COVID-19 Update: Local Requirements and Summit’s Precautions
We want to be sure you’re made aware of how changes to local requirements and mandates related to COVID-19 will affect Summit worship services. As precautions change for in-person services, we recognize that there will continue to be a range in comfort levels in regards to attending services. Every week we have means for people to join together in worship that range from indoor, in-person services to gatherings that meet outdoors to our online service available for you to use in facilitating your own worship gathering and each of these environments represents good and right ways to gather in worship.
COVID-19 Update: 3 Factors that Inform Our Precautions
These three factors helped to inform our early gathering requirements and guidelines, and we will use these same factors to guide the loosening of requirements and guidelines in the months ahead. I don’t know when restrictions will start to lift, and I imagine there remains a wide swath of perspective on what should happen when. In the reality of circumstances continuing to change, I ask that we continue to show each other love, that we assume the best in each other, and that we honor the pace and posture we take as a whole church—even where it may not suit our individual preferences or perspectives.
Providing Care, Love, and Hope
2020 has not gone as planned for most. That is an understatement, I know, but for many of us, this year has left us uncomfortable, uncertain, and anxious. There are feelings and realities that we all share. Yet, for many in Central Florida, 2020 has led to catastrophe. Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Orlando ranked last in median income in major cities in the United States. Into these difficult circumstances steps United Against Poverty (UP Orlando), this year’s Christmas Eve offering recipient. Every year, we choose a local or global organization to whom we give the entirety of giving collected at Christmas Eve services.
COVID-19 Update: What Phase One of Reopening Means for Summit
As Florida enters phase one of reopening, I want to give you a quick update as this pertains to our thoughts and plans moving forward. Our posture throughout this season has been to follow our local leaders, act wisely, lead by example, and do our very best to fully engage in living out Summit’s vision in whatever environment we find ourselves in. We will continue to forge ahead with these as our priorities.
COVID-19 Update: On-Site Meeting Guidelines
Following the most recent update on the community impact of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, we are honoring the recommendations of our community leaders and doing our part to prevent the possibility of community spread. As per the guidelines of the local emergency declaration for Orange County by Orange County Mayor Jerry Demmings, we are practicing good citizenship and suspending services until otherwise notified. We will continue to make sermon audio and video available online.
Information Regarding COVID-19
Many of you are following updates on the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. We are also paying attention to how this may affect Florida. If you are wondering how the current situation will affect Summit, we want to make you aware of our current plans based on the available information.
Leading with Integrity: Introducing Summit’s Newest Board Members
Summit’s Governing Board is an intentionally built team of Summit partners whose responsibility it is to ensure that our church is being led with integrity. Integrity refers of course to moral integrity, but it also speaks to financial integrity, directional integrity, leadership integrity, etc. Their job ultimately is to make sure we have the right leadership, with the right priorities, taking us in the right direction as we live out the vision of Summit. The formal way of stating their role is to say that they govern by Executive Limitations, which are essentially 10 arenas of organizational integrity that they ensure we meet.
A Season of Preparation
A sabbatical is not a break; it is a season of a different kind to work, the internal kind of work that we often avoid by doubling down on external work.
Plans to Give Hope
This year, the entirety of the offering collected at Candlelight Services will be given to One Lamb in Nairobi, Kenya. One Lamb began in 2011 when Ciru Mutura was called to meet the needs of vulnerable children. The organization works toward ending the exploitation of children due to poverty in their communities. One Lamb’s programs give these young girls resources and skills to benefit their lives while also sharing the truth of God’s grace and love.
A Piece in the Puzzle
When people ask me about my trip to the Dominican Republic, it’s hard to come up with a response that best fits the description I’d like to give. Most of the time I end up answering with “it was cool” or “it was super fun,” but these statements hardly cover all that I want to say.