Effective Sunday, March 15th, the following changes will go into effect until further notice:
- Peace: Suspend the physical touching during peace. We have inserted a brief litany expressing the peace of the community.
- Blessing: Remove the Lenten blessing from the liturgy. As wonderful as it is to bless one another, it adds risk.
- Prayers of the people: I will gather a few prayers written by ELCA/Pres/myself to include the concerns of the community and avoid passing paper. I will end that time with “And what for what do the people pray…” giving a verbal time to add prayers.
- Offering: Place plates on the front pew on the way to communion to minimize contact.
- All things in the pew are being considered the same as doorknobs. Recommendation is to remove hymnals and pew bibles at the end of the liturgy. Give folks the option to take one home for the duration? Recycle bulletins at the end of the service. Discontinue bulletins after this Sunday.
- Empty baptismal font and sanitize. Leave empty.
- Communion: Since things are changing daily, we will follow the best practice on Sunday. Servers will wash hands with soap and water directly before serving communion and not touch doorways. Bread will be dropped directly into cupped hands. Possible suspend cup or use disposable communion cups.
- Encourage sitting more than 3 feet away from friends.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/index.html