you, but it is still not the news you wanted to hear. I know you miss being together, as I desperately miss being in the sanctuary with each of you. I have shed tears thinking about what this means for the Advent and Christmas season, but we are putting our best creative thinking toward building meaningful worship experiences for you, even if we can't light candles in the sanctuary together.

We hope you will continue to log on for online worship—even if it feels like a chore some days—to greet and encourage one another, trusting that the Spirit binds us together even when we can't see and hear each other. Reach out to each other with prayers and kind words through cards, phone calls, emails, text messages, and physically distant in-person meetings. And let the church know what you need, whether that be prayer support, financial support, connections to local services, spiritual resources, relationship help, or anything else.

SHIFTING FOCUS

Knowing what we know from the CDC, King County Public Health, the Pacific Northwest Conference of the UMC, and your own concerns that you've shared with us, changing our immediate focus from "how to re-open the sanctuary for in-person worship" to "how best to be the church while the building is closed” is the faithful and right move.

This week, we have launched two new teams:

• Interim Leadership Team, led by our lay leader, Cathy Anderson: this team will work on immediate needs between now and the end of the year and how we can serve each other and our neighborhood even while our building is closed to in-person worship.
• Reimagining church team: this team will look at January and beyond for what God is calling us to do and how church can be different in the future.

This season gives us a unique opportunity to rethink everything we’ve known about church and the worship of God in word and deed. Please pray for these teams as they begin their discussions.

COMMUNITY NEEDS

In the meantime, we will also be exploring how best to meet community needs over the next several months. We know that many households in our area are in need of help with childcare during online school; space for solitude when the house starts to feel too small; and support groups for grief, unemployment, relationship issues, parenting, and anxiety or depression. We know there are many physical needs as well, and we're partnering with the Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank, Youth Eastside Services, Friends of Youth, Issaquah Community Services, and other groups to help meet those needs. You'll hear more about each of these as needs arise.

It will be vitally important, as this physical separation lengthens, that all of us stay engaged. Our staff continues to work hard, but we are a small group, and we need your help. We want your ideas for how best to serve the congregation and community, but we also need your help to do this ministry. And we want to make sure the church is best positioned to begin 2021 on a solid foundation, ready to continue growing in faithfulness for years to come.

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If you have any questions about this timeline or how we came to the decision not to pursue in-person worship until at least the start of 2021, if you have ideas of how we can best support each other and serve the community over these next several months, if you have gifts or time to offer, or if you're in need, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'd love to hear from you.

I remain grateful and honored to be your pastor, and I look forward to the day we can raise our voices in praise together again.

Warmly,

Rev. Elizabeth Ingram Schindler

pastor@faithunited.org

425-392-0123