COVID-19 update for St John's in the City
If you're wondering what is the plan for physically gathering at St John's in the City...
This week the Government increased the upper limit for gatherings to 100 and the Presbyterian Church lifted the suspension of public worship services. Each church must assess the safety and practicality of gathering with the current safety requirements (e.g. physical distancing in the gathering space, regular cleaning and disinfecting, contact tracing) and develop a Health & Safety plan to be approved by the Presbytery. Furthermore, assessment of whether to gather must consider those who are not able to participate because they would potentially be at greater risk, or put others at risk.
For St John’s, the following points have been part of our own assessment of whether we can gather safely and practically at this time:
The biggest space available on the St John’s site right now is the Hall, which would only allow 30-40 people to meet under the current requirements for physical distancing.
The need to have an RSVP system to comply with a ‘cap’ on numbers who can gather, and the resulting ‘excluding’ dynamic.
The effort and expense to comply with the general public health guidelines, including cleaning and contact tracing.
The potential risk of gathering as an all-age community, even with adherence to the public health guidelines (esp. the elderly and those with underlying health issues)
It has been decided that we will not start physically gathering, and reassess this after the Government announces further changes to public health guidelines.
The guidelines for Alert Level 2 will be reviewed by Cabinet on 8th June, and consideration of moving to Alert Level 1 will be no later than 22nd June (see Unite Against Covid-19). We do not know what will be announced then, but it seems likely the public health guideline requirements will be eased, possibly in conjunction with a move to Alert Level 1. Less restrictive guidelines could make it more reasonable for us to gather together.
To allow the earthquake strengthening work on the church building to be completed as quickly as possible, the construction team have uninterrupted access and are currently working mostly on the north face and the foyer. It is likely the whole project will be completed by mid-late July. And when the main church building is reopened, the current physical distancing required will be much easier.
In the meantime, we’ll remain connected as a worshipping community by continuing to live-stream services.