We're in this together

You are probably in the same boat that I am, thinking that this virus thing would have been over a long time ago and we could go back to our normal way of life.  Not going to happen.  So first I would like to say that because the numbers of people who are reporting they are positive for COVID on a daily basis we decided to not move back inside the church in July.  We had moved our new moving day to the middle of September.  But now schools are postponing the start of their year by weeks and many are going with distance learning to start the year with now specific end date.  We just can’t seem to get the infection numbers to go down.  And I am afraid that with the start of the school year, and our youth and adults participating in more sports activities, it won’t go down anytime soon.  So we are postponing our move into Church date from the middle of September to at least the middle of October, and perhaps even the end.  My biggest concern is the health of our older members but also the large number of younger members who have extenuating conditions that make them vulnerable as well.  We are going to go to distance learning for our faith formation program through December as well.  But we want to give families more family time and less on line time.  So our program will have a couple of lessons per month that each family can use to connect to our provider.  The books have bar codes so each person will have material specifically directed to their level.  We also will provide a monthly family project that has parents telling their children about their own faith and family story.  Faith is so much more than book knowledge.  It is faith sharing.  So we are providing material that encourages each family to share their faith story.  To do this we are planning on having “back packs” for each child that will have their materials all in one place.  We will have more details about this as September nears. 

We are also working on our FM broadcasting so that even when we do move inside, people who want to will still be able to park in our parking lot and hear the Mass that is going on inside.  We are even developing a method for distributing communion to all those who want to remain at a distance.  We look forward to continuing to provide a great ministerial experience for you in the months ahead.  Fr. Mike