OPEN LETTER TO MEMBERS & VISITORS TO THE KING'S HOUSE

9th July 2020

The leadership of The King’s House would like to commend every member of the Church for your exceptional resilience and faith in God throughout this season of unprecedented global upheaval.

Thank you for staying focused on God, participating on our Online Services and contributing in different ways to support our Church and members for the last 14 weeks. We salute you for your support and your faithfulness.

As you may be aware, the UK Government has finally given Churches the go-ahead to start meeting on their premises from this weekend. However, the guidelines for the safe use of Places of Worship was only released this Tuesday.

The guidelines mandates us to do a thorough Covid-19 Risk Assessment of our building, and put several Public Health procedures in place to make it safe for our members and visitors. (See procedures below).

As a result, we expect to hold our first live Worship Service after the lockdown on Sunday the 19th July 2020. We will also continue to stream all our Services online.

We have also decided to do a test-run of our live Sunday Service with a select group of people next weekend (12th July), to make sure that the changes and procedures we put in place work as planned.

Finally, we would like to assure all our members, visitors and stakeholders that we will only open up the Church building after putting in robust health and safety measures aimed at safeguarding the health and wellbeing of all attendees at our Services.

As part of our efforts to facilitate your health and safety on the premises, the following measures below will be put in place when physical Services resume:

**Change made to Registration procedure below.

New Updated Letter to members, friends & visitors to the King’s House (Dated 13th July 2020).

We want to welcome you back to the physical gathering of the Church—starting this weekend (19th July 2020).

Find out more

1. Registration:

We would like you to register electronically before you come for each Service. This is to help us prepare for the number of people that are coming.

The brief online registration form will be available from Thursday every week. Secondly, registration will help with Test and Trace, if a worshipper is found to be infected with the Coronavirus.

**Note: Your details will only be shared with the National Test & Trace staff, if you permit us to do so when you register.

2. Persons At Risk:

If you are classified as an at-risk person due to your age (70 years and above) or with underlying health conditions, we would like to encourage you to stay at home and continue to enjoy the Online Services from the comfort of your home—for now. We will aim to make the services as enriching and enjoyable for those participating online as for those on the premises.

3. Children & Youth:

The Children’s Church will continue online for now and can be watched at the scheduled time of 10.30am on Sundays, or at anytime that works best for each family. The youth are encouraged to attend the Main Service, but their Zoom meetings will continue to hold each Sunday, at a later time which will be communicated to them. Children and youth can attend the main Sunday Service along with their parents or guardians, but they will need to register to attend as well. (You will get more information later.)

4. Mid-week Services:

We will not be opening the building for mid-week Bible Studies or Prayer Meetings. All midweek Service will continue Online for the foreseeable future.

5. Social Distancing:

Following the government guidelines, all attendees will be required to maintain the required minimum distance (presently 1M+ to 2M) between yourself and those who are not of the same household when you are in the premises. Members of the same Household will be allowed to sit together where possible.

6. Hand Sanitisers:

Upon entry into the building, you will be required to use hand sanitiser at the entrance. There will also be hand sanitiser locations around the building for your use.

7. Personal Protective Equipment:

The workers who will be serving you will use appropriate personal protective equipment such as hand gloves and face masks. Though not mandatory, we strongly encourage you to bring your face coverings with you if you feel that you require one, but we will also have extra face coverings available in the foyer.

8. Cleaning and Disinfection:

All main touch points in the building will be regularly cleaned with approved cleaning agents before and after Services. The premises will also be ventilated using an industrial ventilation machine, before and after Services.

9. Cooperation with Instructions:

We ask you to please follow the precise instructions of the teams that will be serving you—for seating in the auditorium, using the facilities and for leaving the premises—to ensure that we all adhere to the social distancing requirements and other measures for protecting your health.

Note:

If any of the Government guidance changes, we will endeavour to inform you and reflect it in our plans where appropriate.

We continue to thank God for keeping you and your loved ones safe throughout this season. Ultimately, our trust is in the living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has promised to protect us from all evil. (Psalms 121:7-8 / Isaiah 43:2 / Psalm 91.)

May the Lord continue to make His face shine on you and fill you with His Peace—in Jesus Name. Amen!

Updated Letter to members, friends & visitors to the King’

13th July 2020.

Thank you very much for working with us over the last 16 weeks. These are unprecedented times, but we’ve seen the blessings and favour of God over all our members. To God be all the praise and the glory!

We want to welcome you back to the physical gathering of the Church—starting this weekend (19th July 2020).

After reading through the Government guidelines and praying about it, we have made the following decisions for your safety and protection:

A.) To implement the Government Guidelines for Safe Use of Places of Worship. We believe that the guidelines are not only reasonable, but designed to keep us safe and give people the confidence to come back to Church. [Romans 13:1-5.]

B.) We are putting these guidelines in place to avoid being accused of public negligence and being sued or defamed if anything goes wrong. Our insurance can be nullified if we are found to be wilfully negligent in protecting the public; since our building is a Public space. [2 Corinthians 2:11.]

Here is the list of things we are implementing (based on the guidelines):

1. Covid-19 Risk Assessment (Done last week).

2. Keep our Services short (i.e. about an hour).

3. Encourage Social distancing, Hand sanitising & Face covering (as much as possible).

4. Discourage loud singing, loud praying or shouting.

5. Not share common items like microphones, pens, cups, etc.

6. Encourage you to keep giving Online or directly to the Bank. (If you still wish to give cheques or cash, we will be happy to accept it, but it will not be paid into our account for 48 hours.)

7. Ask you to register every time you plan to be in Church—to help us prepare for the numbers coming. It may also help us know who was in Church, if there is a need to ask people to isolate.

NOTE: *Your data will only be shared for Test & Trace purposes, if you give us permission to do so when you register (re. Data Protection).

Finally, I want to advice everyone to be very discerning as rumours, fake news, conspiracies, half-truths, lies and speculations are being passed around on Social media.

Many of these stories are dangerous because:

a.) They plant fear and anxiety into people’s hearts.

b.) They glorify Satan and his kingdom, not God.

c.) They harm the Church & the Kingdom of God, especially when we pass them around to other believers.

Let’s do what the Bible commands us to do in Ephesians 4:29-30…

“Let everything you say (post, share, tweet, blogg, etc...) be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live.”

Blessings,

Pastors Tony & Shola Peters