Dear EPC family,

Recently, Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order (GA-34), effective March 10, rescinding the statewide mask mandate and allowing the reopening of Texas businesses to 100% capacity. The order also gave individual businesses and organizations the opportunity to continue health and safety measures at their own discretion. The executive order itself does not supersede any decision a faith group makes about their own safety and that of the community.  We are able to continue to make our own decisions regarding the health and safety of our members and visitors.

Your COVID team met last week to review where we are, and the numbers were hopeful at that time, inspiring us to believe we were a few weeks from some modest renewal of activities.  We were further encouraged by the ramping up of vaccinations.   Naturally, with this week’s news we are concerned that variations in safety practice can change this in a more restrictive direction in just a few weeks as we saw over summer.  We sincerely hope that isn’t the case.

We remain committed to the protocols currently in place, developed by EPC’s COVID Task Force, based on medical advice and the wisdom of science from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Texas DSHS, and Tarrant County Public Health, as applied to the data from our specific area. You may refer to https://emmanuelpc.org/home/emmanuels-covid-information/ for the more specific guidelines, as approved by session, and current data applicable to our church activities.

We are still in the Red Phase but see numbers coming down. Currently two of six criteria have now moved to the Orange Phase, and we hope and pray that the other 4 criteria will continue the downward trend to put us into the Orange Phase, where more activities are permitted. Our Task Force continues to closely monitor the local virus spread and hospitalizations as well as progress on the vaccine administration, and we encourage everyone to sign up for the Covid-19 vaccine.

Worship continues to be available each Sunday at 8:30 am at our website emmanuelpc.org and our facebook page facebook.com/EmmanuelPresbyterian and in the EPC parking lot at 10 am.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your COVID team, session, or Pastor Kyle.

Laura Mahon, Moderator
Jayne Johnson
Mary Ann Reed
Ken Richardson
Sheryl Taylor
The Rev. Dr. Kyle Walker