August 6, 2021

We hope and pray this finds you in good health and that you are embracing the goodness of God in your life. The past few months have been overwhelming at times with the power and presence of God in our services. Many souls have been saved, men have answered the call to preach and lives have been changed forever.

As you know, we are still dealing with a worldwide pandemic. Thankfully, in the past few months we’ve been able to enjoy a season where COVID-19 has not affected the worship hours nor the operations of the church.

That isn’t the case today. Locally, in WNC we have seen a significant surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, some within our own church family. This new wave of virus has been amplified by the fact that the hyper-contagious delta variant has been identified in our community. I do want to ask you to urgently pray for those who are sick and in the hospital. No doubt, if you or I were sick, we would want someone to pray.

As we go forward, we must be diligent in our actions and our response to the cases that have presented within our church family. For a few weeks, we will have two morning services only at 8:00AM and 10:30AM, no Sunday school and no 5:00PM. We will reevaluate our situation and plan to operator on a normal calendar as soon as possible. Suspending our evening worship hour will simply limit our contact together as we take a “sound mind” approach to our current situation.

As mentioned in the July 31 letter, all small group settings are still suspended. This includes children’s ministries and nursery. Vacation Bible School will also be rescheduled at later date. Those dates will be announced as soon as possible.

Obviously this is not what we want to do, but it is what is necessary at this time. We will follow the instruction found in Holy Scripture in 2 Timothy 1:7 ”For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” We are continuing to take every precaution to sanitize every inch of space on campus and this week we have had a professional sanitation service on property working with our facilities team to create the cleanest environment possible while you worship.

If you are experiencing any symptoms whatsoever or if you are in any way immunocompromised, please stay home and worship online. Even if you are vaccinated but are having COVID like symptoms, kindly stay at home. We will get through this together. This too shall pass! God has been faithful and He will never fail. He will see us through this spike of infections, just as he has in the past. We love you and your family dearly, and we are honored to serve Jesus with you. We look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

In His Service,

Pastor Winston Parrish and Pastor Ralph Sexton