There’s much talk in our community about “re-opening.” Since our church is in Marion County, which just entered Phase I of reopening, it is very appropriate to ask, “When will Foothills reopen?” The truth is we were never closed as a church. The church building has been closed, but we never closed our mission and ministry of glorifying God, making disciples, and reflecting God’s love. We’ve still been open with Sunday services, life groups, children’s ministry, youth, and more all happening online. The church is made up of people, not things like buildings.

I prefer to use the term, “regather” in place of “reopen.” And boy, do we want to regather in person. Video is nice and it has been getting us by for now, but does not replace in-person fellowship, singing, preaching, praying, and all the elements of coming together.

During the necessary process of praying and meeting with civic, hospital, and church leaders, Foothills elders have decided to regather on Sunday mornings once we are able to meet the following three criteria:

Gathering large. We anticipate once Marion County gets into Phase II we’ll be able to meet with up to 100 people. We’ll probably have 15 people serving in some capacity from preaching, to worship/tech, to ushers/sanitation crew. With the current limitations of 25 people per gathering, we think it’s best to wait until Phase II of our county so we can get to a critical mass in our building.

Until then we encourage people to gather in a manner that adheres to Phase I of our county. It’s a great opportunity for us to open up our homes and experience our Sunday services with other believers. In some ways this is very similar to how the church started 2,000 years ago. It’d be a beautiful thing to have 10, 20, or even 50 different Foothills gatherings of 10, 15, or 25 people in houses every week.
Gathering safe. We have a responsibility to do our part in protecting our church body and the community we live in as we follow the guidelines that will be included in Phase II of Oregon’s reopening plan. Right now there is nothing set in stone for Phase II, so we wait. Again, we anticipate gathering thresholds to be raised to 100 people but there will be other guidelines pertaining to social distancing, sanitation measures, and building usage, among other things we’ll need to adhere to.

We have begun preparing ourselves for what this looks like for our church. We have several of the necessary supplies on hand and more on the way. We’re working hard to make sure we’re doing everything we can to provide a safe place for everyone who chooses to worship with us. There is a lot to consider. Just like grocery stores and restaurants have had to adjust, we are also adapting to new guidelines and best practices.
Gathering cross-platform. We will gather in person when we can simultaneously live-stream our services online while we meet in person. This is a significant undertaking but is necessary. There are many people in our church who will be slow to come back to gather in person for very valid reasons. We need to continue our online ministries indefinitely. In fact, we see that being part of our ministry moving forward with no end date in mind.

We are on our way to making this happen. We have several pieces of equipment in place and a few more ordered and on their way. One of the trickiest elements is getting quality sound of our live music pushed out onto the web. Churches often spend exorbitant time and money to pull this off. We’ll be doing this in about a month’s time with limited but adequate resources. If you’d like to be part a tech crew on Sunday mornings to aid in our live-stream, please let me know.

Ok, so, I didn’t give you an exact date for regathering. For you type-A’s or detailed oriented people, this has been a test of your patience! If we are able to meet the three criteria above, we could hold in-person gatherings in mid- to late June. If not, it’ll be early July or later.

Again, we want to meet as soon as we can, but not sooner than we feel is appropriate. Thank you to all who have reached out to us with kind words. We have a very supportive and encouraging church. We are living out the call of Paul to the Ephesian church, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” What great characteristics for a church in our current circumstance: humility, gentleness, bearing in love … all in order to maintain a unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

In this together with Jesus as the lead,

Tyler Butenschoen
Lead Pastor, Foothills Church