Gloria Deo Baptist Church

A Note on COVID-19

Dear Church Family,

The elders and deacons met this afternoon and discussed the appropriate response for our congregation to the COVID-19 situation and Governor Kelly’s executive order.  Our discussion focused on three things:

1. The command to not neglect meeting together (Hebrews 10:25)
2. The command to submit ourselves to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7, I Peter 2:13-18)
3. The call to love our neighbor as ourselves (Romans 13:8-10)

After some discussion about the current situation and Scripture, we decided that the best way of proceeding is to honor both the letter and the spirit of the Governor’s order.  Therefore, we have decided to cancel both our Sunday and Wednesday gatherings for the next four weeks (through April 12th), at which point the elders and deacons will review the situation and decide how to proceed.  The Governor’s order is for eight weeks, but a lot of things can happen in the next four weeks.  We decided to put a review far enough in the future that we aren’t constantly changing our mind and giving conflicting guidance to the church, but also soon enough that if things change significantly, we can resume meeting together as soon as possible.  Theoretically, if there are massive changes we could review our decision sooner, but we will plan on reviewing it after April 12th.

That being said, we don’t want to cease all interaction as a church over the next month.  We believe the civil government has the authority to ask us not to meet for appropriate, temporary reasons, but even during that situation we should strive to “encourage one another all the more.”  So, we are asking the church to consider joining us for several things:

1. We would like to encourage families to gather on their own on Sunday mornings and listen to a sermon series (TBD, will be sent out shortly) that the entire church will listen to together.  I am also looking into creating a discussion board or some other interaction mechanism for us to discuss the sermon.  If your family would gather on Sunday mornings, listen and discuss as a family and then post a couple of short thoughts or questions to the discussion board, we can continue to encourage one another in Christ through this time.  More details on this will come shortly.
2. We would like to encourage each member in our church to continue intentionally interacting with your church family.  Make time to check in on each other, talk to each other, encourage each other, etc.  Think about people in our congregation you don’t speak to often and contact them.  In our digital age, there is a wealth of ways to contact each other even if we aren’t meeting on Sundays – avail yourself of those opportunities!
3. Over the next several weeks, there may be some interesting financial situations occurring because of the massive shut-downs happening.  We are not currently aware of anyone in our body who is going to lose significant amounts of income in the short term, BUT if you know of anyone in our church family who will struggle financially (or otherwise) for any reason through this period, please let the elders know.  We want to make sure that everyone in our church family is cared for during this time.

I know that this is an extremely unprecedented move for Gloria Deo and a hard decision, but we believe that, at least in the short term, this is the best way to honor Christ and to love our neighbors.  If you have any questions or thoughts, please don’t hesitate to contact us. 

We also discussed Philippians 4 again briefly as elders and deacons, and I will sign off with that:

4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In Christ!

The Elders and Deacons