January 1, 2022

The Pastoral Staff and Leadership Council (after consultation with appropriate medical professionals) has conferred by phone and email and has agreed that:

 1) All persons in worship will wear masks. Those leading worship from the pulpit and choir areas may remove their masks when required but should otherwise be masked.  Those in these positions will distance themselves appropriately.   

 2) We will remain in this protective posture until either the CDC guidelines change, or our Administrative Council has had a chance to review the matter more fully at their monthly meeting.

 Is this annoying, frustrating and confusing? YES!

 Does anyone actually WANT to wear a mask in worship? NO! Of course not. Nobody does. I don’t want to wear a mask and neither does anyone else in leadership.

But we are called to be good stewards of the bodies and health God has given us and too look out for one another.  The Delta variant is particularly obnoxious and we honor God by protecting ourselves against it. Furthermore, we follow Christ’s call to love one another, and this means caring for those who, for whatever reason, have not been vaccinated, are to young to do so, or have underlying health issues that make them more susceptible to illness. I know we would all feel terrible if our worship together resulted in one of us getting seriously ill, or was a “super spreader” event.

 Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you for respecting the Leadership Council by following their guidelines. We elected them to make these kinds of decisions and so we are honor bound to follow them now.

 For those who are nervous about coming to worship during this period, our service will be *live streaming at 10:15 a.m. on Sundays and also made available shortly after the in-person service is completed on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.

 Finally, let us all remember that the purpose of worship is first and foremost to glorify God.  Our worship is acceptable to God if we come and participate with a good spirit, even when we are all wearing masks.

-Pastor Jon

*Live streaming of worship is available on the FBC YouTube channel. Please subscribe to the channel to get notified when the streaming starts automatically if you watch worship on your smart TV, computer or tablet. We will also be posting a link to the stream via Facebook in our FBC Facebook page, and via email, both by 10:15am. A link to the recorded service will also be provided Sunday afternoon for those wanting to watch the service later. If you join the stream after it has started, simply rewind the playback with the play bar (or remote control if using a Smart TV) so you don’t miss anything.

If you are a friend of FBC and would like to support our online worship services, please mail your donation to First Baptist Church, 434 Baltimore Street, Waterloo, IA 50701.