November 16th, 2020 :

Hi CrossView Family,

I’d like to update you about our plans for November and December. I know we’ve said this many times, but what a crazy year it's been. I know it hasn’t been easy, and I want to say thank you for the way you’ve come together and cared for each other. I also want to encourage each of you to continue relying on the Lord Jesus - he is trustworthy, faithful, and can provide for us in these days.

I want to remind you that we have been prayerfully working through these months together as a board team, a staff team, with our conference office and denominational oversight. I've said this before but, we have an incredible group of leaders working hard to seek God and make the best decisions we can for the sake of CrossView, our community, and the Kingdom of God.

You probably know that, currently, cases of COVID19 in our area are as high as they’ve ever been. You also might have seen that yesterday, Gov. Inslee outlined new restrictions for the next several weeks across the state of Washington. We are working through that information and looking at what those restrictions mean for our church.

However, last week, after a long conversation, our church board and I decided that it is not yet safe enough for us to begin in-person gatherings just yet. We will stay online-only through the end of December. This gives us time to plan well for the next several months. We will, as we have always done, continue to have the conversation often about when we can safely gather again.

Please hear my heart on this, we wrestled with this decision. We wrestled with it because we all long to be together again for in-person services. I want to encourage you we will get there! We have many congregation members that fall into the high-risk category, and we want to keep people as safe as possible. Further, in light of ongoing restrictions, online services provide us the opportunity to operate freely and creatively. Online services also allow us to continue activities such as singing freely, practicing communion, visiting in our open zoom lobby, etc.

We’ve enjoyed meeting weekly on Sundays at our drive-in service since August. However, mostly due to the weather and the newest restrictions our last drive-in service will be this Sunday, November 22nd.

Jesus’ call to love one another and deny ourselves is hard right now. There’s not a single one of us who doesn’t long to be back to in-person worship. My heart longs for that as well. However, let’s lead the way to protect and love one another well, to put our preferences second, and to seek the good of others. This is difficult but this is the practical living out of our love for one another

Our goal for Advent and Christmas is to make our online services as personal as possible. We also would like to provide some resources for every family during the Advent and Christmas season. We also have at least one Christmas prayer event in the works which will likely be a “go at your own pace” type of activity that you can sign up for - that will likely be closer to Christmas and we’ll get you more information as soon as we can.

As we get closer to the Advent and Christmas season it’s appropriate for us too long for our savior - who as we will soon celebrate together, "Became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:14 MSG).”

What’s clear from the story of scripture is that God came through, Jesus was born, he died, was raised to life and now we have hope, he’s given us peace, we can experience his joy, and be compelled by his Love.

Hang in there, we will be together soon, but in the meantime continue to rely on the Lord Jesus - he is trustworthy, faithful, and can provide for us in these days. See you next Sunday as we talk together about our last step of the discipleship pathway, reaching out!

Pastor Kyle