Outdoor Church Service at San Antonio Christian School

You are invited this Sabbath October 10, 2020 at 10:00 am to fellowship with Ontario Seventh Day Adventist Church.

It will be an outdoor service at San Antonio Christian School located at
1722 8th St, Ontario, CA 91764

The service will also be Live Streamed via YouTube.

Please carefully read the letter below from Pr. Hein:

Dear Ontario Church Family,

OUTDOORS WORSHIP SERVICE ON OCTOBER 10

Just by way of repetition, please note that there will be no general pastoral letter on Friday, this week.  This letter replaces it and is specifically addressed to those who are planning to attend our experimental outdoor service this coming Sabbath.

Those who are not planning to attend, will still be able to join with us in the Spirit, through the live streaming of the service (in real time) or by watching a recording of the service later, at their convenience. Go to our Church website www.ontsda.com  There will be no Zoom meetings next Sabbath either.

Now to those who are planning to attend: Please pay careful attention to the information, instructions, and requirements in this letter

Please Note: In order to do everything we can to ensure the health and safety of everyone, we are following the mandates of the State of California, the requirements of local authorities and health officials and the requirements and guidelines of the Southeastern California Conference of SDA.

We kindly ask that you abide by these rules, regardless of your personal opinion on the necessity of these requirements. Your attendance will mean that you do. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

• You will be required to wear a face mask for the duration of the whole service, which will be one hour long
• We will practice social distancing and ask that you maintain a distance of at least 6 feet from others, except if they are from your own household.

BEFORE YOU ARRIVE:

1. It will really be helpful to know how many people to expect. Thank you to those who have already informed us. If you are planning to attend, please inform the church office, any of the elders or myself over the next 24-48 hours, if you have not done so already. Please also tell us the number of people in your family.
2. Bring your own lawn/picnic chairs. Also see Seating later in this letter.
3. Prepare your Tithe/Offerings in advance, ready to just be dropped off.
4. Make sure the whole family visits the little room, last thing before leaving the house. There are restrooms, but facilities are limited, and we ask you not to go unless you have to go. The more you can practice “no contact”, the better. The whole service will only be one hour long.
5. Dress code: Since we are meeting outside, the whole atmosphere is more informal than a regular service at the church. Let your attire be comfortable and informal, but still Sabbath- and Church-appropriate.
6. Please no coolers and picnic baskets. (It is Church, not picnic) ☺

UPON YOUR ARRIVAL: (before 10:00 am, so that the service can start at 10:00 am.)

1. You will be asked to answer a few questions on a questionnaire. You must be able to honestly answer NO to all the questions, in order to attend the service. Click here respond online to the questionnaire or download the form, fill out, and hand it to one of our greeters on Sabbath morning to save time and make your entrance to the service flow. The information on the questionnaire must, however, still be true on Sabbath morning (even if you answered the questions a day or two earlier).
2. Your temperature will be taken with a non-contact thermometer by your forehead. The threshold is 100.4° If you have a thermometer, you may want to take your own temperature that morning at home, but we will still take it at the door.
3. There will be no church bulletin.
4. There will be Tithe/Offering containers by the entrance, for you to drop off your donations on your way in. No offering will be taken up during the service. Please also see Tithes/Offerings later in this letter.
5. Deacons will assist you to the place where you will be sitting, and to help with the smooth flow of traffic.

SEATING:

1. Please bring your own picnic/lawn chairs.
2. There will be just a few regular chairs available to assist maybe an elderly person or a person with special needs.
3. You could bring a blanket, but please understand that there is not a nice green lawn to sit on anymore. The surface is mostly just dirt.
4. Members on blankets (if any) will sit in front of those on chairs, in order not to have their view blocked by those on chairs.
5. Very important: Families from the same household need to sit together and children must be with their parents throughout the whole service. Please no wondering around. Parents, thank you for helping us with this.
6. Should you need to get up for any reason, please move around the crowd on the outer side. Kindly do not walk through the crowd.
7. Deacons will assist with the smooth flow of traffic, including our dismissal at the end of the service.

TITHES AND OFFERINGS:

1. No offerings will be taken up during the worship service.
2. There will be two clearly marked containers, however, near the entrance area, for you to drop off your donations.
3. One container will be for Tithes and any Offerings. The other one will be exclusively and specifically for the Children’s offering, or Tuition Assistance.
4. Should you need a tithe envelope, there will be some available in the entrance area (in sanitized zip-lock bags). Kindly take an envelope and proceed to your seat, where you can prepare the envelope with your contributions. You can drop it off on your way out after the service. Kindly help us to avoid any congestion, by not conglomerating in the entrance area.
5. Praise the Lord, for He is good. What a privilege to meet again for worship, after seven months. Let us bring a special Thank Offering to the Lord on Sabbath, for His many blessings. It ill be applied to our Church Budget.
6. If you prefer to rather donate online through AdventistGiving, please continue to do so. I would encourage you, however, to actually still bring a Thank Offering with you to our worship service on Sabbath.

GENERAL:

1. In the interest of full disclosure, please be informed that we will take pictures and pan the camera over the audience, just to have a reference of where everybody was sitting.
2. In the hopefully unlikely event that anybody who has attended the service should test positive for Covid-19 during the ensuing 14 days after our service, please call us, so that we can alert those who were sitting close to you. Please call me directly (909) 954-7512, should that be your unfortunate experience.
3. Sabbath’s service is an experimental one. If everything goes well, our next outdoor service at the school will be on October 24. We will let you know and keep you informed.

Let us all pray for the success of our upcoming worship service.

Blessings to you, as we all prepare for this historic moment in our journey as a church family.

Sincerely,

Pastor Hein.