New Covid19 Task Force Team Formed

Our resident Bishop, David Graves, has asked each local church to form a Covid-19 task force which will be needed to navigate safely and with confidence to reenter in person worship and other ministry programs. As a result of the Bishop’s recommendation, we will form a task force to help us plan for the months ahead.

Why do we need our own task force at Shalimar UMC? For one reason, there are no two churches exactly alike. The reentering of public gatherings will vary depending upon the size of the church, the number of worship services, and of course the numbers of people involved. The task force will assess how to make our specific campus safe from the spread of Covid-19. Second, we are a very active and vibrant church. There is so much to consider in addition to worship. The weekday ministries that occur in addition to worship happen almost every day of the week and vary in numbers of people. The Covid-19 task force will seek to implement best practices for reentering all phases of our church life.

Who will be on this task force? The task force will be led by our Lay Leader, Angie Turnbow. Our staff point person will be Brad Bradford and we will have expert representatives on the team. Dr. Eric Fortenberry has agreed to help us as an active physician. We will have Trustees Chair, Dr. Howard Goodpaster and Angelina Savage, a nurse. Other members of the team will include Terry Rowe and Duke Eliason. Staff will include Church Administrator, Scott Newbold and Program Director, Kim Margold. The other pastors will serve as needed. The Lead Team, Jeff McInnis, Church Council, Wendy Thomas, Staff Parish, David Mobley, Finance Chair and I will be ex-officio members and will serve as needed. Please pray for this team as they have their first meeting this Thursday.

Our immediate future is unknown, but we do know we will worship only by Livestream until May 17. We will continue to follow the guidelines of the President, Governor, Centers for Disease Control, and our Bishop in bringing things back. We look forward to the upcoming guidance and recommendations of our task force which will be more specific to Shalimar UMC.
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In the meantime, as noted before, our church is not closed in this time. In some ways, our church has been more impactful than ever before. We are being the church in a different way. The good news of Jesus is still being proclaimed and our serving continues! Can you imagine Shalimar United Methodist Church back together in person again along with what we have learned about being the church in a time such as this? These are tough days, no doubt, yet for God’s people, hope is always just ahead! I sure do miss seeing you and I am praying we will be together soon!