March 14 Update from Justin Jordan

I hope you are doing well on this Saturday. I wanted to update you regarding where we are at with holding Sunday services with the outbreak of coronavirus in our community. If you haven’t heard, we now have a confirmed case of corona virus in our community located in Ada county. 

At this point, we now plan to NOT hold physical services tomorrow. We are planning on having a sermon via video tomorrow and each Sunday until we choose to meet again. We are doing this not out of fear, but rather out of concern and love for our community. We want to love our neighbors well and make wise decisions. The health professionals have discouraged large group gatherings to help keep the spread of corona virus from happening and to help keep our health services from being overwhelmed. We believe choosing not to meet is a way to help contribute to this endeavor in our community. 

With that being said, we have a tremendous opportunity in front of us as a church. The opportunity that lies before us is that we have the ability to meet needs, show up and rise to the occasion as a church. The history of the church shows us that while the world is scared, we are not. When the world runs away, we do not. When the world self preserves and hoards things, we do not,. Instead we share and we give up things for our neighbor. When there is uncertainty, we stand firm in the hope of Jesus and run towards the unknown and darkness that at times surround us. What does this practically look like for us in this season?

Here are some things I want you to consider. What would it look like for you to meet your neighbors and let them know you are here to meet needs? Could you offer over items that are needed and continue to find out what their needs are? Could you offer up some toilet paper? :) Could you go get groceries for the elderly, immunocompromised, asthmatics, sickly or those with diabetes and leave it at their front door for them? Could you FaceTime, text and call people who are lonely in quarantine and offer them encouragement and hope. The answer to all of those questions is yes. We could do that and I believe we will do it because you, Real Life, know who you are. You are the bride of Christ ready to be mobilized as Jesus’ church. 

Here are the things that we are doing moving forward: We are doing a video on facebook later today that will cover the same things that are discussed in this email. You can watch it on Facebook and it will be uploaded onto our blog on our website later today. In addition, we will still continue meeting in small groups such as home groups, youth group and classes. We are empowering our leaders to decide whether or not they should meet, hoping that they will meet, but not expecting it either as we know a lot of sickness is going around. We trust each decision that is going to be made in smaller groups.
As stated earlier, we will do a sermon video each Sunday until we meet again that will be posted on Facebook and on our blog. In addition, we will be meeting together as a staff team on Monday to dive into a deeper plan of how we mobilize and meet needs as a church going forward in this season. 

As your Lead Pastor I want you to know that even though we are living in an interesting season, we will not fear (2 Timothy 1:7). I am extremely excited to see how we as the church will overcome this moment. The bride of Christ always overcomes because Jesus overcomes. Please be sure to stay tuned with more communication (emails & social media posts) as we move into this season and remember where our hope lies.

“One Person at a Time,”

Justin Jordan
Lead Pastor