As a church our two primary commandments are to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. With those commandments in mind, we are asking that everyone who attends in-person worship accept certain new normative procedures. The two most important norms are:
- All people present in services must wear masks in the proper manner
- In person contact cannot take place until a time when social distancing protocols have been modified
Service Schedule Changes
Based upon the responses we from our parish survey, we will work to allow as many people to worship as possible.
In order to allow for time to sanitize the building between services, there must be a 2 hour and thirty-minute window between the end of one service and the beginning of the next.
Saturdays:
5:30 p.m. Eucharist – in Sanctuary (service time as pre-pandemic)
Sundays:
8 a.m. – Eucharist in Chapel – Limited to 13 people
10 a.m. – Eucharist – in Sanctuary – 25 people
5 p.m. – Eucharist – Outside (weather permitting) – 1st & 3rd Sunday’s of the month
- under the trees, near memorial garden – Limited to 25 people
- Social distancing
- participants bring their own chairs or blankets
Wednesdays:
7 p.m. – Evening Eucharist – Outside (weather permitting)
- under the trees, near memorial garden – Limited to 25 people
- Social distancing
- participants bring their own chairs or blankets
Online Tuesday noon Day prayer will continue at 12 noon
Wednesday Evening Prayer and Compline will be replaced with the Wednesday Evening Eucharist.
All Indoor Services will continue to be livestreamed via
There will be no coffee hour or hospitality
All persons will be asked to immediately leave the building while maintaining social distancing after the service is over in order to prepare the space for its next use.
- To maintain social distancing:
- Pews will be roped off
- Collection plate will be placed in the narthex for parishioners to drop offering into
- Celebrating the Liturgy
- The length of liturgy will be reduced due to the lack of singing
- Only one altar server will be at a service
- They will offer the prayers and the readings
- Each service will have a different server
- Bulletins will be printed ahead of time, will be single use, and recycled at the end of each service
- We will publish the bulletin in electronic format and encourage parishioners to user electronic means if possible
- Sign of the peace will be non-contact, non-moving. Either bowing or waving to each other is acceptable
- There will be no Eucharistic ministers
- Only the celebrant will touch the vessels used for the Eucharist. The celebrant will set the altar and return the vessels to the credence table after the Eucharist.
- Distribution of the Eucharist
- Distribution will take place in the pews
- We are asking for this option as a result of a few issues specific to All Saints’
- We have many members of the congregation who are “pew bound” and are unable to walk to the altar
- The physical building design would not allow for social distancing during reception of the Eucharist
- Since I am already walking to deliver the Eucharist to the pew bound members, this procedure will allow them to feel equal and not be singled out for their disability.
- Communion in one kind only
- Individual hosts only
- We are asking for this option as a result of a few issues specific to All Saints’
- Distribution will take place in the pews
- Music
- Only the organist and possibly a soloist will be utilized for services when music is used
- There will be no community singing
- The number of hymns will be decreased – hymns will be chosen to allow for familiarity of melody without knowledge of words. We will also introduce a new hymn as the communion hymn in order that congregation can learn the melody without knowing the specific hymn. There is also some traction within the parish to have at least one service that is entirely spoken and will contain no music at all. (This was an option previously)
- Opening anthem
- Communion anthem
- Sending anthem
For the complete parish re-opening plan approved by The Rt. Rev. Daniel Gutierrez, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, please follow this link.
To register for in-person worship, follow this link.