ST. MATTHEW LUTHERAN CHURCH

We are planning to resume worship services on June 21st.

We will probably have two church services on Sunday, June 21st (depending on the results of registration).
- PLEASE REGISTER FOR CHURCH ON THE 21ST HERE
- 1st service at 9am. People in higher-risk categories please attend this service, because there will be less potential exposure, both because it is the first service, and because there will not be as many people or little kids running around.
- 2nd service at 11am. People with small children please attend this service, because it's impossible to keep small kids from violating the social distancing guidelines.
- If you are sick or think you might have been exposed to coronavirus, you should definitely stay home!!! Don't show up sick or with sick family members.
- We will adjust the offering and communion practices in order to maintain the 6 foot spacing.
- We will sanitize frequently touched surfaces.
- If you would like to participate in the coronavirus sanitation team, please contact me.
- We will still provide online worship helps for some time.
- This assumes our county moves to phase 3 on the current schedule.
We will have a shorter Bible study between the services, approximately 10:15-10:45am Sundays.
Our new teacher, Michelle Most, will need help moving on June 24 or 25th.

In the meantime...

Please call me with any prayer requests or to talk. I'm also available by phone or text most of the time at 509-217-9617. I am available for private communion. Please schedule it soon before I leave for vacation. By the way, we need to discuss and approve that timeline at the council meeting Tuesday. It's still tentative.

O'Haver packing and party

Anyone willing and able can help the O'Havers pack up their apartment on June 13th. Please talk to Kelsey to arrange the details.
The goodbye party will be at 1pm on Sunday, June 14th. This is everyone's last chance to say goodbye to Ben. Kelsey will still be around for a few weeks. Julie is also moving towards the end of June. The party will go from 1 to 3. To keep the attendance under 50, please feel free to stop in without staying the whole time. We will not serve any food, it's just a chance to be together.

ONLINE SUNDAY MORNINGS - THREE ACTIVITIES

1. Bible study at 9am live via Zoom (see above)
2. At 10 am, everyone can briefly gather in Zoom (see above) for brief updates and a prayer together. This will take 10-20 minutes.
3. Then we have a home order of service (click "home worship" above). You can do this on your own or you can follow along with us on Zoom to save pushing buttons.

I recommend having the home order of service at about 10am on Sunday in order to keep the weekly habit alive.

ZOOM instructions

Zoom now requires a password, so the instructions have slightly changed!! There are two ways to participate in Zoom Bible studies and meetings. The instructions will be the same every time:

CLICK ON THIS LINK: https://zoom.us/j/5092179617
THE PASSWORD IS 509
- Your first time you'll need to follow the instructions to download Zoom. It's easiest on your phone, but the computer works too. Give yourself 10 minutes to set it up, but you'll probably only need 1-2. Just follow the instructions, click "yes" to everything, and it should work.
Call this phone number: 669 900 6833 and when prompted, use this meeting number: 509 217 9617 *AND THE PASSWORD "509"*. BUT, if you do this, be aware that if you put us on speakerphone, we need you to mute yourself, or we will hear too much background noise from your phone.

Other ways to stay connected to your St. Matthew family

I will be uploading occasional short devotions on Facebook.
- If you don't have Facebook, you can still see the posts to our church and school Facebook page. But, it's easy to create a Facebook account, and this will be the easiest way to keep in touch with other church members.
Consider calling your friends from church on the phone, and especially checking in on those who might be lonely.
Our council asked me to mention: Please consider continuing to give your regular offerings. If we miss several weeks of offerings, it could significantly impact our budget. You can learn about online giving here. You can always mail in a check as well. Or you can save your offering every week and bring it in when we reopen soon.
A reminder, we have weeks worth of interesting online reading here and more online sermons than you can shake a stick at here. Yet none of these are as powerful as sitting down with your Bible open, just you and God in prayer and meditation.