IN-PERSON WORSHIP INFORMATION

Dear Creekside Family,

We hope this letter finds you and your family well. Please know that our Pastors and Staff deeply love you and miss you. As we have said before, we long for the day when this virus is no longer preventing us from safely gathering for worship, connection, study, and service.  

With that said, we are planning to reopen the church for in-person worship on Sunday, August 16, for one service at 11:00am. We will continue to offer online worship for those who are not able to attend or who do not feel comfortable worshiping in-person at this time.

We recognize that our first responsibility is to assure that you and your family will have a clean, sanitized and safe environment for worship. Each Saturday evening our housekeeping vendor will perform a deep clean in the atrium and worship center. We will place hand sanitizing stations throughout the atrium and worship center for Sunday morning use. Masks are strongly encouraged. If you do not consider wearing a mask important for your own safety please consider wearing a mask for the safety and/or the peace of mind of your brothers and sisters in Christ. If you do not have your own, we will provide you with one.

We have come to recognize that this Fall is not going to look normal as it relates to worship or programming. We want to share with you the balance of our Fall reopening plan. Obviously, this is all tentative based on the pandemic. 

  • Creekside Christian Academy – Our preschool is scheduled to begin Monday, August 17. CCA has worked hard establishing and implementing the proper protocol to provide our children with a clean and safe environment. 
  • Creekside Sports - Our baseball and soccer programs are scheduled to begin practicing on Monday, August 31, with games beginning September 12. 
  • Two Services – We are tentatively planning to go back to two in-person services, 9:30am Traditions and 11:00am Modern, effective Sunday, September 13. We also plan to start Nursery and Kidz Church at this time.
 
All other programming, such as Sunday School, Student Ministry, Wednesday Evening Connect, etc. will remain on pause at this time. Please know that we will do our best to begin all of these vital growth and connection opportunities as soon as possible.

Please take a moment to review the protocol for Sunday morning worship included below. Obviously, this will be relaxed as circumstances regarding the pandemic warrant. Please be assured that we want to return to “normal” as soon as possible!

It is our intent to implement this plan and to stick with it! However, we need to submit to the authority of both our governmental officials as well as our Conference. At present, both of these authorities have left decisions regarding when and how to reopen largely up to us, but that could change in the future. We also might have to respond to a situation within our specific context at Creekside that would interrupt this plan. As we move forward, we ask for your continued prayers and support as we seek to lead our congregation in these difficult days. We are grateful for the guidance of our Church Council and our Church Staff.

We hope to see you soon,

Jason Danuser, Senior Pastor 
Perry Gaines, Executive Pastor


Sunday Morning Protocol:

  • We are asking our families to maintain social distancing and to refrain from personal contact. This means no handshakes, high fives, hugs, etc. A smile and wave is welcomed and encouraged. As mentioned above, we urge you to wear a mask.
  • The seating in the worship center has been arranged to also maintain social distancing of 6 feet in all directions (families can sit together, of course). This has reduced the seating capacity to about 200 seats.
  • We will be asking you to RSVP for Sunday morning worship as a result of the reduced seating capacity. We ask that you RSVP before 9:00am on Wednesday morning. We will be reviewing the RSVPs on Wednesday morning and using this information to determine if we need to add a second service to Sunday morning prior to September 13. If we have more than 200 who are willing to attend, we will plan to add a second service at 9:30am. If we have more than 400, we will add a third service at a time TBD.
  • You will need to enter the church building through the double doors at the main entry. All other doors will remain locked (side door at the preschool, discipleship wing side door and the gym doors will remain locked). This will assist us in minimizing the square footage required for cleaning and sanitizing.
  • To maintain the guidelines of social distancing there will be a maximum of 2 people in the bathrooms at a time. Members of the Hospitality Team will be stationed by the restroom doors to assist with this requirement.
  • As a result of the pandemic the following ministries and activities will be placed on hold until further notice: No coffee or donuts, no communion, no bulletins, no passing of offering baskets (they will be placed at the exit doors of the worship center).
  • We will dismiss the congregations by rows to maintain social distancing. It is important that you do not linger in the atrium during dismissal.