As part of my virtual clubhouse attendance we compose a weekly newsletter that is published each Friday, I have decided to include those writings in my Blog.
Thoughts on Returning
The Clubhouse Environment is certainly different since we left the facility on March 16th. We can’t do many things that we used to do because of new measures such as practicing physical distancing, masking, and staying six feet apart from each other. Also all the modifications to the Clubhouse
facility itself like the shields and being screened daily for COVID-19 are some of the biggest challenges that everyone is facing everywhere, not just at Clubhouse.
A Virtual Religious Presence
It amazes me how under this pandemic, the number of religious communities in our area
have used simple tools like Facebook and YouTube to stream services online to their parishioners that cannot attend their services in person. This has proven to become an essential ministry to many
churches during at a time that services cannot be held in person. I personally feel that this is
an essential service to those who cannot attend due to transportation or other issues (like telehealth, for example.) This has also proven case with the fact that if a church does open back up to its parishioners and that one person is in contact with a person that tests positive for COVID-19. It can be the choice of that church if they wish to return to just streaming and social distancing. Although the Trump administration has made exclusion to religious communities with meeting guidelines numbers, the livestreaming should be practiced when possible in order to offer to those who are unable to attend because of quarantine, lack of transportation, etc. We should see this as a learning moment from where we learn and grow upon the online ministries of churches and faith communities and let it grow and expand to serve all the faith communities.
