Dear Calvary Members and friends:
Warmest greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus who protects and watches us from harm.
This note comes to give us some updates and information regarding our Church in relation to the current Pandemic on the Corona Virus.
1. Local, State and Federal authorities/officials have declared a state of emergency. California and New York have ordered a lock down and have given orders for their citizens to stay at home or indoors. Other authorities - federal, state and local - have advised for groups to refrain from gathering.
These are measures and precautions to mitigate or lessen the spread of the virus and hopefully to eventually stop. This affects our church as we are one of those groups who gather especially to worship on Sundays. We must heed or follow the mandate for social distancing and to refrain from gathering for now.
2. I am constantly checking the CDC - Center for Disease Control and Prevention website for updates and our denomination's regional (ABCNJ.NET) and national (ABC-USA) websites for guidance.
3. Let us continue to maintain communication with our respective family and loved ones to counsel, advise and pray for one another. Let us also extend our communication and prayers to church members and friends and others we know need reaching out to. Let us also keep in our thoughts and prayers the doctors, nurses and other frontline medical workers across the country who are confronting a shortage of masks, surgical gowns and eye gear. Let us pray to God for his abiding grace and protection and for an eventual end of this pandemic soon.
In the spirit of the Lenten season and the current pandemic, let us pray and meditate upon Scriptural passages and seek for the Lord's message is to us.
The gospel's message is also a message of obedience. The fall of humanity is a story of disobedience and redemption is a coming back to the Lord. Let us pray to the Lord, seek his face, his presence, his mercy and grace.
1 Chronicle 7:13-14 says: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land..."
Affectionately yours in Christ,
Pastor
Manuel de la Fuente
Calvary Baptist Church of Clifton