The Plan

On 19 September 2021, the Victorian Government released its Roadmap to Deliver the National Plan which sets out the phased reopening of our State, including places of worship. This document sets out our plan to physically regather St. Johns Cranbourne and Christ Church Tooradin and to ensure that we reflect as best as we can its underlying principles. We understand that this roadmap may not satisfy the expectations of every church member. Nevertheless, we commend it to you and we commit it to God.

In coming to a decision, we took into account the results of the parish survey. The results were that over 90% of respondents plan to come back to physical services in the first few weeks back. If we were to run both vaccine status checked services and open services to which all are welcomed, just under a third of respondents would prefer open services – and so we will need at least two such services.

Taking all this into account, as we looked at the various options it was clear that none of them are perfect, all have significant drawbacks, and none will satisfy everyone. Our default position is that we will run our usual Sunday services welcoming everyone as soon as it is legally permitted. However, under the restrictions as they stand, we can’t.

Therefore as a temporary measure, until we can meet freely again, we will need to meet in ways that are different – ways that seek to enable everyone the freedom to worship in person together to the extent we can.

So here’s what we’ve decided:

Christ Church Tooradin	9am service will run as normal (max of 14 people)
St. Johns Cranbourne	9:30am Combined service (vaccinations status of those 16+ checked) (no post church morning tea) 11:15am An open service to which all are welcomed in original church (maximum of 20 people) 5pm An open service to which all are welcomed in original church (maximum 20 people) The 11:15am and 5pm will need to be pre-booked to ensure they remain within the maximum of 20 people.

The Principles

We want to be a church that honours God through obedience to His word in the bible, and there a number of biblical principles that are hard to hold together in these circumstances. For example, a fundamental aspect of our worship of God is that it is open to all people – the good news of Jesus is for everyone whether rich or poor, male or female, and by extension whether vaccinated or unvaccinated (Galatians 3:28, Romans 15:7). Turning people away at the door seems to fly in the face of this. On the other hand obedience to the government is also a strong Christian principle, whether we agree with the government or not (Romans 13:2-3). Again, we are to love our neighbour (Matthew 22:37-39), and even our enemies (Matthew 5:43-45)! This might look like getting vaccinated, but it would certainly look like loving those who are not. We also highly prize our unity in Christ and do not want to be divided over this issue (John 17:20-23), either in spirit or in worship.
In working out, then, how we will approach re-opening, we want to:

• Ensure that the welcome of the church is for everyone, irrespective of vaccination status;
• Obey the government and work within the restrictions they impose;
• Meet in person as soon as practicable;
• be mindful of people’s health and safety;
• love one another and seek to ensure all feel valued and loved irrespective of vaccination status; and
• maintain our unity in Christ.