March 13, 2020

Greetings in the name of our Lord,

Tonight, the board of Elders along with Pastor Hoffman and Congregation President Bill Kelly have made the difficult decision to suspend all activities at Christ Lutheran Church including the worship services until further notice.

We are hesitantly taking this action with the hope of serving our neighbors in love.  Selfishly, we would like to continue to meet, continue to see our friends… but in so doing we may endanger not only our own members, but also the members of our community at large.  We believe that the greatest benefit in terms of mitigation and arresting transmission chains comes from acting early.

We also felt that if we cancelled activities one week too early it costs us little, but if we cancel one or two weeks too late the cost could be very great.  We are aware that many of our members are especially at risk given that this particular virus seems to affect the elderly in much greater numbers.

Exactly two weeks ago the country of Spain was reporting 25 cases and no deaths.  As of tonight they report over 5200 cases and over 130 deaths.  As of tonight, Michigan is also reporting 25 cases.  Where we are two weeks from now depends on what we do now… there is only one way to stop a virus when there is no group immunity and that is through social distancing.

We will continue our worship just not in person.  Pastor Chuck will continue to preach, the services will be posted on our website and to Facebook.  We will soon allow your offering to be made through our website as well.  This will pass and life will go on, but for the meantime we want to protect the vulnerable among us absolutely as much as possible.

There is no Prayer quite like the Kyrie.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Amen.

Rev. Chuck Hoffman, Pastor

Bill Kelly, Congregation President

Jay Higgins, Head Elder