Important COVID-19 & Sunday Gathering Update

Good evening, New Eden family and friends. I need to share a quick but important update with you. Earlier today, after experiencing very light symptoms, my wife and I took at-home COVID tests that both came back positive. On the whole, we both feel pretty good. I have a slight runny nose and minor body aches, and Kristy has experienced the loss of her taste and smell, which triggered us to take the tests. (Due to our vaccination status, we are hopeful that symptoms will not worsen.)

There are two primary reasons we wanted to communicate this to you all.

First of all, we interacted with many of you on Sunday, so we wanted to be transparent and make you all aware. Both Kristy and I wore masks for most of the time we were in the building, so we are hopeful this mitigated any spread that might have otherwise taken place. However, one of our primary concerns was that Kristy served in New Eden Kids, specifically interacting with the three-year-olds through second graders. If you checked in your child on Sunday, we encourage you to monitor them and follow the most recent CDC guidelines if they begin to show symptoms.

Secondly, we are communicating this because we are moving to an online-only service this Sunday, January 9th. Kristy and I were both heavily involved at the gathering this last Sunday, and we have also heard of other recently confirmed cases within the New Eden family. Along with the rise of the Omicron variant, these factors caused Kevin and me to cancel our in-person service for this coming Sunday. I won't take time to rehash our reasoning for decisions made, as we have taken the time to do that in many other places. We ask for much grace and trust in these matters as we move forward in the best way we know how to, and we don't anticipate this being a regular occurrence. As of now, we plan to resume gathering in person the following Sunday, January 16th, at 10:00 am.

We will send a direct link later in the week on social media and through the app, but we wanted to let you know right now what the plan is. We will offer a pre-recorded, shortened service, including a couple of songs, announcements, and a sermon from John 13:1-17. The video will premiere on our YouTube channel at our normal gathering time, Sunday at 10:00 am. We encourage you to click this link and subscribe to our channel, so you will be alerted when we go live on Sunday. And if you are able, we hope you can set aside that time to join the rest of the New Eden family, even though we will be scattered.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and we look forward to gathering with you all again soon! We love each of you and are grateful you are connected with the New Eden family. As you go about the rest of your week, may you be encouraged in the love of Jesus.

If you have any questions, please contact the elders by emailing elders@newedenchurch.org.

Felix Culpa,
Joel McCarty
Pastor for Preaching & Oversight
New Eden Church