Under guidelines issued by the Governor, churches are now allowed to begin reopening. LifeJourney’s Board of Directors met on May 5 to consider what we should do. The Board has decided to defer any decision to reopen for another 3 to 4 weeks. We would love to reopen now, and we understand how important it is to be physically together, but believe it would be better to wait a bit longer for the following reasons:   

• Marion County is still under a Stay-at-Home order.
• Whitehouse guidelines recommend 14 days of declining COVID infections before safely reopening.  Neither Marion County, nor the State of Indiana, has yet met those benchmarks.
• We do not want to reopen too quickly and cause a spike of COVID within our congregation, our city, or our state.  Loving one another and loving our neighbor compels us to give priority to protecting our church family and the broader community – sacrificial love, agape.
• Informal polling within our congregation indicates that the vast majority of us would be more comfortable with a more gradual reopening.

Based on the foregoing, our 10 Board members were unanimous in concluding that this is not yet the right time to reopen. The Board is preparing a thoughtful, comprehensive reopening plan and will meet again in 3 to 4 weeks to evaluate whether reopening can begin or will require more time. 

In the meantime, we are being church right now in a powerful way.  Most of us are participating together in Live Worship each Sunday at 11:00 am on Facebook, YouTube, and the church website. If you cannot participate at 11:00 am, you can always replay our full worship service at any time. Our Oasis Groups are meeting on Zoom, and we’re launching a new Discipleship Course on Zoom next week focusing on the New Testament books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. More information here.

We want to thank our many volunteers who are serving during this interim period, including our Mowing Team, Cleaning Team, Praise Team, Media Team, our Local and Global Outreach Boards, our Deacons, Oasis leaders, Discipleship teachers, and all our Loaves & Fishes volunteers.  In fact, we have so many Loaves & Fishes volunteers, we’ve not been able to deploy everyone yet!

We are also deeply grateful to all our regular givers who continue to give faithfully, and we completely understand that some regular givers have needed to make adjustments due to financial hardship.  Because of those who are still able to give, we have not had to make staff or budget cuts. 

God is faithful, the work of Christ is surging forward in and through our church even in these challenging times, pastoral care is still being provided, newcomers are still being welcomed into our church family, and we will come out the other side of this even stronger.  “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.  They shall mount up with wings like eagles.” Isaiah 40:31.