SAINT BARNABAS ANGLICAN CHURCH
4795 North Peachtree Road
Dunwoody, Georgia 30338
770.457.1103 bspchj@gmail.com
Praised be Jesus Christ!
29th April 2020
Dearly beloved in Christ,
Greetings from the Saint Barnabas annexe in Gwinnett County! I pray all of you remain well, safe, and healthy. We love you, we are praying for you, and we miss you. You abide in my prayers always, and you are always with me at the Altar in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. Please remember I am only a phone call away should one need any pastoral care and support. I intensely look forward to seeing you in person again soon.
We realise how much Orthodox and Catholic Christians everywhere are yearning to return to the Altar and receive the Most Blessed Sacrament, and to gather once again in our churches. Today we must share with you that, having struggled with our decision, we believe that we must yet maintain the current practice of sheltering in place. After consultation with health experts, both in the parish and the Diocese, we have decided to take a ‘wait and see’ position on when we should once again offer public worship.
No date for the restoration of public worship has yet been determined. We shall not have public worship on 3rd May, and this protective measure could last several more weeks. But this decision could change soon. If the COVID-19 situation in Georgia improves more quickly, we will immediately re-examine the possibility of congregating once again.
We shall, of course, notify you immediately when things can change. In the meantime, please be sure to participate in the Sacred Liturgy livestreamed and recorded on our YouTube channel and on our parish website, www.stbarnabasatl.org . Within the next week we shall unveil our plans for a new series of online classes in which all will be welcome to share and participate. We are going to revive Bible Study and Sunday School online, and that information is coming to you shortly. Please feel free to join us!
Many of our faithful fall into the high-risk category for COVID-19. We still are reluctant to put our congregation at risk.
One size does not fit all in this crisis, and local situations require different levels of disease mitigation. Other parishes in the Continuing Church will be able to restore public worship sooner than we are. We are the largest parish of the Continuing Church in North America, a major metropolitan and international parish in a major metropolitan area, an area more affected by coronavirus than other parts of the country.
As much as we would love to entertain the possibility of opening up to smaller groups, several factors make the opening of Saint Barnabas to public worship at this time both a logistical impossibility and a danger to those who might seek to attend. Because of the sheer size of the parish, 650 members, the effort safely to assemble groups of ten or less for multiple Masses would prove difficult in the extreme, unmanageable.
Were we to allow public worship at Saint Barnabas now, we would almost certainly 'break the barrier' of a separation of at least six feet between worshippers, no matter how hard we try or how many Masses we offer, and potentially expose everyone present to disease. It appears to us that it is simply not possible to have services open to the public with a congregation of our size and not run the risk of contagion. So, we wait for the situation to improve.
Currently, all parishioners remain dispensed from the Sunday obligation of attendance at Holy Communion until further notice. Please remember that the Church has the authority to dispense from the ecclesiastical requirement to attend Mass on Sunday, and she has done so in this case.
Regarding the future, we are mindful that the coming months in our region, state, and nation will see a great deal of unpredictability – the situation will go up and down, and things as we knew them before coronavirus are not likely to return for some time. A ‘new normal’ will eventually emerge and life will not be exactly as it was. We all want to put this terrible time behind us, but we also have to be realistic, and prepared to deal with circumstances as they arise.
In crises such as the one we are currently enduring, it is a blessing from the Lord to be in a hierarchical Church. Authority matters now more than ever, and we are graced to be in an Apostolic Church of the Apostolic Succession. We are generally following the guidelines provided by our sister Apostolic Churches in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. We are actively engaged with them – and watching what our sister Churches are doing and why. They are following protocols which reflect the size of their congregations – and our parish is large enough to bear the need for a similar approach. They are taking into consideration the same needs and concerns we have, and reflect very much what we are doing to protect our faithful. When it comes to coronavirus mitigation, there is in fact a theological and practical consensus amongst the Churches I like to call the ‘Branch Fact’ Churches, Eucharistic Churches in the Apostolic Tradition, Churches centred on the Eucharist and the sacramental life. And that consensus will help lead us, God willing soon, to enter a Phase One restoration.
Our fantastic parish health task force will soon issue recommendations on how safely to restore public worship to Saint Barnabas. The protocol will include many suggestions for scheduling, sanitation, and distancing – proposals intended to phase us back into our common life. We pray that the recommendations can soon be implemented.
Finally, please know we remain forever grateful for your love, your prayers, and your sacrificial financial support offered in love. We need your financial support now more than ever before. Please visit our website to see our updated giving page on www.stbarnabasatl.org/giving - Saint Barnabas depends entirely upon your offerings to meet its obligations, provide for your worship, and extend its outreach. Please be generous. We hope that all of you will come to know the great blessing of following the biblical tithe as the standard for your stewardship of time, talent, and money.
To give online or set up a recurring gift please use the Donate button on the top of the giving page which says ‘Donate Online’. This will redirect you to our payment partner where you can setup recurring or one time gifts. No sign up is required to send a one time gift. Thank you so very, very much indeed – may the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, bless you and keep you now and forever.
In Our Blessed Lord,
The Right Reverend Chandler Holder Jones SSC, Rector
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